DON SURBER: Greenlanding the news: How the media tried to turn victory into defeat. “The Atlantic piled a nice dung heap quickly.” They generally do.

YOU DO NOT DESPISE THE MEDIA ENOUGH: The $6.7 Billion DOGE Headline Is True. It Also Leaves Out Half the Story. “The $6.7 billion figure is an estimated one-time cost of removing workers from the federal payroll. OPM Director Scott Kupor has said the Deferred Resignation Program is expected to save more than $20 billion every year because those salaries disappear after the employees leave.”

ONG0ING WAVES OF MASS HYSTERIA ARE HOW DEMS MAINTAIN POWER:

This “free Palestine” movement is a social contagion. None of these people have any knowledge of the history of the conflict or the current politics of the region.

It’s just the latest thing to show off, like the trans movement or a new pair of Nikes.

— The Drunk Republican (@DrunkRepub) September 20, 2026

The United States has been leaping from one moral panic to the next: Black Lives Matter, MeToo, George Floyd, and now data centers plus the specter of AI-driven human extinction. In every case a genuine problem exists, but the threat is inflated out of all proportion and the…

— Timur Kuran (@timurkuran) September 20, 2026

Related: Neurosis and the Curley Effect.

QUESTIONS ASKED:

I can't go to a Muslim country and drink beer or wine, or eat bacon or pork BBQ; and my wife isn't allowed to walk around in shorts and a t-shirt in a Muslim-controlled country.

So why in the hell do Muslims think that they should be allowed to tell us that we should change our…

— Old Salty Marine (@BamaSaltyMarine) September 19, 2026

STANDING UP AGAINST RACISM AND DISCRIMINATION:

Here you go, @AAGDhillon: Should be an easy layup. https://t.co/ZAhgl4Oii7

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) September 20, 2026

AT AMAZON, Shop Early Prime Big Day Deals. #CommissionEarned

TO BE FAIR, THEY’RE USUALLY IN HYSTERICS ABOUT SOMETHING: Congressional Democrats in Hysterics About Saving the World From AI.

One way to react to these demands for public money, cartel-like behavior, and something approaching extortion is to haul everyone involved with these companies into police stations for questioning. But rather than stopping tech tycoons taking the law into their own hands, lawmakers have descended into hysteria, demanding that somebody “do something” to save the world. House Democrats are calling on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to cancel recess and get to legislating. A bipartisan Senate group including Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is negotiating an AI safety bill that, among other things, would pre-empt the only existing state laws on AI safety.

Lawmakers have a poor track record on panic-induced lawmaking over the past quarter-century. After the September 11 attacks they compromised American liberty with the PATRIOT Act and struck out to start an endless war with Iraq, which had nothing to do with anything. After the financial collapse they used billions in taxpayer money to bail out banks while 10 million families lost their homes. In both cases, members of Congress had minimal understanding of the capabilities they were enabling, and listened to those who had better semblances of a plan, whether in the national security or banking establishment.

A smarter way to respond to the latest disaster is to avoid codifying the preferences of the very companies who are generating the panic.

The shocker is that this piece is in The American Prospect.

Re-upping this from Sunday:

Anthropic’s CEO wants America’s AI labs to embed “independent” groups like METR inside them to enforce “alignment.”

The money trail runs through a shadowy leftist NGO same small network.

This is another battle in our war against leftist censorship NGOs.🧵 pic.twitter.com/u3GvBH3CQW

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) September 20, 2026

STACY MCCAIN:

"We are more than 150 years past the end of slavery in America, and yet Nikole Hannah-Jones is more obsessed with race than any of the Confederate leaders whose likenesses are carved upon the side of Stone Mountain."https://t.co/o5VVzogSHq pic.twitter.com/oZ07KVvqrE

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) September 20, 2026

Full post here.

BURIED LEDE: Gen3 Starlink will be SpaceX’s orbital data center before SpaceX builds its Starmind orbital data center.

Connectivity per sat will be more like 10Tb in both directions and there is a path to 100+Tb.

Each sat is 250kW and will have a SpaceX-designed Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 computer.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 20, 2026

LOL, LANE KIFFIN: Lane Kiffin’s Use of ChatGPT for Legal Advice Nearly Got LSU Kicked Out of the SEC.

#JOURNALISM:

When Biden was installed in the White House, he would almost never talk to the press, and when he attempted to – the fake news press would ask him pre-written questions, then he'd read a pre-written answer (that he didn't even write)

So spare me pretending these are real…

— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) September 20, 2026

ROBERT SPENCER: Yes, They Really Want to Destroy Us: The Startling Details of the Islamic/Leftist Coalition. “Simpson exposes the interlocking structure of tax-exempt organizations that fuel what he describes forthrightly as a Communist movement — not socialist, certainly not democratic, but full-on Communist in its desire to destroy the United States as a free society and establish in its place a totalitarian government that will, due to modern technological advances, be able to control every aspect of individual lives more than the Soviet Union or East Germany or Democratic Kampuchea ever dreamed of doing.”

STEAK AND SHAKE WEIGHS IN:

America’s corporate governance system is broken, and it’s killing public companies. Look no further than Cracker Barrel: Decades of brutal mismanagement have seen one incompetent CEO after another walk away with a massive paycheck while customers and actual shareholders take a…

— Steak 'n Shake (@SteaknShake) September 20, 2026

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

COMING SOON TO A SCREEN NEAR YOU: MORE AGE GATES, MORE ID CHECKS, LESS ANONYMITY. Europe is considering sweeping new limits on minors’ access to social media and AI. See what that means for your rights in this week’s update.

“WHEN THEY GET IN TROUBLE, THEY SEND FOR THE SONS OF BITCHES.”

And just like that, white men are back in adverts. pic.twitter.com/Md1JCCTv6u

— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) September 20, 2026

The quote is attributed to Admiral Ernest King, right after Pearl Harbor. But I predict that the necessary demographics in Europe will be slow to answer the call after the last decade.

JONATHAN LEAF: Some Graphical Explanations of Largely Unreported News: A look at what the data shows on key stories the media is not reporting.

LOL, THOMAS MASSIE: Thomas Massie Just Filed 8 Articles of Impeachment Against Pete Hegseth.

I hope some Republican House member responds by moving for a vote to expel Massie. Both are equally likely to happen.

POKER WARS: Philip Guitar Talks ‘Poker Wars,’ the Bloody Battles that led to the World Series of Poker.

My latest, over at Ed Driscoll.com. 

FASTER, PLEASE:

Doomers once again hardest hit…. https://t.co/ShB8NzALXq

— unseen1 (@unseen1_unseen) September 20, 2026

BUCKLE UP:

I will spell this out, since OSINTTechnical did not

This action should be considered a war warning.

There is no reason for Russia to do it unless they are are planning secret military movements. https://t.co/d2rnGUmWso

— Eric S. Raymond (@esrtweet) September 20, 2026

INTRODUCING THE PEOPLE ANTHROPIC WANTS IN CHARGE OF REGULATING AI ON YOUR BEHALF:

Anthropic’s CEO wants America’s AI labs to embed “independent” groups like METR inside them to enforce “alignment.”

The money trail runs through a shadowy leftist NGO same small network.

This is another battle in our war against leftist censorship NGOs.🧵 pic.twitter.com/u3GvBH3CQW

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) September 20, 2026

ANGELA MERKEL’S TENURE “REPRESENTED THE HIGH POINT OF POSTWAR EUROPEAN EXTREMISM.”

In a brilliant essay in The Sunday Times, Matthew Syed writes the following: “If extremism is defined as acting out of proportion with context, history or consent, I suggest Merkel’s tenure represented the high point of postwar European extremism.”

I agree with Syed’s analysis.… pic.twitter.com/dCE48mAcpv

— Henrik Dahl (@SociologenHD) September 20, 2026

Why, it’s as if:

CAMPUS VIOLENCE IS LOOKING LESS LEFT VS. RIGHT AND MORE MEN VS. WOMEN. FIRE’s latest data shows ideology is becoming a weaker predictor of support for violence against speakers. See the stats in this week’s update.

CRICKETS:

Turkey raided gay bars and LGBTQ groups this week and jailed activists. (BBC, Reuters, & AP.) Same-sex relations aren’t even a crime there.

HRC, GLAAD, and Stonewall have not written a word. HRC spent the week posting Senate endorsements.

A week of mass arrests. Silence.

— Peter Boghossian (@peterboghossian) September 20, 2026

If you needed more evidence that LGBTQ+ organizations are just Marxist fronts that care a lot more about the revolution than any actual LGBTQ+ person, here you go.