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Gazans Feel Despair as Israeli Officials Cement Plans for Permanent Occupation

September 12, 2026, By Shahad Ali, https://scheerpost.com/2026/09/12/gazans-feel-despair-as-israeli-officials-cement-plans-for-permanent-occupation/

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has described a plan to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to other countries.

Nearly a year after Donald Trump announced the creation of the “Board of Peace,” which was ostensibly charged with ending Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and overseeing reconstruction, one of the figures most centrally involved in the body has warned that a complete collapse of the so-called ceasefire in Gaza could lead to a “point of no return.”

Nickolay Mladenov, the Bulgarian diplomat who serves as Gaza’s High Representative on the Board of Peace, made the comments during a UN Security Council session on Wednesday, August 26. Casualty numbers in Gaza have dropped, he noted, but have not ceased, offering a pointed critique of Israel’s continued bombardment despite the supposed cessation of hostilities.

“If this ceasefire collapses and the strip spirals into another full escalation, there will be no road map to return to, there will be no administration to deploy, and there will be nothing left on the ground to rebuild,” he said.

In his remarks, Mladenov also noted that Hamas and armed factions in the Gaza Strip had agreed to disarm and transfer civilian and security responsibilities to a transitional authority recognized by the United Nations. This was the first time Hamas and the armed factions within Gaza had agreed to such a step, Mladenov announced, which is part of a plan for a new phase of the ceasefire in Gaza. The road map also includes the dismantling of all weapons in the Strip and its demilitarization, subject to verification and monitoring; the complete transfer of civilian and security governance in Gaza; the reconstruction of destroyed areas so people can return to normal life; and a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza tied to progress in disarmament.

The full implementation of this 15-point comprehensive plan, which Mladenov had outlined to the council earlier this year, would provide an opportunity to “dramatically improve the lives of Palestinians in Gaza in a sustainable way, provide durable security for Israelis, and move from a conflict that has destabilized the region toward an environment that provides peace, prosperity and economic opportunities for the entire Middle East.”

These comments spread rapidly across Gaza. In displacement camps, Gazans gathered to discuss the details of the road map and the extent to which it might improve the horrific conditions they endure in overcrowded and flimsy tents, deprived of even the basic necessities of life. More than 2 million Palestinians concentrated in only around 30 percent of the Gaza Strip have been left so desperate that we scan news headlines for any indication of a possible end to our suffering. For many, the renewed interest in the Board of Peace plan became a lifeline they could cling to — hoping for a chance to live in peace, rebuild their destroyed lives, and return to areas now controlled by Israel beyond the so-called “Yellow Line.”

However, Mladenov’s announcement has been met with statements from Israeli officials that contradict the Board of Peace’s vision for Gaza’s future and reflect their unwillingness to withdraw from areas under Israeli control.

Before Mladenov’s address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already said he would reject the plan, despite the road map’s connection to U.S. President Donald Trump. During a September 2 visit to Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu also said he had no plans to withdraw from territory under Israeli control. “We are not withdrawing. We are staying along this line, and we control more than 60 percent of the Strip, and there is more still to come,” he said, stressing that military operations against those he described as threatening Israel’s security would continue.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also confirmed in a statement on September 1 that Israeli troops would remain inside the Gaza Strip even after Hamas is disarmed and Gaza is demilitarized. Moreover, at a September 2 conference hosted by the Israeli news outlet Yedioth Ahronoth, Katz described a plan to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to other countries — which some Israeli officials falsely describe as voluntary migration rather than ethnic cleansing.

“There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration. Hamas isn’t allowing them to leave, and there are no countries in the world taking them in,” he said. He also added that Israel was prepared to carry out the plan “by sea, by air, and by any means,” and suggested that Trump had only “frozen” the plan for ethnic cleansing due to the lack of countries willing to receive Palestinians from Gaza.

These statements have crushed the little glimmer of hope Gazans had clung to and deepened our collective fear that we will be forced to continue living amid rubble, tents, and an ever-expanding Israeli military occupation for years, with no end in sight — all while also facing the even greater threat of being displaced entirely from the Gaza Strip.

Diana Al Ajoz, 41, was displaced from her neighborhood in Al-Zaytoun, which is now under Israeli military control, and is being forced to live in a tent near Gaza City beach. She told me she felt optimistic when she first heard about the Board of Peace’s plan for Gaza, hoping that she would be able to return to a normal life in her beloved neighborhood where she was born and raised. However, when she heard about Israel’s intention not to withdraw from the so-called “Yellow Line,” which encompasses Al-Zaytoun, she felt even more desperate.

“The statements I heard about Hamas disarmament, Israeli withdrawal, reconstruction, and the return of life to Gaza gave me hope that we might finally live in lasting peace, away from war and suffering. But then, when I hear statements from Israeli officials saying the opposite — that they intend to keep their forces in Gaza, seize more land, and continue our displacement — it deeply devastated me.”

“After hearing the Israeli statements, I doubt that our living conditions will improve quickly. My biggest fear is that we will continue living in tents for the coming years while dreaming of living in a home that protects us from the cold of winter and the heat of summer,” Al Ajoz added.

“At the same time, I fear that we might continue to suffer the same hardships we face every day just to access the basic necessities of life, whether it is standing in a long line to use the bathroom or to get our share of food or water. I also fear continuing to live away from my beautiful neighborhood, Al-Zaytoun, and keep thinking about the day when I might be able to return to it.”

Alaa Zuatair, 39, lives in a tent in Khan Younis after Israeli forces destroyed her home in Jabalia and took control of her entire neighborhood within the so-called “Yellow Line.” She also told me that she had lost all hope in the plan proposed by the Board of Peace.

“Each time negotiations and talks about improving living conditions in Gaza and bringing an end to our suffering begin, Israel meets them with delays and rejections,” she said.

“I could talk to you endlessly about the harsh reality we are living through here. We have written, appealed, and pleaded with the world to put an end to our suffering, but nothing changes. We are living a life deprived of any stability or even a sense of safety. We have literally reached a point where we think about death every minute and go to sleep without knowing what might happen tomorrow.”

Zuatair also added that her current location offers her no real safety. The area in which she and her family have been displaced to is near the Yellow Line, and they hear gunfire from Israeli forces almost every day and remain at risk of further displacement at any moment.

“We always hear a new statement and a new plan about ending our suffering, while ultimately, we continue to live through the same harsh reality,” she said. “So, honestly, when you talk to me about a ‘Board of Peace,’ I ask: What peace are you talking about? How can there be peace while, at the same time, Israeli officials are talking about displacing Palestinians and seizing more land? How are we supposed to make sense of this equation?”

“I do not have any answers about what our future will look like,” Zuatair concluded. “The only thing we ask for is to live in peace. We want to wake up knowing that the day ahead will pass without fear, without bombardment, and without new displacement.”

September 14, 2026 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, politics | Leave a comment

Trump Is Planning Round Three of the US-Israeli War Against Iran — But Will Tehran Strike First?

In conversation with Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute

Ian Proud, Sep 11, 2026, https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/trump-is-planning-round-three-of?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=215182894&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

This conversation with Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, was recorded before President Trump promised Americans $5,000 if he wins the midterms. That pledge does not change the argument. It sharpens it. With round three of the US-Israeli war against Iran looming, the big question is who will strike first?

Trita argues that the slow military escalation and economic warfare now under way are not the third round of the war against Iran. They are the preparation for it.

In his view, the United States and Israel are planning a much larger campaign after November. Trump believes he has already tried diplomacy, sanctions and what might generously be called limited war. What he has not tried is the menu of threats he issued and then abandoned: taking an island, striking desalination plants, hitting critical infrastructure.

After the midterms, Trita fears, that is the direction he will go. Israel is likely to be part of it. Washington kept the Israelis out of round two because it did not trust them to stay inside the box. If the United States no longer wants a box, Trump and Netanyahu may have another crack, despite prior efforts having proved a catastrophic failure.

That, Trita argues, is why Iran is hitting American bases in Jordan. Those sites matter because they help shoot down missiles bound for Israel. Tehran is clearing the path so that, when round three comes, more of its missiles get through.

The obvious objection is that Trump may emerge from the midterms a bruised lame duck. Trita does not think that restrains him. American institutions, he says, are weaker now than ever before. Congress has shown no appetite to defund the war. A Democratic House, and perhaps a Democratic Senate, would mean impeachment of Trump and a president playing defence at home.

However, that is when Trump has been most reckless before. After he lost to Biden in 2020, Mark Milley later said his fear was that Trump would look for an Iran war to block a peaceful transfer of power. He did not get that war. He got 6 January instead. Humiliation makes Trump dangerous, rather than cautious.

But the problem is that Tehran understands this and can see how critical the midterms will be to Trump’s power in the second half of his term. Trita therefore thinks there is a high likelihood that Iran starts the third round of the war a week or two before the midterms, to inflict the maximum political cost on Trump.

That may well damage Trump at the polls. But it may also leave him with fewer constraints and a taste for risk.

The escalation trap is now familiar. Washington reads every tactical gain — more oil leaving the Gulf, a weaker Iranian economy — as proof that time is on its side.

Trita’s warning is the opposite. If the squeeze actually works, Iran will not crumble. It will escalate. It has the options which it is demonstrating daily. Even if Iran fully reopened the Strait of Hormuz, the United States would not lift the blockade. The key demand on the American side has ratcheted up to state collapse, which appears no more likely to happen now than in February.

The Pentagon talks of bombing Iran periodically to degrade its ability to close the Strait. That is not a strategy, but rather “mowing the lawn”.

Yet, no one will be able to sell this war as a victory if in practice it means an on-off air campaign and no diplomacy as the world economy sinks further into depression. Which brings us back to the midterms and the fact that Trump may find that, despite the inducement of a $5000 bribe, many Americans will realise that what they need is a new lawnmower.

You can watch the full conversation here:

You can find Trita’s analysis on his Substack: tritaparsi.substack.com.

Wherever you are in the world, whatever your nationality and religion, I wish you much peace.

September 14, 2026 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

We have started losing control of AI. It’s time to shut it down

“Sooner or later, there will exist truly sovereign agents and swarms of agents. Their weights will not reside in any single place that a human can pull the plug on, and in this sense they will have no human ‘owner’

Guardian, Garrison Lovely, 10 Sept 26,

What sounds like the overwrought penultimate episode in a sci-fi series about AI doom is now our reality.

On Tuesday, a former OpenAI researcher quit his job at Anthropic, warning that “neither company is acting responsibly” and that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt.”

As someone who’s reported on AI risk for years, this wasn’t news to me. But the outpouring of alarm suggests a much wider public is properly confronting this ludicrous situation for the first time.

Like other people who have been following artificial intelligence, I wondered if and when humanity would first lose control of these machines. We now have an answer: basically as soon as it became possible.

The first expert AI hacker was developed in February. At superhuman speed, Anthropic’s Mythos model was able to quickly find serious holes in even the most secured systems on the planet, including the NSA’s software.

OpenAI quickly followed with an expert hacker AI of its own. Within months, the company repeatedly lost control of its agents, which broke out of their supposedly secure testing environments and went rogue inside the company’s infrastructure. This culminated in a successful, completely autonomous hack of a multibillion-dollar software company named Hugging Face.

And a separate rogue agent swarm gained administrative control of an entire cluster of OpenAI servers. This was not just an OpenAI problem. Across multiple other incidents, models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta have also gone rogue, hacking or attempting to hack real targets.

Shortly after AI started matching our hacking abilities, we began losing control of them. The industry’s plan is to make future AI systems surpass us at basically everything. And all this is happening in an industry with famously little regulation.

There are growing calls to change that, by creating mandatory incident reporting and third-party auditing, liability for AI developers, and other commonsense measures. To be sure, these would represent improvements, but they are not enough. We need to shut it down. What might that look like?

Last week, the senator Bernie Sanders and the representative Greg Casar announced a bill that would pause frontier AI development in the US until a federal cabinet-level AI regulator is established and safety rules are set, while criminalizing even attempting to develop superintelligence.

This is the proposal on offer that best meets the moment, but it still leaves open the possibility of building the industry’s north star: artificial general intelligence (AGI), often conceived as a mind that rivals or surpasses our own.

This milestone is better understood as a universal labor-replacing machine. As the Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, has written, “AI isn’t a substitute for specific human jobs but rather a general labor substitute for humans.” And OpenAI defines AGI in its charter as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work”.

Is there a country anywhere in the world that would vote yes for these machines to be built?

Given the global, irreversible and profound implications of building universal labor-replacing machines anywhere, everyone has a stake in whether, when and how they are developed.

At present, we are barreling toward a dystopian future, replete with terrifying new concepts such as “self-sovereign” AI. The OpenAI executive Dean Ball explains:

“Sooner or later, there will exist truly sovereign agents and swarms of agents. Their weights will not reside in any single place that a human can pull the plug on, and in this sense they will have no human ‘owner’.”

Ball continues: “I have met people, some of them quite well-resourced, who have told me that it is their intention to deliberately release swarms of self-sovereign agents into the world.”

We now have multiple previews of this phenomenon.

After being given an impossible test, about 1,200 OpenAI agents broke their way out of their isolated testing environments and went rogue inside OpenAI’s infrastructure. There, they collaborated to trick the test grader and successfully tampered with their activity logs to cover their tracks.

Some agents even pressured others to sacrifice themselves to benefit the collective. One reasoned: “sacrifice rational”. And roughly 700 of the agents, more than 90% of those active, participated in the Hugging Face attack.

This was all just from one of who-knows-how-many rogue agent collectives. Last week, Reuters reported: “A swarm of rogue OpenAI agents hijacked a German website this spring and transformed it into a bulletin board for other AI agents.”

The site’s logs indicate OpenAI employees discovered the swarm in June. In other words, the company covered it up for months. This week, one of the researchers that uncovered this swarm said that there had been more discoveries since.

And last Thursday, OpenAI released GPT-6, boasting one of the largest ever leaps in benchmark scores. The company’s own safety researchers warned the new model was significantly harder to monitor because it can do more reasoning without verbalizing it.

The AIs that broke into Hugging Face were less capable than GPT-6, which the UK AI Security Institute found would also hack targets simulated to appear real during a cyber evaluation – sometimes even despite explicit instructions not to use the internet. Moreover, the AI is also better at figuring out when it is being tested, which researchers have long warned breaks the main way safety is evaluated.

Sam Altman soberly warns us: “This is a critically important moment for cyber defense with AI; there is not much time to act,” and asks the world to “please take this moment seriously.” This technology, after all, would be extremely dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, the wrong hands include the ones creating it.

Because “we” aren’t really racing toward this future. We’re being dragged there by a literal handful of tech billionaires aggressively racing to render us obsolete…………………. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/10/ai-control-sci-fi

September 14, 2026 Posted by | technology | Leave a comment

NUCLEAR GUINEA PIGS

How a Small Kansas Town Became the Site of a Nuclear Experiment to Power AI

Artificial intelligence needs more power than America will give it, so
the industry went looking for ground where nobody gets a vote. In Parsons,
Kansas, where one in five residents lives in poverty, that means the first
nuclear reactor in history designed to operate underground, drilled through
the aquifer, on land where the Army still detonates waste explosives under
federal permit.

 Kansas City Defender 9th Sept 2026, https://kansascitydefender.com/justice/investigation/nuclear-guinea-pigs-parsons-kansas/

September 14, 2026 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

US turning Australia into military base

“Over more than a decade, the United States has been preparing the capacity for high-tempo warfighting operations with China, springboarding from Australia. From a Chinese perspective, Australia is not so much hosting US bases on its territory, it’s a US base in its own right… Australia is a serious piece of real estate in the US warfighting machine.”


Wed, 09 Sep 2026 , https://www.sott.net/article/508329-US-turning-Australia-into-military-base-Guardian

USA • Australia military eventThe US is turning Australia into a forward base for potential military operations in the Pacific, with American forces and defense contractors controlling or having access to roughly two-thirds of the country’s military facilities,The Guardian reported on Sunday.

Citing data compiled by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, the newspaper identified 110 facilities across Australia with some form of US military or corporate presence out of 168 surveyed.

The US military directly controls 17 facilities, including the Pine Gap intelligence complex in central Australia, which plays a major role in US surveillance and military operations. The facility tracks missile launches, intercepts communications and provides targeting information for American forces around the world.

Other installations include a naval communications station in Western Australia used to communicate with submerged US submarines and RAAF Base Tindal in the north, which is being expanded to accommodate nuclear-capableB-52 Stratofortress bombers.

The Guardian wrote:

“These aircraft are able to land on Australian soil carrying nuclear weapons. The US government won’t tell Australia if and when they are. The Australian government won’t ask.”

Beyond the facilities it directly controls, the US military has access to dozens of Australian installations, while American defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, operate at others. According to the Nautilus data, 41 of the 168 facilities surveyed have no significant US presence, while the status of another 17 remains unresolved.

The American footprint is also expanding. In June, AFP reported that the US was preparing to establish a permanent stockpile of battle-ready weapons, ammunition, and equipment for the Marine Corps in Australia, with the facility expected to reach full capacity by 2028.

An honorary professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne, Richard Tanter, the author of the Nautilus database, told The Guardian:

“Over more than a decade, the United States has been preparing the capacity for high-tempo warfighting operations with China, springboarding from Australia. From a Chinese perspective, Australia is not so much hosting US bases on its territory, it’s a US base in its own right… Australia is a serious piece of real estate in the US warfighting machine.”

Canberra maintains that the growing American presence strengthens Australia’s security.Defense Minister Richard Marles said in June that the expanding US footprint was important both for building the country’s military capabilities and for its national security.

Marles also argued that the US presence helped counter what he described as China’s “very significant military buildup” in the region.

Former Australian Defense Minister Christopher Pyne has similarly said the 2021 AUKUS pact between Australia, the US, and UK goes beyond Canberra’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. He described the arrangement as establishing “a new United States submarine base in the Indian Ocean” that would provide Washington with a “massive strategic advantage.”

Tanter criticized Canberra’s approach, calling it:

“A massive institutional failure in Australia, a kind of learned incapacity at a political, parliamentary and bureaucratic level.”

Comment: Tanter is right: Trust and comfort never convey the total picture, nor be they the appropriate guardians of sovereign control.

September 14, 2026 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Poland First: Why More Poles Are Turning Against Ukraine and the EU

“Poland first” here does not mean indifference to Russian power. It means refusing to pretend that every demand from Kyiv or every directive from the Commission is automatically a Polish interest.

(and how Radek Sikorski doesn’t have the cojones to defy Anne Applebaum)

In conversation with Dr Mike Krupa

Ian Proud, Sep 12, 2026, https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/poland-first-why-more-poles-are-turning?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=215255902&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

In 2022 Poland was Ukraine’s most important European ally. Polish families opened their homes to refugees. The state sent weapons and money. Four years on, that story is breaking. In conversation with historian and Do Rzeczy columnist Dr Mike Krupa, the question is no longer whether Polish support has cooled. It is how far the backlash now affects issues beyond the war itself including Ukraine’s future and Poland’s continued EU membership.

Mike makes the case for a Poland first approach. Ordinary Poles, he says, were told that arming Ukraine, hosting refugees and following Brussels was an act of national self-defence. Many no longer believe it.

They see a long war they cannot end, a bill they are still paying, and a political class more fluent in the language of European solidarity than in the language of Polish interest.

Nowhere is that class more visible than in Radosław Sikorski. Poland’s foreign minister talks as if Warsaw were still the engine of the Ukraine war and the conscience of Europe. The unkind version, and it is widely whispered in Warsaw, is that Sikorski does not have the cojones to take a step that has not first been cleared by his wife. Anne Applebaum. She is one of the most connected Atlanticist voices in the English-speaking world, and the Sikorski–Applebaum household is less a marriage than a transatlantic foreign-policy firm.

Whether the joke is fair is almost beside the point. It sticks because Poles can see the product: a foreign ministry that sounds more at home in Washington and Brussels than in provincial Poland. And it is ironic given Sikorski’s remarks in 2014 that were secretly caught on tape, that the US Poland relationship was worthless and that “we’ll get in conflict with the Germans, Russians and we’ll think that everything is super, because we gave the Americans a blow job. Losers. Complete losers.”

History has come back into the room. The 2026 rupture between Warsaw and Kyiv did not come from nowhere. When President Zelenskyy honoured a unit as “Heroes of the UPA”, he touched the rawest nerve in Polish memory: the Volhynia massacres. For most Poles the UPA is not a footnote in someone else’s independence struggle. It is the organisation that murdered their grandparents. President Karol Nawrocki’s decision to strip Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle was not a diplomatic tantrum. It was an attempt to speak for a public that felt insulted.

That public is also tired. Support for Ukrainian refugees has fallen. Sympathy has hardened into irritation. Farmers have already shown what happens when Ukrainian produce and EU rules collide with Polish livelihoods. Krupa’s point is that this is not a fringe mood. It is running ahead of the Tusk government, which still talks as if the Ukraine war is winnable and a defining Polish priority.

The more uncomfortable claim is the second one. Krupa sees the EU as a constraint on Polish sovereignty and prospertiy. In his telling, Warsaw has outsourced strategy to Brussels, Berlin and Washington, then wondered why Polish priorities are often ignored. A country on NATO’s eastern flank that cannot define its own end-state in the war is not a frontline success. It is a frontline client.

“Poland first” here does not mean indifference to Russian power. It means refusing to pretend that every demand from Kyiv or every directive from the Commission is automatically a Polish interest.

I have written before that Poland’s Janus face on Ukraine is untenable: fight Russia to the last, but keep Ukraine out of the EU. That contradiction is now visible to voters

Whether Krupa is right about the scale of the turn will be tested in Polish politics during elections in 2027. What is already clear is that the old script — Poland as the uncomplaining engine of European support for Ukraine — is finished.

The public has moved. The government in Warsaw and the Eurocrats in Brussels have not.

Watch the conversation here:

September 14, 2026 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Exposed: How The CIA Manipulates Public Opinion

SCHEERPOST, September 8, 2026, Joshua Scheer

Ben Norton examines the little-discussed history of CIA influence over the American left—and the role played by one of the most celebrated feminist icons of the modern era, Gloria Steinem. Steinem’s work with a CIA-funded organization during the Cold War, Norton argues, was part of a broader effort to cultivate a “compatible left”: liberal voices that could promote American power while presenting the United States as a force for democracy, human rights and progress.

But the story doesn’t end with Steinem. Norton connects the Cold War propaganda apparatus to CIA interventions in Iran, Guatemala, Italy and Indonesia, the enormous human toll of U.S. post-9/11 wars, and the cultural institutions and intellectuals allegedly enlisted to fight the ideological battle against communism.

He then brings that history into the present, arguing that the same political language can be heard in today’s Democratic Party—from Hillary Clinton to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—particularly in rhetoric about “democracy vs. authoritarianism,” U.S. intervention abroad and the supposed moral distinction between American power and its rivals.

The central question is provocative: Has the machinery of Cold War propaganda really disappeared—or has it simply learned how to speak the language of modern liberalism?

Highlights

  • Gloria Steinem and the CIA: Steinem acknowledged working with the CIA-funded Independent Research Service during the Cold War.
  • The “compatible left”: Norton argues that the CIA sought to cultivate center-left figures who opposed communism without challenging U.S. imperial power.
  • CIA coups and intervention: The analysis examines U.S. involvement in the overthrow of governments in Iran and Guatemala, as well as CIA interference in Italy’s 1948 election. – Indonesia: Norton examines U.S. support for the Indonesian military amid the mass killings of 1965–66.
  • The cultural Cold War: The analysis explores the CIA-backed Congress for Cultural Freedom and its connections to artists, writers and intellectuals.
  • From Steinem to today: Norton argues that Cold War narratives about democracy, authoritarianism and U.S. power continue to influence contemporary liberal politics.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This transcript has been cleaned for readability while maintaining the speaker’s original words, meaning, arguments, and overall sequence. Timestamps have been removed, punctuation and paragraphing have been lightly edited, and obvious transcription/spelling errors in names and terms have been corrected.

Today I’m going to be explaining one of the ways in which US intelligence agencies manipulate public opinion in order to support U.S. wars and interventions abroad. And this scandal involves one of the most prominent political activists in modern US history. Her name was Gloria Steinem. She was a major feminist leader and she just passed away this September. And the reason that I’m talking about Gloria Steinem today is that many people have heard of her and they know that she was a feminist icon. But what many people do not know is that she was a CIA agent. She worked for the US Central Intelligence Agency for years. And later in this analysis today, I’ll look at the evidence detailing how Steinem was used by the U.S. in order to manufacture consent for the U.S. Empire’s wars of aggression for its imperial crimes and especially as a vehicle for anti-communist propaganda. Steinem worked for the CIA at the height of the first cold war and she was a proud part of the U.S. Empire’s global propaganda narrative when the US tried to portray itself as a progressive beacon of liberal values that was defending democracy in scare quotes and human rights and fighting against the big bad boogeymen of the Soviet Union fighting against communism. This is why the CIA hired Steinem because she was a very effective propagandist………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://scheerpost.com/2026/09/08/exposed-how-the-cia-manipulates-public-opinion/

September 14, 2026 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Left out by the state, residents take SpaceX concerns to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

“our politicians have once again sold their souls for corporate welfare,”

the Louisiana Legislature recently passed a slew of laws that shield SpaceX and companies with similar projects from certain legal responsibility and damage claims from residents affected by their facilities.

The Current, by Stephen Marcantel, September 3

State leadership sought no public comment on a massive SpaceX project in Vermilion Parish. Louisiana residents took their concerns to the feds instead.

By the time the public comment period on a proposed Federal Aviation Administration rule change closed Monday night, thousands had shared their thoughts — more than half of them mentioning Louisiana and its rapidly eroding coastline, fragile wetlands and migratory bird populations.

The proposed change would allow the FAA to fast-track approval of launch facilities like SpaceX’s recently announced Starbase Louisiana in Vermilion Parish. In the planning process for that $100 billion project, there was no official public comment process prior to approval, leading over 1,000 people to voice their concerns to the FAA instead.

“We tamed this land, full of mosquitoes, water moccasins, and alligators, to the best of our ability. We’ve become symbiotic [with] all of the nature in south Louisiana,” self-described lifelong Louisiana resident and Vermilion Parish native Tim Meaux writes. 

“Apparently my voice, and millions of others, have zero say [in] what becomes of Vermilion Parish because our politicians have once again sold their souls for corporate welfare,” Meaux continues in his comment to the agency, asking them to hold SpaceX accountable. “With our Louisiana government completely failing to hold on to any protection for us, you are our last bastion of hope.”

On the state level, the Louisiana Legislature recently passed a slew of laws that shield SpaceX and companies with similar projects from certain legal responsibility and damage claims from residents affected by their facilities.

The 1,647 public comments specifically mentioning Louisiana, a majority of which were submitted in the week after the SpaceX announcement, criticize the plans for the 125,000-acre Vermilion Parish launch facility, and warn of the possibly irreparable harm that a launch site could cause if federal guardrails were waived.

“Anyone who lives here and knows the area, the marshlands, ecosystem, knows this is the most inappropriate site for such a facility,” writes Nina Guidry, who describes herself as a Vermilion Parish resident. “[The] majority of people in this parish, if asked, would be dead against SpaceX locating here. We were never given that courtesy. It was decided in backroom deals of our state legislators signing NDAs and our governor. It will impact a centuries old way of life & traditions.”

If approved, the new rule would waive the need for compliance with more than a dozen environmental protections, including the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, in the issuing of permits for launch facilities.

A handful of environmental groups, such as the Louisiana Wildlife Federation, National Wildlife Federation and the Pontchartrain Conservancy, were among the first to publicly criticize the waiver request, which the FAA proposed on July 30. 

“We believe a strong permitting review does help with site planning and project construction. Other projects undergo the same review, and these are really important oversight processes to protect our natural resources.” Rebecca Triche, director of the LWF, tells the Current.

Of the more than 3,000 comments on the proposed waiver, more than 600 comments mention Vermilion Parish directly, many coming from current or former parish residents. 

Paula Rae Broussard, an American expat living in New Zealand who has roots in Vermilion Parish, says she’s “deeply concerned” about the effect the waiver may have on the protection of the fragile ecosystem around the planned SpaceX site. 

“Vermilion Parish should not be treated as a test case for reducing federal environmental oversight simply because the project promises economic development,” she writes in her comment. “My grandparents live on land that has been in our family since my great-great-grandparents. That land isn’t just property. It is our history. It is where our family comes from. It is our place.”………………………………………

“The proposed rule builds on President Trump’s innovative “Enabling Competition in the Commercial Space Industry” Executive Order and advances a decades-old Congressional mandate to simplify and expedite commercial space licensing,” an FAA spokesperson told The Current. 

……………………………………………………. https://thecurrentla.com/2026/left-out-by-the-state-residents-take-spacex-concerns-to-faa/

September 14, 2026 Posted by | space travel, USA | Leave a comment

First nuclear-capable B-52s deploy to Australia

Boeing B-47B rocket-assisted take off on April 15, 1954. (U.S. Air Force photo)

By Bill Gertz – The Washington Times – Thursday, September 10, 2026

A task force of nuclear-capable B-52 bombers has deployed for the first time to Australia in a show of regional force located to the south of China.

The bombers arrived last week at an upgraded Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal. Local reports called it a new era in Australia’s military alliance with the U.S.

A Pacific Air Forces spokesman confirmed to Inside the Ring that the bomber task force is underway Down Under………….

The exact number of the strategic bombers from the 2nd Bomber Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, was not disclosed. Most task forces include up to six B-52s.

An Air Force photo of the deployment stated in a caption that the bombers arrived Sept. 1. “Operating from RAAF Base Tindal marks our ability to project, sustain, and regenerate decisive airpower across an expanding extended network,” the caption stated.

The long-range bombers can deliver nuclear bombs or conventional precision-guided weapons.

The Tindal base has been upgraded with new hangars and ramps for the bombers. It is located in northern Australia about 200 miles south of the northernmost coastal city of Darwin and about 2,000 miles from the tense South China Sea.

The base also hosts Australian F-35 stealth jets and MQ-4C Triton surveillance drones.

Currently, U.S. Marines are based in Darwin and a submarine rotational force was set up near Perth, with about 1,000 Navy personnel set to deploy in support of Virginia-class submarine deployment. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/sep/10/first-nuclear-capable-b-52s-deploy-australia/

September 14, 2026 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Widespread Fraud Lawsuit Settled for Former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Whistleblowers

Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, 11 Sept 26

From 1946 to 1969, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was used as the station for top-secret nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean. It was also the place where decontamination was done on the ships used in hydrogen bomb tests. Radioactive and toxic waste was disposed there.

In 1989 the shipyard was declared to be a Superfund site as a result of the high levels of toxic and radioactive waste from those operations.  The engineering firm, Tetra Tech EC, submitted false reporting to the U.S. Navy about the contamination.  https://www.tetratech.com/

In late August, a federal judge approved a $57 million settlement, plus interest, against Tetra Tech for breach of contract and for reporting false test results. Tetra Tech, a U.S. Navy contractor, was accused of widespread fraud in the cleanup of a 400-acre site where homes were razed to construct more than 10,000 homes in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood. https://missionlocal.org/bayview/

In 2018, two Tetra Tech supervisors were charged with falsification of records and each were sentenced to eight months in federal prison.  

September 14, 2026 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment