COLD WAR II: The Computing Arms Race of Cold War 2.0. “The late-stage Cold War arms race initiated by President Ronald Reagan against the USSR in the early 1980s was so expensive that it eventually led the Soviet Union to the edge of bankruptcy and brought down the Communist regime. Today, both the spending required and the emergent risks of the AI and computing wars threaten to make the stakes of that era feel like child’s play.”
Author Archive: Stephen Green
November 7, 2025
GOOD QUESTION: Will There Be Any Purple States in 10 Years? 5 Years?
CHRISTIAN TOTO: ‘Anti-Trump’ ‘Anniversary’ Bombs, Media Blames You-Know-Who.
The dystopian thriller follows a tight-knit family navigating a totalitarian takeover of the U.S. The film stars Diane Lane and Kyle Chandler, and it made an embarrassingly small amount over the weekend.
Think $260,000 in roughly 800 theaters/screens. Even by modern flop standards, that’s a low figure. So what happened?
The far-Left TheWrap.com pins the blame on, you guessed it, President Donald Trump.
Or just maybe Lionsgate knew they had a stinker on their hands and decided against spending tens of millions promoting it to audiences that wouldn’t have cared anyway.
NO THANK YOU: Kraft Sets Out to Ruin Thanksgiving. “Kraft Foods, one of the names that we think of when we think of mac and cheese, has decided to ruin Thanksgiving. It introduced apple pie-flavored mac and cheese.”
Don’t worry — things only get worse from there.
BUBBLES POP: OpenAI Races to Quell Concerns Over Its Finances.
Sarah Friar, OpenAI’s chief financial officer, faced widespread online pushback after she raised the prospect of government aid for the company at a Wall Street Journal technology conference on Wednesday. OpenAI has embarked on a deal spree to build computing infrastructure to power A.I. development, and Ms. Friar said the company wanted to find creative ways to finance its ambitious — and expensive — plans.
“This is where we’re looking for an ecosystem of banks, private equity, maybe even governmental, the ways governments can come to bear,” Ms. Friar said at the conference in Napa, Calif., adding that it would be “the backstop, the guarantee that allows the financing to happen.”
The last thing the AI industry needs is more money shoveled into it.
More:
Her comments set off concern amid rising unease over whether an industrywide A.I. spending frenzy can be sustained. OpenAI, Meta, Google, Microsoft and other A.I. companies are pouring billions of dollars into building data centers and related infrastructure to power the development of the technology, with some of the companies increasingly turning to creative financing deals to fund the expansions.
Critics have said many of these deals are circular chains of financing, with chipmakers, data center providers and A.I. labs trading cash and stock back and forth with no immediate promise of a return on investment. It also remains unclear if A.I. products can generate large enough revenues to justify the costs of the infrastructure boom, leading to fears of a potentially dangerous bubble.
Late Wednesday, Ms. Friar said in a LinkedIn post that using the word “backstop” had “muddied the point.”
“I was making the point that American strength in technology will come from building real industrial capacity which requires the private sector and government playing their part,” she wrote.
And the government “playing its part” wouldn’t be a backstop, how exactly?
THEY DON’T GET A CHOICE IN THE MATTER, AFTER WILLFULLY SURRENDERING THAT RIGHT ON OCT. 7 2023: Poll: 70% of Palestinians Oppose Disarming Hamas.
IT’S DIFFERENT NOW BECAUSE REASONS: Top Democrat changes his tune on eliminating filibuster under Trump compared to Biden.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., avoided answering whether he would support eliminating the filibuster, as he did under President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
Raskin was asked by CNN’s Dana Bash about President Donald Trump’s recent comments regarding several Republican losses nationwide Tuesday night and the ongoing government shutdown.
“One of the things that he has been talking about for the last couple of days more intensely is getting rid of the filibuster. That’s actually something that you wanted to do when Joe Biden was president. Things weren’t getting through the Senate. So is that an area where you agree with him?” Bash asked.
“Look, we don’t need a procedural fix at this point,” Raskin answered.
“We” only need it when the Democrats do.
STAY FROSTY:
People are talking about this exchange for a million different reasons.
But maybe the biggest practical takeaway is being overlooked:
This was a TEXTBOOK example of how to remain a non-anxious presence while in the company of anxious & manipulative behavior. pic.twitter.com/jrepHEzEqf
— Paul Anleitner (@PaulAnleitner) November 7, 2025
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Gosh, Whatever Will We Do Without Nancy Pelosi? “Despite the derision I heap upon her, I always give Pelosi the credit she deserves. In her two stints as Speaker of the House of Representatives, she was one of the most powerful people to ever hold the position. She got people to give up their careers to get Obamacare passed. After the shellacking that the Democrats took in the 2010 midterms, a lesser politician would have been kept away from party leadership forever. She clung to power so firmly that she was once again Speaker Pelosi eight years later.”
ANTISOCIAL MEDIA: Bombshell report exposes how Meta relied on scam ad profits to fund AI.
Documents showed that internally, Meta was hesitant to abruptly remove accounts, even those considered some of the “scammiest scammers,” out of concern that a drop in revenue could diminish resources needed for artificial intelligence growth.
Instead of promptly removing bad actors, Meta allowed “high value accounts” to “accrue more than 500 strikes without Meta shutting them down,” Reuters reported. The more strikes a bad actor accrued, the more Meta could charge to run ads, as Meta’s documents showed the company “penalized” scammers by charging higher ad rates. Meanwhile, Meta acknowledged in documents that its systems helped scammers target users most likely to click on their ads.
“Users who click on scam ads are likely to see more of them because of Meta’s ad-personalization system, which tries to deliver ads based on a user’s interests,” Reuters reported.
Internally, Meta estimates that users across its apps in total encounter 15 billion “high risk” scam ads a day. That’s on top of 22 billion organic scam attempts that Meta users are exposed to daily, a 2024 document showed. Last year, the company projected that about $16 billion, which represents about 10 percent of its revenue, would come from scam ads.
Delete your Facebook. I would have deleted my account years, but I haven’t been able to log in even to do that since the company demanded my phone number for the privilege.
ICYMI, IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: Kinetic Sanctions, Shadow Fleets, and the Long, Slow Bleeding of Russia.
The war on Russian oil just went global, and the question now might not be whether President Donald Trump’s new sanctions will work, but whether they’ll work fast enough to matter.
Since we first discussed Ukraine’s war on Russian energy production back in August with what some call “kinetic sanctions” on refineries, depots, and export facilities, Trump launched a new and serious round of traditional sanctions on Russia’s ability to sell crude oil and refined products.
How’s it going? As your neighbors with marital troubles say on Facebook, “It’s complicated.”
Much more at the link.
IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Congressional Perks: Congress spends on pricey airfare, lodging and private jets.
Members of Congress regularly commute between Washington, D.C., and their home districts with taxpayers paying the tab, but some choose to spend more than others – a few even charter private jets, an investigation by The Center Square found.
When it came to charter – or private airplane – travel, U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., was the top spender with nearly $63,000 paid for charter flights since 2019. U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., was second, paying $18,295 in the same time period for five flights from Executive Aircraft Leasing, LLC., data from the Members’ Representational Allowance data shows.
When it comes to overall travel expenses, the office of U.S. Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, was in the top three of both airfare and lodging for all of Congress since 2019, including some pricey reimbursements to himself – not airline or charter companies – for flights.
David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, said there have to be better controls on travel to avoid abuses.
Maybe don’t let them anywhere near DC. Couldn’t hurt.
UNDERREPORTED STORIES: Tracking China in the Americas: When Beijing Controls the Capital’s Power Grid.
November 6, 2025
IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: Kinetic Sanctions, Shadow Fleets, and the Long, Slow Bleeding of Russia.
The war on Russian oil just went global, and the question now might not be whether President Donald Trump’s new sanctions will work, but whether they’ll work fast enough to matter.
Since we first discussed Ukraine’s war on Russian energy production back in August with what some call “kinetic sanctions” on refineries, depots, and export facilities, Trump launched a new and serious round of traditional sanctions on Russia’s ability to sell crude oil and refined products.
How’s it going? As your neighbors with marital troubles say on Facebook, “It’s complicated.”
Much more at the link.
WELL, I GUESS THE DEMS ARE IN LUCK THEN: James Carville Gloats About Dem Election Victories, Says ‘Convicted Pedophile’ Could Beat GOP.
AN ACE THREAD:
After all, a political campaign consists of digging up past statements and actions of a person to try to get them fired — or at least not hired — for a job. In this case, the job of being an elected official.
— The Reaping Phase (@AceofSpadesHQ) November 6, 2025
Read the whole thing.
MAKE DC SAFE AGAIN: DC Crime-Fighting Task Force Boasts 60% Decrease in Murder After Trump Crackdown. “As a result of the task force and the emergency measures, crime in Washington is falling, with murders down more than 60%, robbery down more than 50%, carjacking down more than 70%, and violent crime down 25%, the task force announced at the briefing.”
WE GOT BEAT IN THE FIELD:
I know everyone loves Scott Presler, and he's obviously doing what he can.
But Scott Presler and a suburban are not a substitute for a real ground game.
Where is the cash-flush RNC? Where are the state parties? Where are the door knockers? Where are the call banks?
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) November 5, 2025
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Astronauts stranded in space after their capsule is struck by mystery object.
Wang Jie, Chen Zhongrui and Chen Dong, who were part of the Shenzhou-20 space mission, flew to the Tiangong space station in April.
They were expected to return yesterday after a six-month mission, and the Shenzhou-21 crew, who were sent to replace them, had already arrived on the weekend.
The China Manned Space Agency said: ‘The Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft is suspected to have been struck by a small piece of orbital debris, and assessment of the impact and associated risks is currently underway.
‘To ensure the health and safety of the astronauts and the successful completion of the mission, it has been decided that the originally planned return of Shenzhou-20 on November 5 will be postponed.’
The two crews remain on board Tiangong. A risk assessment is currently underway.
Godspeed.
THIS IS A REAL PROBLEM:
Charlie Kirk described the rise of Zohran Mamdani as a "distress signal" from Gen Z.
"Most people are missing the point of really what this is…"
"This is yet another distress signal by young people to say, 'Hey, if you're not going to fix our life economically, we're going to… pic.twitter.com/4kLDVkkVHX
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 5, 2025
More:
Palantir CEO Alex Karp on Zohran Mandani:
“The average Ivy League grad voting for this mayor is annoyed their education is not that valuable, and that the person who knows how to drill for oil has a more valuable profession”
“I think that annoys the fuck out of these people” https://t.co/uYA54AYAJN pic.twitter.com/46XmHSB1gb
— Jawwwn (@jawwwn_) November 6, 2025
AN IMPORTANT REMINDER FROM ATHENA THORNE: Chill Out, Everyone — There Was a Nearly Identical Anti-Trump Reaction in 2017.
COMMIES NEED TO BE THE ONLY ONE WITH GUNS: Mamdani May Be the Most Anti-Gun Mayor in New York City’s History. “The anti-gun media has constantly tried to stamp-out those who support the Second Amendment. Their only problem has been finding the right sources. However, once Mamdani is sworn in as Mayor, the media’s wait is over. Mamdani will become a loud national anti-gun voice.”