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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: The 5 Royales

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Doo wop group The 5 Royales. Enjoy!

^{The 5 Royales - Catch That Teardrop}

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."

-- Abraham Lincoln

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News and Opinion

Revolution Or Extinction. The Choice Is Ours.

Humanity has the freedom to fail this test and go the way of the dinosaur. We’re allowed to take that path if that’s what we collectively choose to do.

We can allow a few massively outnumbered plutocrats and empire managers to drive our species to extinction via climate disaster, nuclear holocaust, or AI apocalypse if we want to. We are completely free to do that.

I don’t know about you, but I actually find this a comforting thought.

When you take a close look at the existential hurdles that humanity is faced with, it can feel pretty bleak. Global capitalism is destroying the biosphere we all depend on for survival. The western empire is getting increasingly comfortable engaging in reckless brinkmanship with nuclear-armed rivals. The AI arms race is shoving through wildly unpredictable technologies at a rapidly accelerating rate with alarmingly little institutional oversight or caution.

But when you notice that all of these existential threats are entirely man-made, you realize that this means humanity has the ability to un-make them as well. We have the freedom to do either. It’s up to us.

I find this a comforting insight because it puts the ball in our court. We can choose to rise up and use the power of our numbers to save ourselves from doom, or we can choose not to. The universe, apparently, is fine with either choice. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be holding the ball.

And who am I to argue with the universe? If the universe wants humanity to have the freedom to either go extinct in the near term or survive deep into the distant future, then I can make space within myself to allow that freedom, too.

Whether or not we make it is not up to me as an individual. I can control my own actions, but I cannot control the actions of my fellow homo sapiens as a whole. And if our species as a collective decides that revolutionary change is not desirable enough or too scary or too difficult to seize, then I can submit to the will of the collective. I can hold enough grace and compassion for my species to honor its sovereign decision.

“We’ll either pass the test or we won’t.” That’s what I tell myself when things are looking dark. I give humanity the freedom to make its decision, and in so doing I free myself. I do what I can to move the needle in whatever way my limited means allow me to, and then beyond that I submit to the will of our better angels.

I do my work, and then I let go. I let go and enjoy my time on this beautiful blue planet here. Because I don’t know how much longer it will last.

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Beware Iran’s Retaliation

Coalition talks loom in Israel as Netanyahu and Eisenkot blocs set to fall short of majority

Israel’s future hung in the balance on Wednesday as it became clear that Benjamin Netanyahu had lost his governing majority. His political fate now depends on whether opposition Jewish parties are prepared to forge a common front with Palestinian parties, whose support surged in Tuesday’s elections. The leader of the Jewish opposition bloc, the retired general Gadi Eisenkot, appeared to rule out such a broad coalition in a premature declaration of victory overnight for what he called a “Zionist majority”.

With the remaining 86% of the votes tallied, both Jewish blocs looked certain to fall short of the 61 Knesset seats needed for a majority government, leaving Eisenkot and his allies facing a clear choice: either make a pact with Arab Israeli parties heading for a record result of 16-19 seats, or hand Netanyahu a political lifeline in the form of new elections or a unity government.

On Wednesday night, Netanyahu reacted to the high Palestinian turnout and the success of Arab Israeli parties by claiming they had “stolen the election”. He did not offer evidence, but said on X that his Likud party had sent “hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence” to the central elections committee and the Shin Bet internal security agency. Both those agencies have been politicised under Netanyahu’s government. The elections committee had sought to ban Arab Israeli parties before the poll, but the attempt to exclude them was overturned by the country’s supreme court.

Yair Golan, the leader of the centre-left Democrats, a junior partner in Eisenkot’s Change bloc, urged Eisenkot to negotiate with the two Palestinian parties, the Joint List and Ra’am (the United Arab List). “We have no future here if we don’t stop being afraid. And if we don’t put an end to racism. We can no longer accept Netanyahu’s racist distinction between Jewish and Arab votes,” Golan wrote on X. “Anyone who tries to erase the votes of Arab citizens is surrendering to Netanyahu and giving up on Israel,” he added, pointing out that Netanyahu relied on ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties that were non-Zionist and opposed conscription for their constituents.

Noa Landau, a commenter writing in Haaretz, argued that by making Zionism the test for forming a coalition, excluding potential partners, while the prime minister had not, Eisenkot had fallen “into the trap Netanyahu laid for him over the course of the election campaign”.

Attack on Iran, Venezuela elections looming - Max on Judging Freedom

Official Price Tag of Iran War Jumps to $47 Billion as Trump Says It Will End ‘Whenever I Want It To’

US President Donald Trump told a crowd of his supporters on Tuesday that his illegal war of choice in Iran will end “whenever I want it to” as the conflict’s official price tag reportedly jumped to $47 billion—a figure that independent analysts believe to be a dramatic underestimate.

“It can be over whenever I want it to be over,” Trump said of the historically unpopular war during a rally in Texas, a week before the midterm elections. “But we have to have it end properly, with... a total statement [that] they will never have a nuclear weapon.” (Iran has already said repeatedly that it would never develop nuclear weapons, including in the opening pages of the Obama-era agreement that Trump shredded during his first White House term.)

Trump’s remarks came as The Hill reported that the federal government’s official estimate of the Iran war’s cost has jumped $3 billion since last month, rising to $47 billion.

“The biggest chunk of the cost is munition replacement at $29 billion,” The Hill reported, citing a US Central Command estimate that the outlet obtained on Tuesday. “Nearly $12 billion is obligated for incremental costs of military action and another $6.1 billion to replace equipment losses, according to the estimate. Air Force’s support for deployed personnel, airlift, base, communication support, and transportation in theater costs $7.6 billion. The estimate does not include the cost to damaged US military bases in the Middle East.”

When such damage—which has been far more extensive than the Pentagon has acknowledged publicly—and other factors are included, the price tag balloons. Stephen Semler, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, estimated in July that the US spent more than $103 billion in the first four months of the war, which has killed thousands of people and sent gas prices soaring.

In the US, consumers have spent an extra $146 billion on gasoline and diesel since the war’s beginning in February, according to a running tracker maintained by the Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

Trump said Tuesday that the unauthorized war’s end would come “very quick,” despite evidence that his administration is preparing for yet another round of heavy bombings in Iran after the midterm elections.

“The US has told several Gulf Arab countries to be prepared for a short, intense military campaign after the US midterm elections,” The Wall Street Journal reported late Tuesday, citing unnamed people briefed on the conversations. “The communications through diplomatic and military channels are among a growing number of indications that the US and Israel are readying to launch a new round of heavy combat operations against Iran, risking a major escalation in hopes of degrading Tehran’s strength and pushing it toward negotiations.”

“US forces in the region have been restocking their munitions, and bomber aircraft and jet fighters are preparing for strikes,” the Journal added. “An additional aircraft carrier strike group and Marine expeditionary unit are also poised to join an armada of roughly 20 other warships operating in the Middle East next month, although some ships could rotate out.”

Laith Marouf: Mystery Deepens as Saudi C-130 Lands in Tehran Amid Mecca Pact

US Sending an Additional Patriot System to Israel To Prepare for Potential Attacks on Iran

The US military is sending an additional Patriot missile system to Israel to beef up the country’s air defenses as part of preparations for a potential US-Israeli attack on Iran, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday night.

It’s estimated that the US has used about 1,700 Patriot missile interceptors, or about two-thirds of its total stockpile, in Iran since it was launched on February 28, and the reported deployment to Israel comes as the US has been holding up a Patriot missile shipment to Ukraine.

The Journal report said that the US has also warned its Gulf Arab allies to prepare for a short but intense renewed bombing campaign against Iran, though Iranian officials have warned that they will significantly escalate retaliatory strikes across the region in the face of any renewed US or Israeli attacks, meaning the US will have little control on the timeline.

The Real Reason Palestine Action Was Deemed a 'Terrorist' Organization (w/ Huda Ammori)

Albania imposes $6,000 fine for demonstrators present at a protest that turns violent

Albania has introduced fines of more than $6,000 for demonstrators who participate in a protest that turns violent, even if they don’t personally commit violent acts, as the government tries to clamp down on the gatherings calling for the prime minister’s resignation. The capital, Tirana, has been racked by months of anti-government protests that in recent days have deteriorated into pitched battles between the security forces and protesters.

The leaderless movement started peacefully in May, with rallies against a luxury hotel project in a nature reserve, backed by US president Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. It morphed in mid-October into a wave of student-led protests against perceived corruption, shortcomings in the health system and the lack of prospects for young people in the country of 2.3 million people.

On Wednesday, prime minister Edi Rama’s government adopted legislative measures imposing fines of up to 500,000 leks (€5,500, US$6,130) for “anyone who chooses to remain in a crowd” that is carrying out acts of violence or looting in a public space, or “concealing their identity”. The average salary before tax in Albania is €930 (US$1,026) per month.

COL. Douglas Macgregor : Does Trump Know If China Is Friend or Foe?

Yeah, and I'm the true King of the Internets, buddy ...

Flávio Bolsonaro calls himself the ‘leader of Brazil’ after fleeing to Miami

Flávio Bolsonaro declared himself the “true president” of Brazil after losing last Sunday’s presidential election and fleeing to the United States. After landing on a private jet with his family in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday morning, the far-right senator published the claim in a letter – even though his own party has recognised the legitimate victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as have all of Brazil’s institutions, and international observers who monitored and endorsed the vote.

Brazil’s three main newspapers – Folha de S.Paulo, O Globo and O Estado de S.Paulo – all described Bolsonaro’s declaration as “coup-mongering”. The senator later deleted the letter and published a new one in which, instead of calling himself the “true president”, he described himself as “the leader of Brazil”.

After losing Sunday’s runoff vote to Lula, Bolsonaro disappeared for more than 24 hours, until Argentina’s migration authorities said he had entered the country by land on Tuesday night. From there he boarded a Gulfstream IV, registered LV-JQW, which had been parked at Puerto Iguazú airport since the early hours of the previous morning, when the first reports emerged in Argentinian media that he intended to flee on it.

Bolsonaro, the son of the jailed former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, took off on the jet with his wife and two teenage daughters at about 11.30pm, bound for Guayaquil in Ecuador, reportedly to avoid Brazilian airspace. They made a brief stop in Ecuador and continued on to the Miami-Opa Locka airport, a private aviation hub about 11 miles north of downtown Miami catering to corporate executives and wealthy travelers.

Bolsonaro is under investigation in at least two criminal cases, one of them examining suspicions that the senator was involved in a money-laundering scheme worth about £680m ($905m) involving betting companies. It was in connection with that case that, shortly after the election result, Brazilian police asked the supreme court to order Bolsonaro’s passport to be retained over concerns he could flee, citing an interview given last Friday by his brother, the former congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro. Fleeing Brazil has almost become standard practice among Bolsonaro supporters facing criminal charges or convictions in the country: about a dozen politicians or influencers closely aligned with Jair Bolsonaro have done the same in recent years.

Non-profit group leaks data of more than 40,000 homeland security workers

Data identifying more than 41,000 employees and contractors for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was released on Wednesday in an unprecedented leak that reveals how the agency is organized. The records, which were made public by the transpaency nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets reference operation names, surveillance programs and information on undercover initiatives.

The leaked data unveils the ​names, phone numbers and email addresses of employees from various DHS agencies, including Immigration ‌and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border ‌Protection, Homeland Security Investigations, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Most of the agents in the leak – more than 21,000 – work for CBP, and about 6,600 work for ICE. The data also includes job titles, email groups and other details that show which agents were assigned to special operations, surveillance jobs, computer forensics and undercover work.

It was made public at a time when DHS, in turn, has aggressively sought to unmask critics on social media, and obtain records on protestors and journalists – even as it moves to keep its own agents anonymous, defending agents’ rights to hide their identities and faces while conducting enforcement.

In a statement, Emma Best, a Distributed Denial of Secrets co-founder, said the hacktivist known as “maia arson crimew” developed a search tool for the data that would allow the public to browse it. Best said the tool would “replace anonymity with accountability” and empower journalists, guide public records requests and boost congressional oversight. The Department of Peace did not immediately respond ‌to a request for comment, but in a statement included with the data, it said that DHS employees “have our information, so it’s only fair that we have theirs” and that it hoped the data “can ​be used to limit further harm by the DHS and supports all efforts in that direction”.

‘Minnesota 15’ Case Reveals Largest US Government Spying on Left Since COINTELPRO

The Trump administration is conducting what some experts believe is the largest government surveillance campaign targeting American leftists in over half a century, deploying undercover agents, drones, financial investigators, and digital monitoring against opponents of President Donald Trump’s deadly immigration crackdown, according to reporting published Wednesday.

Wired reporter Ali Winston examined court records regarding the prosecution of the so-called “Minnesota 15,” a group of activists facing federal conspiracy charges after organizing and taking part in protests and other resistance to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) deadly Operation Metro Surge crackdown in the Twin Cities.

The Minnesota 15 are members of the groups Direct Action Minnesota and Black Cat Workers, and are accused of impeding the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) anti-immigrant crackdown in Minneapolis, where US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti were separately killed earlier this year by ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and where Julio César Sosa-Celis survived being shot by an ICE agent.

Winston’s investigation centers on Operation Puppet Master and Project Whipple Shield, probes conducted by Homeland Security Investigations, which is part of ICE. More than 120 HSI agents were assigned to the Minnesota campaigns, including at least 11 undercover operatives who infiltrated activist meetings, marches, training sessions, and encrypted Signal chats.

Those operations were authorized under National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which was signed by Trump following last year’s assassination of Charlie Kirk in an effort to target the left—even though leftists had nothing to do with the racist influencer’s murder.

Federal agents also spied on gatherings in other states, photographed vehicles, deployed unarmed Reaper drones, and examined activists’ digital records and financial transactions.

Civil liberties advocates and former law enforcement officials said the campaign evokes the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s notorious COINTELPRO program, which surveilled, infiltrated, and sought to disrupt Civil Rights, Black liberation, anti-war, American Indian, and other movements during the tenure of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover—including by funding and arming murderous far-right militants to terrorize leftists.

As Winston noted:

According to a 2011 book by former [Central Intelligence Agency] officer Frank Rafalko, the CIA secret investigation into suspected foreign influence on the New Left and anti-Vietnam War movement had 42 officers working the case at its peak. Court records show 119 HSI agents worked on the Minnesota 15 case alone.

“Broad monitoring of social media, communications, and financial transactions are used to link an ever-increasing number of people as potential subjects of investigation and prosecution,” Mike German, a retired FBI agent critical of the post-9/11 surveillance state, told Winston. “These are exactly the kind of intelligence activities J. Edgar Hoover adopted to suppress the Civil Rights and anti-war movements in the 1960s.”

Judge rebuffs Trump DoJ’s bid to force California to set aside 20,000 ballots

A federal judge declined to order California election officials to segregate and not count ballots from people the Trump administration claimed were non-citizens, rebuffing a legally thin request from the justice department that appeared designed to cast doubt over the results of the midterms.

The ruling from US district judge David Carter, nominated to the federal bench by Bill Clinton, comes about two weeks after the justice department delivered a USB drive to election officials in Los Angeles and Sacramento that it said contained the names of 20,000 non-citizens on the state’s voter rolls. There are more than 23 million registered voters in California and non-citizen voting is extremely rare.

“This case is about the right of every American citizen to vote in a free and fair election,” Carter wrote in his Wednesday evening ruling. “Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch.”

“In bringing this lawsuit, the Executive would have this Court believe that it reigns as a sole sovereign,” Carter continued. “But California and its people are sovereign, too.”

Carter’s ruling came after the justice department tried to bypass him entirely. After Carter set a 27 October hearing on the justice department’s emergency motion, the department took the unusual step of appealing to the US court of appeals for the ninth circuit, saying Carter was not considering the case fast enough. A panel of ninth circuit judges ruled 2-1 against the justice department earlier this week.

US ambassador suggests Trump could blame Canada if midterms don’t go his way

The US ambassador has suggested Canada could be blamed if Republicans perform poorly in next week’s midterm elections, the latest intervention from a controversial figure who has been accused of inflaming a bitter dispute that has angered and baffled residents of both countries. On Wednesday, CTV news reported that Pete Hoekstra told business leaders at a closed door meeting that if a number of swing races – including Maine and Michigan – go to the Democrats, it could make things harder for Canada because Donald Trump might try to blame the loss on it.

“That’s an interesting way of framing it,” the prime minister, Mark Carney, told reporters when asked about the allegations. For months, Canada and the US have been locked in a bitter tariff war, with Ottawa retaliating against illegal US tariffs and targeting goods in states that rely heavily on trade with Canada. Carney said that Canada “will pursue” such a deal if it presents itself, but that Ottawa’s trade negotiators are “not in that position right now”.

Hoekstra is a deeply polarizing figure in Canada, particular for his response to Trump’s rhetoric about making Canada the 51st US state. Speaking to a Michigan radio station last year, he described the threats as a “sign of affection” and questioned why Canadians were offended by what he characterized as a “generous offer”. He had previously described Canada’s 2025 federal election as “anti-American”. This year a House of Commons petition signed by more than 225,000 Canadians called for his expulsion, suggesting his statements violated diplomatic protocols, including the prohibition on diplomats interfering in the internal affairs of a host country.

More recently, Hoekstra has accused Canadian officials of interfering in US elections, pointing to Canadian politicians who have criticized the tariffs in US media, and the province of Ontario’s anti-tariff advertisement that ran on US television. “We see all of that. We are monitoring it. We are evaluating it. And if some of it becomes election interference, America will respond to it,” Hoekstra, who comes from Michigan, recently told a Canadian podcast, adding that Canadians should “keep your nose out of American politics”.

Canada’s industry minister, Mélanie Joly, who was a target of Hoekstra’s comments, told reporters in Ottawa that her country “would never do that” and said Canada would “never accept that also being done to us in Canada”. Carney, while in Turkey, told reporters there was “no merit” to the claims of interference and that he was “disappointed that their envoy sees that as his role, to make these suggestions”.

New book makes fiery claims about Jared Kushner’s finances in Trump’s first term

A new book containing incendiary claims about Jared Kushner’s financial dealings during Donald Trump’s first term has ignited a political and media firestorm. The book by author Matthew Cole is called Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East and was released in the US this week. An excerpt was published by Vanity Fair last Thursday, and immediately drew a furious response from Kushner, who called its claims “completely insane”. The book contains numerous allegations about Kushner, whose father-in-law is Trump and who has served as one of his top diplomatic envoys in the Middle East – the most explosive of which are claims linking him to huge bank accounts allegedly funded by Gulf states.

Kusher denounced the book on his site last week, and writing on X: “We denied every one of these claims on the record, yet the author failed to provide a single shred of evidence to substantiate any of them.” He has demanded that Vanity Fair retract the excerpt and has threatened legal action against the book’s publisher, Simon & Schuster. He added: “During the period in question, I was one of the most scrutinized people in the world, subjected to intense media coverage, multiple congressional investigations, and a special counsel investigation. I voluntarily cooperated with these investigations, providing over 30 hours of testimony. None of these allegations ever surfaced, because none of these events ever happened.”

Cole’s sources are predominantly anonymous and he does not print images of emails or other documentation to support his reporting. Extensive footnotes indicate sources of information, including confidential interviews. In the book, the top intelligence official in the United Arab Emirates, Ali Al Shamsi, is reported to have called Kushner “the most expensive employee we’ve ever had”. The book details alleged payments into two “slush fund” bank accounts allegedly set up for Kushner by Emirati prince Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ) and Saudi Arabian prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) during Trump’s first term. The Guardian contacted the Saudi Arabian and Emirati embassies for comment and did not receive a response.

In the book, Cole claims the accounts were partially managed by Kushner on an iPhone hacked by Russian and Dutch intelligence. But despite the Emirati spymaster’s opinion of Kushner, Cole alleges that the New Jersey real estate scion was not entirely trusted. Cole describes a dangerous world in which blackmail is as common a tool of statecraft as torture and murder, as in the cases of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, killed on the orders of MBS in Turkey in 2018, and the Emirati journalist and poet Habib Al Sayegh, whose killing by agents of MBZ in 2019 is described by Cole.

Kushner continues to steer US foreign policy despite having no official role.

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VOTEHUB Analyst: EARLY VOTE 'MEDIOCRE TO HORRIFIC" For Republicans

ABDUL EXCLUSIVE: Haley Stevens, Immigration, Islamophobia, Trans, Property Tax

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Trump says government to ‘terminate’ Biden-era methane emissions rules

Donald Trump said his administration was “terminating” Biden-era regulations holding oil and gas companies accountable for large leaks of planet-warming methane during a rally in Lubbock, Texas, on Tuesday evening.

“Tonight, I’m officially terminating Biden’s expensive and unnecessary methane regulations to save consumers and energy producers,” Trump said, lifting what he called “crippling regulations on methane that caused prices to skyrocket” for small oil and gas operators. The change would save consumers and energy producers $45bn and unlock 210m barrels of oil, he said, which is equivalent to about 10 days of US petroleum consumption.

In a press release, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, Lee Zeldin, praised what he called Trump’s move “to end the war on oil and natural gas” by revising oil and natural gas regulations under the Clean Air Act. The proposal is expected to produce an estimated 210m additional barrels of oil and 1.41tn cubic ft of natural gas, according to the EPA.

The EPA’s proposal violates the Clean Air Act’s duty to protect public health and welfare and would seriously harm communities near oil and gas development, as well as the wider public, said Darin Schroeder, the methane legal and regulatory director at Clean Air Task Force (CATF). “EPA’s crusade against limits for emissions scientifically proven to harm public health and the environment must stop, and the agency must rescind this unlawful proposal and implement the 2024 rule without delay.”

Curbing pollution from the oil and gas industry is critical to protecting public health, said Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association. “This not only carries environmental consequences, but leaks can also release harmful pollutants like volatile organic compounds that worsen air quality and carcinogens like benzene and formaldehyde,” he said. “If finalized, this proposal would help polluting industries avoid cleanup and harm the communities who bear the brunt of dirtier air and a warming planet.”

‘Elonville’: US residents say Musk’s xAI offered to buy homes if they don’t sue over datacenter noise

People in a Mississippi neighborhood, many of whom dislike a nearby power plant central to Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence ambitions, have received a stark offer – to sell their houses to his company and make way. Real estate agents have been going door to door in Southaven, Mississippi, on behalf of xAI, touting a deal to purchase houses as long as the owners agree to not join a lawsuit against the company over the power plant’s noise. (Musk’s AI company officially became SpaceXAI in July and has lately been rebranded as SpaceXSI but to neighbors of the datacenter in Mississippi, it remains xAI.)

This plan could potentially swallow up almost the entire neighborhood of Colonial Hills, on the western flank of Southaven. A realtor told one resident there is a target to purchase 418 homes, with 18 homeowners already agreeing to sell, according to a recording of a conversation heard by the Guardian. xAI did not respond to questions over these numbers and its plans for the neighborhood and has previously said it intends to be be a good neighbor; it denies all claims in the noise lawsuit.

The homes, the realtor and the local mayor say, will house xAI staff as the company continues its explosive expansion in the area, with three of its datacenters springing up in Southaven and adjoining Memphis, Tennessee, in just the past two years. This frantic pace, and the all-hours noise from gas turbines installed without permits to power the datacenters, has dismayed some locals. “It sounds like an airplane engine but it’s continuous, it’s incredibly loud,” said Elizabeth Rose, a piano teacher, of the xAI site which sits about two miles from her home. “I’ve been woken up at 2am by it, I’ve been woken up at 3am by it. I sometimes have to just get away from it because it makes me so angry.”

Rose said she was shocked when the power plant, a former Duke Energy site housing 69 temporary gas turbines to feed the new datacenters, began its low-level growl in August last year. “All of a sudden there was a plant there,” she said. “And now I get the feeling they are trying to expand the buyout to the entire neighborhood. It will become Elon Musk’s little playground, basically. Elonville.” The market value offers for these homes, in an area where the average house price is about $180,000, is a comparatively small outlay in creating the world’s largest cluster of AI supercomputers as envisioned by Musk, a technologist who is the world’s richest person and a major Republican donor.

Since July 2024, xAI has constructed three vast datacenters – called Colossus I, Colossus II and Macrohardrr – in the Memphis and Southaven conurbation, which sprawls across Tennessee’s border with Mississippi. Musk is currently spending up to four nights a week in an Airstream trailer in the Memphis area as he personally oversees the build-out of the datacenters to further develop the Grok AI chatbot. Musk has spent about half a billion dollars helping elect Republicans in the last two election cycles and his zeal for datacenters is shared by Donald Trump, who has said anyone who opposes such development will become “backwards and poor”.

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Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some of which defied fair-use abstraction.

Hezbollah Leader Insists on Right to Resist Israeli Occupation, Rejects Disarmament

Saudi Airstrikes on Yemen Market, Gas Station Kill 14 Civilians: Health Ministry

Americans Hit Hardest by War-Driven Oil Price Surge

Trump Takes Credit for Netanyahu’s Election Lead

Don’t Talk Human Welfare With Elites, Talk Money (Hospital Edition)

Trove of Documents Exposes Secret Palantir Role in Medicare’s AI Pilot Program

Conservative influencers charged with unlawful voting after ‘Muslim garb’ election stunt

California election official says federal agents threatened him over ‘voter fraud’

Dolores Huerta, California labor leader and civil rights champion, dies aged 96

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A Little Night Music

The 5 Royales -Think

The 5 Royales - Please Please Please

The 5 Royales - The Slummer the Slum

The "5" Royales - Laundromat Blues

The 5 Royales - I Got To Know

The 5 Royales - Too Much of a Little Bit

Five Royales - Crazy Crazy Crazy

The “5” Royales - Baby Don’t Do It

Five Royales - Don't Let It Be In Vain

The "5" Royales - Too Much Lovin'

The "5" Royales - Right Around The Corner

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