Bessent Emerges As “AI Czar” Frontrunner Fresh off his recent spat with “Doomsday Dario”, whom he scolded for his apocalyptic essay (which was attempted regulatory capture in all but name) and warned that the US government will not serve as a “liability shield” to the frontier AI company,  Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears to be one step closer to directly taking AI matters into his own hands.  According to Semafor, […]

Foreign Actors Disrupt 2 Colorado Water Systems: Governor’s Office Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times, Foreign actors gained access to computer systems at two small private water utilities in Colorado in late August, changing equipment controls before operators restored normal operations, according to the governor’s office. Ally Sullivan, a spokeswoman for Gov. Jared Polis, said the Colorado Department of Public […]

Man At Risk Of Losing $95,000 Plane For Transporting Unopened Six Pack Of Beer Takes His Case To SCOTUS The Supreme Court will consider whether Alaska went too far when it confiscated a pilot’s $95,000 airplane over an attempt to bring beer into a dry community, according to Yahoo News. The case dates to 2012, when longtime Alaska charter pilot Ken Jouppi agreed to fly a passenger from Fairbanks to Beaver, where alcohol was […]

Soros-Linked Political Groups Pour Millions Into Democratic Efforts Ahead Of Midterms Via American Greatness, Political committees tied to the Soros family have directed tens of millions of dollars to Democratic-aligned organizations during the 2026 election cycle, including a group spending heavily in Michigan’s closely watched U.S. Senate race. Democracy PAC and Democracy PAC II had distributed more than $40 million to […]

AI & The Same Old Politicized Hysteria Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness, The midterm elections are six weeks away. Suddenly, a debate has erupted over the existential dangers of artificial intelligence. Jacob Coxon, a little-known Silicon Valley researcher who worked at OpenAI and Anthropic, resigned and went public with a dire warning: AI now threatens the future of the world. Shortly beforehand, news […]

Have You Seen The Surge In US Rough Rice Futures America’s rice harvest is forecast to fall to its lowest level in 33 years. CBOT rough rice futures, the benchmark for US long-grain rice before milling, are surging higher at the end of summer after rising 69% so far this year. USDA forecasts total production at 158.2 million hundredweight, roughly 23% below last year’s 206.7 million. Harvested acreage is projected at just 2.057 […]

Mullin: DHS Investigating 1,620 Non-Citizen Voter Fraud Cases Authored by AG News Staff via American Greatness, The Department of Homeland Security is investigating 1,620 cases of alleged voter fraud involving noncitizens and reviewing hundreds of thousands of additional cases, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said. Mullin told Fox News that DHS has made 151 arrests and is examining another 300,000 cases based on information […]

Copper Nears Record High As Shanghai Inventories Tumble, Fueling Scarcity Fears Copper has almost retraced the selloff sparked earlier this month, following Reuters’ report that the White House’s “copper tariff plan stalls amid affordability concerns.” Prices are back near record highs in London as Bloomberg reports tightening supplies in China’s physical market, reinforcing scarcity concerns. Three-month futures on the London […]

Trump Calls For Diesel Export Ban After 3-Hour ‘Very Productive’ Iran Talks Summary US-Iran talks: Unnamed US admin representatives held 3-hour talks with Iranian officials on sidelines of UN General Assembly. Trump’s UN address ultimatum: Touts possible deal ‘after’ US midterm elections, but also says: “Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival?” Diesel export ban: Trump said he had discussed a potential […]

MAHA Leaders Warn Trump, RFK Jr. Over Inaction On mRNA Vaccines Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, Some leaders in the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement on Sept. 21 warned President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over their inaction regarding messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines, including vaccines against COVID-19. “While the centerpiece of the MAHA and health freedom agenda […]

Goldman Warns Nightmare Refining Crisis Could Prolong Diesel, Gas Price Pain Through 2027 Goldman energy analyst Nikhil Bhandari warned in a note on Monday that the global refining system is too stretched to support a full recovery in fuel demand while inventories rebuild. This suggests that fuel prices will remain elevated into next year. Bhandari told clients that refining margins must remain elevated to restrain consumption and […]

‘Pausing’ Intensifies: OpenAI Unleashes Latest Model Minutes After Dario Dumps Magnum Opus Update (1417ET): Well, well, well… Anthropic’s new Opus launch went up around lunchtime in New York, and by early afternoon OpenAI had rolled out GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna, halving prices yet again. GPT-6 Sol now costs $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output, half the $4/$20 promo rate Anthropic matched earlier today. GPT-6 […]

Libya’s Largest Oilfield Hit By New Armed Group Blockade By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com Crude oil production at Libya’s largest oilfield, Sharara, has slumped over the past day after an armed military group closed a valve on the pipeline that carries crude oil from the field to the Zawiya port for exports, in yet another global supply scare amid ongoing disruptions in the Middle East. An armed group has closed Valve n.7 […]

2Y Auction Tails As Foreign Demand Slides Despite Highest Yield In Over 3 Years Ahead of today’s auction, with yields sliding early in the day tracking the drop in oil tick-for-tick, some speculated that participants in today’s sale of $69BN in 2 year notes would need a modest concession to show enthusiasm for the auction. And even though yields did push wider until the 1pm stop, it appears it was not enough and the auction was […]

Turkish Airlines, Pegasus & AJet Cancel Iran Flights As US Sanctions Bite Via Middle East Eye Turkey’s national carrier, Turkish Airlines, and budget airlines AJet and Pegasus have cancelled flights to and from Iran from September 21 as US sanctions take effect, a review by Middle East Eye indicates. The Turkish Airlines and AJet websites have no flights to Iran until March, while Pegasus appears to have removed all flights to […]

Bank Stocks Slide On Resurgent Agentic Fears It used to be software that was the first casualty of fears of AI disruption. Today, it’s the banks. In a generally flat (and higher for tech stocks) market landscape, banks are conspicuously underperforming today, prompting questions what’s the reason for the underperformance.   According to some traders, the reason is the market’s newfound obsession with the latest shiny agentic […]

Texas Governor Orders Halt To New Data Centers Weeks After Issuing Moratorium One month after Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered a pause on Texas data center approvals pending an audit, overnight the governor doubled down and ordered the state’s environmental watchdog to withhold permits for new data centers until an audit of risks to the power grid is complete. No authorizations can be given until the Electric Reliability […]

Ed Dowd: The Fed Hiked Interest Rates Into A Supply Shock Authored by Ed Dowd: Beyond the Narrative via Substack, September FOMC Meeting: First Rate Hike Since July 2023 The FOMC did what the front end of the Treasury market (3-month T-bill) had been telegraphing for two weeks prior. On September 16 they voted unanimously to raise the fed funds rate 25 basis points to 3.75-4.00 percent. Kevin Warsh’s press conference was short, […]

All 10 ActBlue Witnesses Take The Fifth As GOP Says Probe Is “Far From Over” All ten ActBlue employees and board members deposed by House investigators have invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than answer questions about the Democratic Party’s dominant fundraising platform. Five of the ten are board members, all deposed in the past five weeks, and the three committees running the probe say they are not done. Their third report, […]

Iran’s Fars Calls Reuters’ Hormuz Reopening Story “Invalid” Ahead Of Trump’s UN Address Update: Iran’s Fars Rejects Hormuz Reopening Reports As Brent Slides <$100 On Diplomatic Hopes Brent Tumbles On US Media & Aligned Outlets Pushing Rumored Diplomatic Efforts  Iran’s Fars Rejects Reporting  Kyodo and Reuters published positive diplomatic headlines early Tuesday morning that sent Brent crude futures tumbling below $100 […]

Gamma Squeeze The World  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance A little over a week ago, I wrote about Leopold Aschenbrenner returning to markets, and the ensuing nausea the entire spectacle caused me. For those who missed it, Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness fund had grown to roughly $45 billion before getting absolutely smoked in July, falling toward $10 billion and forcing the liquidation of most of its public equity […]

Socialist Candidate Says Stealing From Taxpayers Makes Her “More Qualified” For Office It sounds crazy, but this kind of scenario is absolutely the norm for Democratic Socialist candidates:  Being convicted of blatant criminal embezzlement is a badge of honor, not a disqualifying mark on their record.  The complete inversion of moral standards is unsettling and it reinforces the need to prevent far-left activists from entering […]

Putin Urges Immediate Yemen Ceasefire In Call With Saudi Crown Prince Russian President Vladimir Putin held a Monday telephone conversation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (who is also the prime minister) – wherein the two leaders focused on broad bilateral issues. Referring to the “Saudi National Day”, a TASS readout indicates “The Russian leader congratulated the Saudi Crown Prince on the upcoming national holiday – […]

“Repeated And Persistent Supply-Side Shocks” Are Here To Stay By Michael Every of Rabobank Chicago Fed President Goolsbee just warned the FOMC can’t ignore repeated and persistent supply-side shocks and must respond in a way that will cause economic hardship. However, repeated and persistent supply-side shocks are now the norm, not short-lived, aberrant events. Putin won the Russian election with a supermajority: fears are […]

Alibaba Unveils China’s Most Powerful AI Chip In $53 Billion Gambit Alibaba Group has unveiled the Zhenwu V900, an AI accelerator it calls China’s most powerful, marking a major escalation in its effort to challenge Nvidia and build a vertically integrated artificial-intelligence stack stretching from chips and networking to models and hyperscale data centers. Alibaba booth at the 3rd China International Supply Chain Expo at the […]