Bullet Points:
** (Rand) China is conducting a comprehensive and at least partly integrated competitive campaign, both within and across many elements of national power; however, the United States has yet to fully embrace the contest’s scope or invest sufficiently in critical tools of statecraft.
** Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the committee, confronted former “Special Counsel” Jack Smith with evidence provided by a whistleblower and made public for the first time, showing that Smith’s office was conducting a remarkably expansive fishing expedition, scooping up even small-potatoes Trump donors. In other words, if you contributed even a pittance—the “widow’s mite,” so to speak—to Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, you could very well have ended up on the list of these overzealous prosecutors, who likely obtained your personal information without your knowledge. What business did these de facto political operatives have doing that? It wasn’t enough that the Smith team simply ignored Americans’ rights. If those particular Americans were Trump supporters, it meant this cadre of prosecutors could pound on those rights with sledgehammers and toss them into an oven set on BROIL. Ashes to ashes. Some of these donors had given as little as one dollar. (They apparently took literally those annoying fundraising letters we all get, the ones that say things like “Even one dollar makes a difference!”) As Sen. Grassley pointed out, the DOJ and FBI still have those donors’ banking information: home addresses, bank account and routing numbers, and signatures.
** In June, China’s Commerce Ministry established a system encouraging organizations and individuals to report suspected violations involving strategic minerals. Reportable conduct includes routing controlled materials through third countries and illegally transferring controlled technology overseas through investment, research and development, consulting, or other means. (See Project Beehive – below)
** Note: EVERY SINGLE Red Chinese company is a “Chinese military company.” There are no exceptions, and Red China makes no distinctions.
** They are looking for a man who can stay in the fight no matter how hard, control his emotions, and focus on the task no matter the challenge. They are looking for those who rise and help the team win over individual needs. At age 40+, when you can no longer do the job, is there a reverse commitment to the individual? No.
** Crime doesn’t pay . . . but whiskey sure does! When Judge Roy Bean is your bartender, the rules of the West completely change. The only law west of the Pecos. Judge Roy Bean’s famous combined courthouse and saloon, called the Jersey Lilly, was located in Langtry, Texas, alongside the Rio Grande.
** A discussion of salt horse rations. In many cases, they put it in a net and threw it over the side of a ship at sea, then towed it through the ocean for a whole day to remove some of the salt and make it edible. Even sharks rejected it.
** The California minimum wage.
** Sears sold the Colt-Browning M1895 machine gun—famously nicknamed the “Potato Digger”—through mail-order in 1917. The M1895 chambered the 30-06 cartridge. Ah. The good old days. The catalog listing noted it came mounted on a steel tripod, included feed belts and tool bags, weighed roughly 180 pounds in shipping weight, and could fire over 400 rounds per minute. The catalog marketed the crew-served weapon to families looking to equip members heading off to war. Because the National Firearms Act (NFA) wasn’t enacted until 1934, buying a fully automatic firearm at the time required no license, permit, background check, or federal registration—just a completed paper order form sent to Sears.
** Russia is closing the airspace over Kapustiny Yar for six days—from September 28 to October 3. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration reported this.
The official reason is currently unknown. Such restrictions usually accompany weapons testing or “Oreshnik” launches. “The closure of the airspace over the test range does not mean that a strike against Ukraine is being prepared,” the statement notes.
Project Beehive
(ZeroHedge) A nuclear startup called Valar Atomics has applied to build what it calls Project Beehive on more than 9,500 acres of federal land near Price, Utah. The plan calls for 456 small nuclear reactors, a data center campus, a nuclear fuel fabrication plant, and on-site waste storage. NPR broke the story on Wednesday. The numbers are hard to grasp. The reactors would produce roughly 9.6 gigawatts of electricity. The entire state of Utah averages about 4 gigawatts. One private campus on public land would generate more than double the power of the state it sits in. The timeline is just as aggressive. Nonnuclear construction could begin by the end of this year. The first reactors are slated to come online in 2028.
Washington has decided that the United States will win the AI race, that winning requires more electricity than the grid can supply, and that the electricity will come from nuclear reactors built on federal land with federal help. Public land, military aircraft, a rewritten licensing regime, and a startup that would not exist in its current form without all three.
This is the same pattern I’ve been writing about all month. The government identifies an outcome it cannot afford to lose, and it clears every obstacle in the way. Iran closed Hormuz, so the Navy built a lane. China squeezed rare earths, so the Pentagon built a stockpile. The AI race needs power, so the Interior Department is opening the desert to reactors. That’s a wartime economy. And a wartime economy doesn’t wait for the market to solve a problem. It picks the solution and pays for it.
That is where the next round of government money goes. Not into the data centers, which the hyperscalers can fund themselves, but into mining, conversion, enrichment, and fuel fabrication. It is the rare earths playbook applied to uranium, and it’s already started: the Department of Energy has been handing out enrichment contracts and loan guarantees for two years.
End
We’re not going to name it WWIII until the Dept of War restarts the draft?
Unfortunately these plans will not continue if the Socialists or Chinese Democrats (or by whatever other name they like to call themselves) win enough states in the midterms by their usual shenanigans.
Or am I stating the obvious?
Iran, North Korea, North Vietnam and China in particular – and Russia to varying degrees – have been at war with the USA for the previous 60-100 years. To lens the world differently is to ignore the obvious. We can define hot wars, cold wars, and proxy wars in any way you’d like. Islamic ideology has more closely followed the collectivists for convenience (the enemy of my enemy, etc.) Israel has had a push-pull relationship with the US. Mexico, the failed narco-state, and various other banana republics and narco-states have been in various states of war, from Venezuela to the Contras. We haven’t declared war since WW2 but when you consider the Korean police action, the Vietnam War, the Afghan wars (against the Soviets and then against the Afghans), the Iraq Wars (including the ISIS war), and the Middle East countries to varying degrees and the “police actions in Africa” – it’s increasingly difficult to tell the players without a program.
Jack Smith deserves nothing better than a hanging for his actions. Those that blindly followed him deserve the same.
I prefer the idea of a gibbet raised outside Congress because hanging is quick.
Drawing and quartering could make a comeback?
Even better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ-9J3V1bFA
Question for me is how is his guy (Smith) still walking around a free man?
The world is unfair, PaulM.
The spectacle should be pay-per-view, with proceeds going directly toward paying down the national debt.
Sign me up.
For that, I would buy a TV and pay perview.
(I haven’t had a TV for years)
I’d like to suggest that the march to the gibbet be preceded by a tar with ample feathering and televised.
Bears are stocking up for the Winter sleep…strip him to his skivvies, tie him to a tree and slather him with peanut butter. (Yeah, not very Christian of me but some direct justice needs to happen with this clown due to his persecuting our President and selected Americans in order steal the election. Once that’s done, do the J6 crew.)
I’m all for his head on a spike by the White House myself… just sayin…
Judge Roy Bean. In the movie, the good Judge was nothing if not practical. Bad Bob (Stacy Keach) comes to town —
—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zPo253ePXM
—
My maternal roots go back to Sanderson. Family rumor has it that my maternal great grandfather met the Judge. No further details. My impression is that Judge Bean’s notoriety during his lifetime was different than today.
The term “law” was loosely defined then. It’s important to note that as a justice of the peace (Justice Court) he may have exceeded his authority. He was first elected to office in 1882, which, in Old West terms, was toward the end of that period of Americana. As of September 2026, 798 justice courts (with 799 judges) remain active in Texas, according to the Court Structure of Texas chart published by the Texas Judicial Branch.
An MG salesman (Lee Marvin).
—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZWlkai2i1g
—
The movie is billed as “In the final years of the Mexican Revolution”, so the Browning MG’s look to be period correct.
José Doroteo Arango Arámbula, a.k.a. Pancho Villa, was active in the border region 100 years ago, which seems amazing to me because 100 years ago is not THAT long ago to many of this blog’s readers.
My Great Uncle, Leonard White was a farrier and calvaryman during WWI campaigning in Mexico. His comment, that it was better than the trenches in France, was about the extent he talked about it.
I don’t think anything was worse than the trenches in France… ok, maybe the trenches in Ukraine. Same thing.
I framed it this way for our grown kids. Through my eyes as a young lad, my dad was a WWII vet. My maternal grandfather was a WWI vet, and old guy. The Civil War was ancient history, 100 years past. It seems less so as I get older. I must make it a point to see this documentary —
—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrabKK9Bhds
Yes, “The Professionals” with Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster. I must admit, not being a fan of most movies, that I like this one, along with “The Wild Bunch” with William Holden. Regarding your comment that the Browning looks period correct, my understanding is that Lee Marvin was a stickler for authenticity regarding weapons, uniforms, horse furniture, etc. One must not forget that he was a Marine veteran of the Pacific campaign in World War Two, where he was wounded in action.
Sorry. This was supposed to be a reply to the comment made by RHT447 regarding the Browning machine gun.
“Project Beehive”
(very) early this AM when I first read about the amount of land it would encompass, I was taken aback: “…more than 9,500 acres…”! “The plan calls for 456 small nuclear reactors, a data center campus, a nuclear fuel fabrication plant, and on-site waste storage.”
then I sat down and worked it out – all that squeezed onto a piece of land about 4 miles on a side – not bad when you consider it, though I hope they’re considering putting it underground where some (thoughtlessly) stray missile wouldn’t disrupt operations.
They need perimeter buffer zones to keep the crazies ginned up by the MSM and Democrats from gaining access to enact their ‘righteous’ sabotage.
I am very familiar with Price, UT, the San Raphael Swell, and that entire area. There is a lot of uranium to mine and enrich there. I’m sure much of that power will go into enrichment.
>A nuclear startup called Valar Atomics
Well, that’s not disturbing. So far it seems that tech/”defense” companies with names ripped out of the Tolkien universe (e.g. Palantir, Anduril) seem more aligned with Mordor than anything good, true, lofty, or beautiful. But I’m sure Valar Atomics will be different. And that these various entities won’t end up all in the grasp of a holding company called Iluvatar.