By Jude Russo, antiwar.com

So our fledgling champion of freedom in Tehran starts life at war with remnants of the old regime and previously latent threats to its territorial integrity. (States, even newborn revolutionary states, don’t seem to enjoy losing territory very much, and Iran’s humiliating 20th-century history of occupations at the hands of foreign powers has rather sharpened this sensitivity.) It will have a foreign power intervening in and possibly occupying its territory. It will be desperately poor, its infrastructure will be collapsing, and its military power will be severely degraded. This is an unenviable start to life.

Then there’s the question of aligned groups. This war has become regionalized, to put it mildly. While the Houthis, the Iraqi militias, and Hezbollah all depend on Iran for largesse to some extent, they do also have their own resources—particularly the Houthis, who directly control large portions of Yemen’s industry and infrastructure. State collapse in Iran is not going to dissolve these groups overnight.

What’s the point of this little scenario? To show that the overthrow of the ayatollahs is unlikely to be a nice, clean end to America’s little jaunt in the region. No matter how much you jabber about how “nation building” was the besetting sin of the Bush administration, it is simply true that leaving an enormous, chaotic power vacuum in the Persian Gulf will continue to constrain energy flows, which has become a thematic parameter of American policy. Any new Iranian state would require stupendous amounts of aid to establish the state capacity to sustain stability and territorial integrity; it is likely that it will require direct military support in the civil war following its ascent. The application of American military power might also be required to quell the ongoing peripheral conflicts in Yemen and Iraq. (Wouldn’t you love for the U.S. to go back into Iraq? Haven’t you been dreaming of that for the past 15 years?) Money for foreigners, even framed as investment, is not something in large supply or very good political odor in the United States at this particular moment. 

alarabyia.net

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that he would meet his Chinese counterpart He Lifeng this weekend for talks including on Iran sanctions, days before both countries’ top leaders are due to convene.

Asked about efforts to prevent Tehran’s workarounds of US sanctions amid war with Iran in the Middle East, Bessent told lawmakers that Washington’s warnings have been heard.

“We have sanctioned three banks. With China, we have had some very good private discussions, and I look forward to those continuing this weekend when I meet my Chinese counterpart Vice (Premier) He Lifeng,” Bessent told the House Financial Services Committee.

“I’m sure it will continue during President Xi’s state visit,” he added.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Washington on September 24 and meet with US President Donald Trump.

Observers have expected that Bessent and He would meet in mid-September to set the stage for Trump and Xi’s gathering.

A source familiar with discussions earlier told AFP that talks on artificial intelligence were also likely to take place, although Bessent did not elaborate Tuesday on the agenda for his weekend meeting.

Claire's Observations:  Oh, would I love to be a fly on THAT wall, when these two gentlemen are meeting!  

 I would like to politely suggest that Iranian oil is what is keeping the Chinese economy afloat, at least to some degree right now, so I am quite curious as to what Bessent's "quid pro quo" is going to be to attempt to motivate China NOT to buy Iranian oil.

My gut is telling me, that Bessent's counterpart will politely tell Bessent to "pound sand" because the problem is, the US doesn't have anything China really wants enough, to cause them to stop buying Iranian oil. 

The Justice Department said the world’s largest IT consulting firm used race and sex as hiring and promotion tools while telling federal customers it did not.

 A violent Ohio defendant turned a routine sentencing hearing into a chaotic courthouse escape attempt after breaking free from his handcuffs and attacking two law enforcement officers.

In the tiny village of Piddington in the UK, the government is trying to force the community to accept a flood of migrants against their wishes.

Charlie Kirk’s family has taken the first step towards filing a lawsuit against Utah Valley University and the State of Utah for the security failures they say left him exposed to a rooftop assassin.
 

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Wednesday that Thursday’s scheduled House votes are canceled. Lawmakers will likely wrap up votes tonight and leave Washington for a recess lasting until after the November midterms.

  Canada’s military issued a new instruction on July 29, barring chaplains from mentioning God during mandatory public events and requiring a religion-neutral “spiritual reflection” instead.

 A violent Ohio defendant turned a routine sentencing hearing into a chaotic courthouse escape attempt after breaking free from his handcuffs and attacking two law enforcement officers.

The University of Utah has just given a preview of what is to come should the Democratic party once again seize power in America.

CNN’s lone conservative Scott Jennings faced off with Obama bag man David Axelrod this week over Trump’s disagreement with the Supreme Court on mail-in ballots.

His CDU party took a sound beating at the Saxony election, with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) on the cusp of governing its first state.

Britain's regulators fined an American website $1.3 million for speech that is completely legal in the United States.

Now foreign governments from London to Brussels are lining up to do the same thing to every American platform that won't bow.

A Republican congressman just introduced a bill that turns the tables on every globalist censor coming after American speech.

This leads us to ask the obvious question — Who could have placed explosives in the World Trade Center towers? To answer that question, we should first consider who had access to the buildings, specifically the areas of the buildings that would be relevant to a demolition operation. We should also consider the time periods of interest. Those who had access at the necessary times should be further considered in terms of their ability to obtain the necessary explosive technologies and expertise, their ability to be secretive, and the possibility that they could have benefited from the destruction of the WTC buildings or from the resulting War on Terror. But one thing is certain, unless it was done by one person acting alone, it must have been a conspiracy.

Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday he is canceling planned Thursday votes and sending members home for a seven-week recess a day earlier than expected.

The decision lops another day off a pre-election legislative schedule that Johnson had already truncated by two weeks. It also allows members to avoid having to take a vote on an impeachment resolution introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) targeting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which would have hit the floor no later than Thursday under House rules.

Leadership staffers indicated in a notice to members that other votes expected Thursday, on overturning some EPA regulations, would now take place Wednesday evening.

When a semi-anonymous social media user declared that the federal government had targeted her in a bizarre entrapment scheme, the paranoid claim snowballed into a more disturbing revelation: the Pentagon appears to be breaking the law by paying conservative influencers to track, surveil, and propagandize Americans. Who else is involved in the covert scheme?

In mid-August, a conservative activist using the digital moniker “Datarepublican” quietly admitted she was employed by the Pentagon as a “special government employee.” For months, she’d been pocketing a government paycheck while intensely lobbying for President Trump’s imperialist misadventures online and tracking their most vocal critics in a digital database.

Datarepublican was identified in 2025 as Jennica Pounds, a Utah-based mother with nearly a million followers whose stated raison d’etre is “fighting communists” – a moniker she applies liberally to anyone perceptibly to the left of Barry Goldwater. 

And she’s not alone. Pounds has emerged as the face of a new wave of right-wing influencers who are being covertly employed by the US Department of War to spread pro-government propaganda. On August 29th, Washington Post reporters revealed at least three more digital activists are surreptitiously working for the Pentagon, which designates them as either special government employees (SGEs) or as what the US military calls “highly qualified experts” (HQEs).

Claire's Observations:  When any government starts supporting " attempted facticide" (i.e., attempting to "murder" the truth through information wars of this nature) that government is in really serious trouble.     

IF mid-terms happen in this country in November,  (and I am still hedging my bets on this), the current Administration is going to see its very slender (and tenuous) majorities in both the House and Senate evaporate,  because of the  way it has consistently lied to the American people, creating a world of  economic hurt for so many who never did anything to deserve it.

The NFL sold two million people on a promise for Week One.

That promise lasted right up until the first kickoff of the season.

What happened next is not what any of those fans paid for.

Ukraine war spillover into NATO 'eastern flank' members' airspace is now becoming a weekly reality, which presents added pressure and dangers which could potentially lead up to a major Russia-Western military confrontation. Lead NATO powers like Germany have of late also alleged Russian intelligence 'sabotage' campaigns involving drones near aviation hubs in central Europe.

Over the past years of war, an errant (or intentioned?) drone or missile crossing over into Poland or the Baltic states might have happened once every few months, generating significant headlines and media coverage. But now barely a week passes and NATO leadership points the finger at Russia for alleged aerial incursions.

The latest happened overnight as Lithuania's foreign minister confirmed Tuesday that NATO jets were scrambled and intercepted and destroyed a drone that entered Lithuanian airspace from neighboring Belarus.

Webmaster Addition: The last drone incursion turned out to be a false-flag by Ukraine. So I hesitate to accept this one came from Belarus.

Update(1135ET): The Houthis have released new footage which appears to confirm the earlier Saudi F-15 jet shootdown, with aircraft falling in the Marib area. The footage shows militants celebrating near the wreckage.

Below is the clip as released by Ansar Allah officials, which has since been given confirmation by some foreign and international outlets. It suggests that the Houthis have locally-made ability to down advanced aircraft, which should seriously worry Riyadh and Washington.

Diesel futures and refining spreads climbed to record highs as worsening supply disruptions in the Gulf and Russia tightened availability of the industrial fuel that powers the global economy.

Potential export restrictions, or at least extending risk, are compounding the squeeze: Moscow is reportedly considering extending its diesel export ban, while Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Tuesday he was "open to exploring" a US diesel export ban.

Nymex heating oil futures, the US benchmark for diesel, jumped 6.1% Tuesday to their highest settlement in records dating to 1986. European gasoil futures climbed 6.2% to a record in data going back to 1989. 

The squeeze was even more severe in refining spreads. The US heating oil crack, which measures the difference between fuel and crude prices, surged to $117 a barrel on Wednesday morning, the highest level in Bloomberg data going back to 2009.

Democrats aren’t even bothering to hide it anymore.

Elected officials and candidates repeatedly telegraph their scheme to pack the Supreme Court if they win Congress and the Presidency in 2026 and 2028.

Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin helped lead the January 6 hoax to try and imprison President Trump.

In an interview on MS NOW, Raskin promised Democrats would wage more lawfare against Trump if they take back Congress in November.