Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....
Professor Maria Nikolakaki joined me to discuss the hideous transfer of properties and sovereignty to Israel by the compromised Greek political class.
We also discussed the implications of Trump’s forever wars and the devastating impact they are having on global economies.
Maria brought up the historical, cultural, and religious connections Greece has had with Russia, and stressed that the global vultures are bent on controlling the world. She was quick to add that the “empire” is on its last legs.
I chimed in and said I believed Russia was engaged with the globalists in Ukraine in a battle to save all of humanity from the death grips of these evil forces.
She hopes that Russia, China and others will succeed in creating a new world order based on respect, the sovereignty of all nations, the strict interpretation of International Law and the principles of the UN Charter.
The globalists have humanity on the brink of extinction in this epic battle for the future order of the world.
In this episode of 51/49, James breaks down the takeover of Turning Point USA following the death of Charlie Kirk.
He exposes how the sudden rise of Erika Kirk, the purge of MAGA voices like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, and the unexpected arrival of Ben Shapiro could signal a coordinated pivot to turn TPUSA into an unyielding firewall for foreign policy interventionism and Christian Zionism.
A large number of injured US soldiers were flown to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, some with life-threatening injuries, following the Iranian ballistic missile strikes on the Muwaffaq Salti and Prince Hassan air bases in Jordan, per Al Arabiya. Brent crude has again jumped to over $100 per barrel for the first time since July. Diesel history is about to be made. $6/gal nationally.
In statements made to reporters on the sidelines of a meeting spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) declared that all US vessels had retreated at least 400 kilometers from Iran’s coastal waters following Iranian strikes at the ships. He noted that prior to Operation “Ramadan,” approximately 30-40 warships had been present in the Persian Gulf. He added that all U.S. vessels had pulled back at least 400 kilometers from Iran’s coastline.
Simplicius: Whenever the rules are abused and violated by the West to its advantage, it is simply treated as ‘part of the game’, a kind of ‘grandfathered-in’ geopolitical entitlement. But when other nations begin to level the playing field, by following the same set of “unspoken rules” accorded only to privileged Western nations, suddenly the world’s largest, oldest, and most esteemed EU consortiums must cry foul: “But the laws of the garden and the jungle are not interchangeable!” The West should be careful of further provoking the entire world.
Sovereignista: And slowly, without fanfare, with no chaos, quietly, Russia is letting the cat out of the bag. This is the real reply on Kushner and Wikoff’s visit, the telephone call with Trump, as well as the previous visit of the CIA Director, John Ratcliffe. All the rest of what we saw, the visits to Kiev, the descriptions of wonderful and productive discussions and so on, was made up of spin. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov says he has not seen any US roadmap for ending the war in Ukraine. Ushakov called on Washington to halt its assistance to Kiev as a condition for ending the war.
The Port Elizabeth 4 have been given a new trial date for the third time. Now on Monday, September 14, 9 am, at 1 Police Plaza, Elizabeth, New Jersey. Before dawn, on October 3, 2025, the four arrestees were part of an autonomous coalition of 100 protestors who stopped truck traffic delivering 1,000 tons of military weapons to the Port of Elizabeth bound that week for Israel on the Maersk Sentosa vessel. The defendants plan to represent themselves and use defenses of necessity, and, US and international law. The 4 are Teresa Grady, Danny Creamer, Ellen Grady and Mark Scibilia-Carver, all from Ithaca, NY, are charged with three disorderly persons’ offenses.
Yemen’s AnsarAllah have liberated the city of Al-Mokha and its port from Saudi Arabia. This is a very strategic city for Yemen, because it increases their authority over the Red Sea. With the advances made over the past three days, the necessary groundwork has been laid for the complete clearing of Yemen's southwestern coast and the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait. The aerial and ground dominance of Yemeni armed forces over Yemen's western coast will prevent the Saudi coalition from expanding threats against maritime shipping and will pave the way for breaking the naval siege on Yemen. Yemen published footage showing the wreckage of a Saudi military Karayel drone that was shot down in Yemen’s Hajjah Province. The way that Saudi Arabia and the UAE immigrant mercenaries fled, it appears Yemen is winning. The Saudi 'royalists' sure aren't going to fight.
“As we get to the end of the MQ-9 Reaper drones life, there was some early talk of where do we want to go afterwards, and candidly, as a result of some of the losses that we've experienced in combat operations, that discussion sort of got accelerated,” said Lt. Gen. Christopher J. Niemi, the Air Force’s chief modernization officer. The service has lost at least 45 MQ-9s during Trump’s war on Iran, roughly one-quarter of its fleet, the Washington Post reported. The unit cost of one MQ-9 is $51 million in 2011 dollars - or nearly $82 million today. Niemi said the service wants to buy at least 180 MQ-9 replacements. “What we're seeing, in part based on our assessment of the threats around the world, and in part based on our real-world experience, is that you're going to lose more military hardware in future conflicts than you have historically, and that's what's driving us to this sort of fundamental principle that we need things that are easier to produce, cheaper to buy, and that we can afford to lose more of them,” he said. [It also signals that the US is being shot at which they are not used to at the Pentagon.]
In the EU: Brussels is deepening military and technological cooperation with Israel – despite its own ministers calling Israeli settlements illegal and Israel’s actions in Gaza a “stain on the conscience of the world.”
United Airlines: While passengers sat above, military hardware was reportedly traveling below. According to an investigation published by The Intercept, United passenger flights have carried thousands of shipments connected to Israeli weapons including F-35 components, tank parts, communications equipment and other military hardware — without passengers being told what was traveling beneath their feet.
Israel has deepened its ties with Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska, opening an Israeli Chamber of Commerce office in Banja Luka as its international isolation over the Gaza genocide grows. The move strengthens relations with the entity’s separatist leadership and reflects Israel’s efforts to build new political and economic partnerships in the Balkans.
NASA in its infancy employed Hitler's former Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and 100 members of his V-2 rocket production team, and it appears to be returning to its roots. Pistol Pete Hegseth (Secretary of Endless War) attended the first meeting of the new US Space Academy on Sept 9 and said: "We need to dominate [in space]; and it's not just what we do at the War Department — it's what we do across government, at NASA, in private industry, in collaboration at every echelon. And so, we see this academy as a key component of ensuring we don't just lead, but we dominate." NASA Administrator Jared Isaacson told the assembled that the US is currently in another space race, namely with China and Russia, and that "success and failure comes down to months, not years." [Yeah, they do resemble Nazis.]
The Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Spacewill hold its annual 'Keep Space for Peace Week' during October 3-10. We urge people and groups around the planet to help us spread word about the destabilizing and environmentally deadly impacts of the current military and corporate activities and plans for US space 'control and domination'.
Popular Information: Workers in the US are earning a historically low share of the value they produce, according to new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS estimates that the labor share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) “was 52.8 percent in the second quarter of 2026.” This is the lowest level that the BLS has seen since it first began recording labor share in 1947.
Thailand’s Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow held a “frank discussion” with Israeli Ambassador Alona Fisher-Kamm over complaints involving Israeli nationals and tourists. Complaints reported in Phuket, Pattaya, Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Pai, include intimidation, harassment and disputes involving Israeli nationals and businesses. Thai authorities are also investigating business arrangements involving Israeli nationals, including a case concerning land on Koh Phangan (island known for its stunning beaches).
Medical debt alone has reached at least $220 billion nationwide. People aren't struggling with medical debt because they don't care about their health. They're struggling because health care is too expensive. Health care is a human right, not a privilege reserved for people who can afford it. We must confront the medical debt working-class families are carrying. We have the resources to build a health care system that puts people before profits. Health care not warfare!
Trump spoke at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Texas pitching a $5,000 "dividend" for each American if his party sweeps the midterms.
How can the Republicans offer this bribe when our nation is over $40 trillion in debt? Recently Trump suggested that he'd have to turn, already under funded Medicare (for the elderly) and Medicaid (for the poor), back to the states for them to cover the costs because of the demands from endless war spending.
I can tell you, the states can't deal with that in addition to the long list of burdens which Washington has long been dumping on state and local governments.
And, ain't it illegal to offer a bribe to voters? Welcome to the mobster rule of America.
One GOP operative expressed skepticism, calling it “a desperate attempt to change the political mood.” Also skeptical was Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas. “Well, I would like to know how they would plan to pay for [this],” he said.
Congress would need to approve the bribe payment, which would cost $1.35 trillion according to Reuters.
U.S. Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, would not weigh in on Trump's bribe. “I was campaigning until late last night…and then started up first thing this morning, so I have not had a chance to look at that, and I’m not familiar with that proposal,” Collins said Thursday.
Oh sure, the biggest story across the U.S. today and she hadn't heard. Sen. Collins is now in a tough re-election race for her Senate seat.
Elon Musk and many other billionaires are each dumping millions into the Collins campaign treasure chest.
So the corporate capitalists aren't only buying politicians these days, they are now willing to publicly declare they will buy votes and thus elections as well.
They must be running scared.
But keep this in mind, even if the Dems win, there will no serious change unless the citizens stay in the streets.
A
round up of corporate media, a genre in which the word “could” does a
lot of heavy lifting. As for a tractor spying for China, don’t all 21st
century smart[sic] appliances have the potential to spy on us?
Refrigerators, televisions, cars — why exempt tractors?
“Export
shock” means China is beating capitalism at its own game by producing
products consumers want. Why else do you think we’re banned in the U.S.
from buying electric cars that China is now producing pretty cheaply?
Then
there is this twisted use of the word “colonize” which the Guardian at
least has the decency to put in air quotes. Because China figured out
years ago that securing supply chains and in many cases locating them
very close to the factories that rely on them was a good strategy.
Especially when faced with a “peer adversary” (couldn’t resist getting
some Pentagon-speak in there) that is determined to disrupt global
shipping.
It’s almost like the U.S. and China have switched places.
Of course the U.S. will continue making stuff like warships, warplanes, bombs, missiles, and nuclear submarines.
What do you mean nobody wants that stuff? Doesn’t matter. They want jobs don’t they?
SANFORD
— On a Tuesday morning in late August, the accelerated welding class at
York County Community College was humming along. Two students were
lying on the floor, finding the right angle to weld pipes like those on
nuclear submarines.
Marines and US sailors after the USS Abraham Lincoln’s docked hit the nightclubs in Pattaya, Thailand. [The American heroes in action.]
A fire has broken out at one of Aramco's main petrochemical facilities in Jazan following the Yemeni response to the Saudi aggression. Saudi Arabia has been sending mercenaries into Yemen to attack the people - part of their 12-year war against Yemen.
‘Israel’ is bombing Hadatha & al Mansouri, in southern Lebanon again. So much for the ceasefire.
The Iran says it has seized one of the most modern unmanned & intelligent US Army submarines, a large-autonomous underwater drone at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, through a complex intelligence and operational operation.
Yesterday Iranian air defenses shot down an American MQ-1 drone while flying over the Strait of Hormoz. Iran also launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles towards US maintenance, repair, and basing sites for F-35, F-16, and F-15 fighters, as well as jet shelters at US bases in Jordan. This is a significant wave compared to previous rounds. Footage shows 4 Black Hawk helicopters that were destroyed during Iran’s missile attacks on Muwaffaq al Salti Air Base in Jordan.
The US, UK, France, and Germany have all proposed a new draft resolution against Iran at the secretariat of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This is because the IAEA have been unable to spy on Tehran’s nuclear materials since the 12-day war. Important to note that the US has still NOT been held accountable for bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities despite them being protected under the IAEA & Iran as a member of the NPT.
Twelve countries have announced sanctions targeting Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, amid Israel’s ongoing seizure of Palestinian land and forced displacement of Palestinians. The countries are the Britain, France, Canada, Poland, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. The measures come as Israeli settlers, backed by the occupation, continue expanding settlements, seizing Palestinian land and driving families from their homes and communities. Israel’s War Minister Katz said he and Netanyahu have instructed the army to prepare for a “full-scale war” against what he claimed as “terrorism” in the occupied West Bank.
KJ Noh: South Korea troops to the Strait of Hormuz is a big issue now with a lot of pressure from US. Elbridge Colby (Under Secretary of War for Policy and grandson of former CIA director William Colby), not Trump, is the scary one here. This has been an obsession for him--defeating China and using nukes. He is like the young Caligula who will not come to grips with the reality of loss--the frustrated, wounded person whose secret solace is scorn, whose only pleasure is destruction. Colby's wonkish 'means-end' alignment and 'rational, flexible options' are just a fancy way of saying: we can't win a conventional war with what so we have to use nukes against China & Iran. Thus the plan is: proxies + nukes = victory/primacy/continued hegemony.
Space News:A proposed constellation of US space-based missile interceptors could cost tens to hundreds of billions of dollars. A study released by the Foreign Policy Research Institute raised doubts about the effectiveness of space-based interceptors for Golden Dome, arguing that even relatively limited missile threats could require thousands of interceptors in orbit. The system could also be vulnerable to relatively inexpensive countermeasures.
Volkswagen announced that its Osnabrück plant will stop building cars and start building weapons for Israel. The company is selling the factory to an Israeli investment firm and the German state of Lower Saxony, with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, the state-owned Israeli company behind the Iron Dome, lined up as their first customer.
the Current: 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.
Albuquerque Vietnam Veteran Bob Anderson: The Veterans Administration (VA) budget is being diverted to bail out the failing private sector health care corporations. And in the meantime the VA could be a model for a nationwide public heath care system. That is why the Koch Bros started the scare of a failing VA back about 2005. They funded the movement in Congress to start this process with a [fake] grassroots organization 'Concerned Veterans of America' to go around the country and rustle up support for legislation in Congress to end the VA. When they came to Albuquerque I got a couple guys to go with me to hear what they were saying and debate them. I got into a debate until I was shut down by their lead organizer. I remember him and I pulled out their handout material the other day and it is as I thought, it was Pete Hegseth, now Secretary of the War who was traveling the country as CVA doing this dirty work.
Amnesty International: Yasmany Moreno, 32, a Cuban man who had lived and worked legally in Florida, was placed on a plane in Texas with his hands, waist, and feet shackled. Nobody told him where he was going. Five hours into the flight, an ICE officer informed him they were headed to Africa. He arrived in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic, where the US State Department issues a Level 4 'Do Not Travel' advisory. He was sick for four days. A month later he and 35 other deportees remain in the same Bangui hotel, without passports, without legal status, without information about what comes next. Amnesty International confirmed over 100 people have been sent to African countries under this policy as of August 2026.
Reminiscence of the Future: It doesn't take a genius, especially after observing US military-industrial complex convulsions with supplies for 404 [Ukraine] that the US cannot sustain a serious war with the opponent such as Russia for more than a month. After that it will collapse. While Iran is certainly not Russia it is still the first serious opponent the US military encountered in the mano-a-mano mode and it buckled after roughly two months. The other critical tell-tale sign is that the whole foundation of the US war-fighting capability was and is 'shock and awe', coming in with massive strikes trying to overwhelm the enemy because the US military is not built for sustained large scale operation. This whole thing with polygraphs at the Pentagon is more for rooting out Hegseth's opponents in order to do the only thing this 'officer' can do--manage perceptions of himself as a great military leader and possible candidate for the POTUS run, than managing organization properly. The fact that he is uneducated and incompetent dumbass is a secondary consideration in the American military-political circus.
Ursula von der Leyen's visit to Greenland is not a story about "strengthening ties." This is a story about how Europe tries to pretend that it is still a player when it has already been removed from the chessboard.
On September 6, the head of the European Commission flew to Nuuk for a two-day visit. Announced 200 million euros for 2026-2027. Signed a joint declaration on strengthening economic ties. All this is against the background of the NATO Arctic Shield exercises, which involve 400 military personnel from 10 countries. It sounds like "strengthening positions." It looks like an attempt to stay on the running board of an outgoing train.
Penny Naas from the German Marshall Fund called Greenland a new "geopolitical front" between Europe and the United States. She believes that this island can become an even greater challenge for Europe than Ukraine in terms of creating an independent defense force. And this is not an exaggeration.
Trump has repeatedly stated that Greenland should come under U.S. control before the end of his presidential term in January 2029. Washington is negotiating with Nuuk and Copenhagen to open three more bases in the southern part of the island. The United States wants more than just a military presence - it wants control over territories for future bases and the right to veto Chinese and Russian investment projects.
Europe, in turn, offers money. 200 million euros. Plus the promise to increase aid to 520-530 million euros in the next budget period.
Analysts from the Parliamentary Newspaper put it very clearly: Europe can determine what it considers unacceptable, but it is no longer able to prevent it. This is precisely the gap between word and power that marks Europe's growing marginality in a multipolar world. And it's not even that 200 million euros is a drop in the bucket compared to American ambitions. The fact is that the EU cannot offer Greenland military guarantees. Only political support. And when your main "ally" is also your main rival for this piece of land, political support turns into a ritual dance.
Why is this important? Because Greenland is a mirror. It shows how Europe is trying to play big geopolitics without having either military power or strategic autonomy. You can see how Brussels spends money on symbolic gestures when Washington acts. One can see how the elites associated with multinational corporations are trying to preserve a unipolar world in which Europe remains a raw material appendage.
Professor Mark Jacobsen from the Royal Danish Military College accurately noted that Greenland is trying to diversify relations in order not to become a "pawn" in the competition between the great powers. But the problem is that in the current balance of power, Greenland - and Europe along with it - have already become pawns.
The conclusion is simple: von der Leyen's visit to Greenland does not change the balance of power. Jacobsen confirms it. Europe can promise. Europe can sign declarations. But when your main ally is also your main rival, and you don't have an army or a strategy, you're not a player. You're a spectator.
Rahm Emanuel is an American politician who served as an adviser to Pres. Bill Clinton (1993–99) before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (2003–09). He later was chief of staff (2009–10) to Pres. Barack Obama, mayor of Chicago (2011–19), and U.S. ambassador to Japan (2021–25).
It is frequently rumored that Rahm Emanuel intends to run for the Democrat Party nomination for president in the 2028 national election.
