By Charles Hugh Smith
OfTwoMinds.com  

August 31, 2026

If there was a black market for systemic risk, we'd make a completely different set of decisions. Instead, we're each on our own, trying to peek beneath our blindfold to see a sliver of the real world.

Here in the 9th inning, the name of the game is artifice in service of the Big Con. Everywhere we turn, we're inundated with "information" designed to funnel us into passively compliant complicity, a constant flood of interventions, social engineering, gamed statistics and fake substitutions for what was once authentic: fake facsimiles, synthetic mimicries and an endless array of flimsy facades designed to hide the realities that might awaken us from our uneasy somnambulance.

The real reasons for the trip remain obscure  

By Philip Giraldi
The Unz Review  

August 31, 2026

Last Monday the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director (DCI) John Ratcliffe and his retinue boarded a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster transport plane at Joint Base Andrews airfield in Maryland, stopped presumably to refuel at the Riga airport in NATO member Latvia, and then flew on to land at Vnukovo International Airport, one of the four airports that serve the Russian capitol Moscow.

By James Anthony
Mises.org  

August 31, 2026

[The Information State, Jacob Siegel, March 24, 2026, Henry Holt and Co., 336 pages.]

Jacob Siegel visualizes that, in an information-state form of government, a republican form of government's ultimate control by voters would get replaced by the digital monopolization of voters' attention, adjustment of voters' perceptions, and conditioning of voters to see certain outcomes as inevitable.

So Why Is The Left So Silent About How They Are Being Used To Violate Our Constitutional Rights ?  

By Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse  

August 31, 2026

There is a growing national outcry to ban Flock cameras. We do not give up our constitutional rights when we get into our vehicles, and we do not want authoritarian control freaks watching us, monitoring us and tracking us everywhere that we go.

The reckless gamble with the existence of the American people and the peoples of Western Europe appears to be getting more dangerous by the day.  

By John Leake
The Focal Points  

August 31, 2026

In spring of 2008, I was living in Vienna, Austria and carefully followed the reporting on the NATO Bucharest Summit from April 2-4. For readers who don't remember this momentous occasion: it was during this summit that the NATO issued a declaration stating that Georgia and Ukraine would eventually become NATO members.

Moon of Alabama  

August 31, 2026

On Wednesday CIA Director John Ratcliffe landed in Moscow for a few hours of talk with Russian security officials. The trip was no secret as the planes transporting Ratcliffe and his entourage were readily identified.

There was no official announcement from either side about the content of the talks. U.S. media though were splattered with 'leaks' of more or less laughable details.

By Veronika Kyrylenko
The New American  

August 31, 2026

America's data center backlash may have produced an irresistible solution for the government and tech tycoons pushing the buildout.

If communities do not want the giant facilities next door, put them in space, beyond local opposition, beyond public scrutiny and, conveniently, beyond the need to guard them from angry neighbors on the ground.

By Paul Craig Roberts
PaulCraigRoberts.org  

August 31, 2026

Recently, there have been striking new developments that imply major changes in the correlation of forces. These developments have largely gone unacknowledged and their implications unexamined. I made the effort in online interviews on Dialogue Works and On Target. I will now attempt to do so in writing.

One of the developments is Iran's defeat of US President Trump's attack on Iran.

By Larry C. Johnson
Sonar21  

August 31, 2026

My friend, Karl Miller, is out with a great piece that exposes Trump's claims about Venezuelan oil as a massive case of gaslighting. I am summarizing his piece, which is titled,"Venezuela Oil: The Physical Barrel and the Capital Bill," because it is not publicly available via a link.

On 27 August 2026, President Trump announced what he called the biggest oil deal in world history - a US-Venezuela agreement giving the United States majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves, which he said would "substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans." The pitch landed with gasoline near $4.09 a gallon, about 27% higher than a year earlier and on track for the most expensive August on record, as a six-month Iran war and the Hormuz disruption kept a fifth of world supply under strain - and with the midterms two months away.

By Karen Kwiatkowski  

August 31, 2026

On the heels of the Leah File's expose of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's major skill-set, this time targeting us, we find a new 25-year "US government agreement" to take ownership of 65% of Venezuelan oil reserves, wherefrom Washington sends back to the government of Venezuela $19 from each barrel produced and sold. We don't know if the $19 is a proportional share based on barrel pricing over time, or a flat fee.

publié le 31/08/2026 Par Jack Thompson

La guerre d'Iran et le retour d'El Niño en 2026 semblent composer le scénario parfait d'une nouvelle crise alimentaire mondiale. Depuis juin, les manchettes annoncent un "Godzilla El Niño" capable de déchaîner sécheresses, inondations et famines. Mais la faim ne se lit ni dans le seul prix du baril ni sur une carte météorologique. Le climat et les marchés ne frappent jamais dans le vide.

Stefan Pieck

In der Presse, insbesondere in der Publikation Politico, sind beunruhigende Informationen aufgetaucht, wonach Bundeskanzler Merz beabsichtige, Russland für versuchte Sabotageakte mit Drohnen am Flughafen Leipzig verantwortlich zu machen. Auf dieser Grundlage wolle er nationale deutsche Sanktionen gegen Russland verhängen, um so sein Ansehen zu steigern oder sogar den Ausnahmezustand ("Notstand") im Land auszurufen.

Valerio Savioli

Le dichiarazioni agostane di Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, icona del neoprogressismo radicale statunitense, rilasciate in un'intervista con ABC News hanno generato un certo dibattito anche alle nostre latitudini, a dimostrazione dell'interdipendenza politico-ideologica, trasversale anche nello spettro "centrodestra/centrosinistra" istituzionali, che dal dopoguerra lega stabilmente le due sponde dell'Atlantico e il modo di intendere l'agire, l'intendere politico e le sue categorie.

À son apogée, l'ancien directeur de la CIA comptait parmi les voix les plus virulentes aux États-Unis en faveur d'une intervention militaire à l'étranger.

Source : Responsible Statecraft, Jim Lobe
Traduit par les lecteurs du site Les-Crises

R. James "Jim" Woolsey, fervent défenseur de la guerre en Irak et de la guerre contre le terrorisme (GWOT) ainsi que démocrate néoconservateur, s'est éteint mardi à l'âge de 84 ans.