Obama & The 'Sinister Shadowland' Behind Our Politics?

 by James Howard Kunstler via kunstler.com,

The Ripening

"Everybody's restless and they got no place to go / Someone's always trying to tell them something they already know / So their anger and resentment flow."

- Warren Zevon, Mohammed's Radio

In the stark October light, events and personalities skulk in the shadows like scavengers in an orchard of poison fruit. The dread builds as the dooryards get populated with the motorized effigies of blood-beasts, werewolves, phantoms, and ghouls. Halloween and Election Day have become the conflated celebration of a national death trip. How has it come down to our country, in a crucial election, seriously entertaining the antics of jihadis and Jacobin riffraff?

Some somebodies are orchestrating this frightful show from the sinister shadowland behind our politics. My guess would be Barack Obama and John Brennan, with a whole lot of help from a supporting cast of entrenched Deep State racketeers enlisted in their service, with their status and livelihoods at stake. Mr. Obama acts as if he is untouchable, probably due to being the personification of Liberalism's "Best Camper" trophy it gave itself to validate the Civil Rights struggle session of the century gone by. We are good people, we really are, and President Obama is proof positive of our goodness!

The truth is, we know next to nothing about his real origins and his journey to power. His family on his mother's side was pure CIA-connected, and his actual father is rumored to be Frank Marshall Davis (1905-1987), a Black American poet, journalist, and labor activist who was a member of the Communist Party USA - not the Kenyan Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. He went from nonentity to myth with no intervening storyline that makes any sense, just a set of rapid promotions with missing events between them: Occidental College in LA to Columbia U to Harvard Law to Chicago politics to Illinois State Senate, straight to the US Senate, and then, bang, into the White House only four years into his first Senate term.

At every stage along the way he was somebody's chore boy. But whose? My guess would be US Central Intelligence. . . that he was groomed to be the untouchable front man looking out for the agency's interests in dicey times. His quick political rise coincided with the rise of John Brennan through the ranks of the CIA. Early on, Brennan was drawn to Arabic culture, sojourned in Egypt as a student, and later served as the CIA's station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He speaks Arabic fluently and is rumored to have converted to Islam (from Catholicism), though it has never been proven. At a 2010 New York University forum, he praised "the goodness and beauty of Islam."

The CIA, I would suppose, is composed of two great clans: one is made of the employees actually carrying out real intel-gathering and analysis. The other is of employees (current and former) looking out for the CIA's own black op activities and the immense fortunes connected with it - with plenty of overlap between the two clans. I'd guess that John Brennan, who was CIA Director between 2013 and 2017 (under President Obama), still runs a large rogue contingent of the CIA clan that does the black ops, sits on a large fortune, and acts like a sovereign organism outside the control of the elected US government.

That would explain why no one has been held accountable for the ten-year-long coup against Donald Trump. Brennan, and the forces he represents, appear to be outside the control of the regular government, including the DOJ and FBI, and to some extent able to control people throughout government by subterfuge, intimidation, and blackmail. All that nearly came apart during Donald Trump's first term with the bungled RussiaGate caper followed by the bungled Impeachment No. 1 operation. But Brennan's dark CIA clan triumphed with the 2020 election "victory" of non compos mentis "Joe Biden," followed by the successful Jan 6, 2021, fake "insurrection" at the US Capitol.

They stumbled badly again with the patently ridiculous court cases against former President Trump in 2023 and 2024. And now here we are in the middle of Mr. Trump's second term, with a titanic struggle going on, largely out of public view, for the soul of the nation. John Brennan is still at large, but a month ago he was served with a subpoena to appear before a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida. It looks like he will finally have to do some 'splainin' about events he's been involved with. You can be sure that President Trump means to see that it happens - whatever was signified by the departure of Joe diGenova last month.

It's also my guess that former President Obama has become John Brennan's hostage. He was probably assigned to run "Joe Biden's" fake presidency using Susan Rice and other party functionaries to carry out orders. Brennan surely has a dossier on Barack Obama that fills in the blanks in his sketchy biography, including Mr. Obama's secret sexual activities on the Chicago scene back in the day. Meanwhile, the former president has his electioneering duties to attend to, to try to flip the House and Senate so as to have one last go at defenestrating the man in the White House who threatens to put Brennan, Obama & Company out of business.

So, there's a war on backstage. The war itself has been mythologized by those actually paying attention to it, sometimes as the contest between "Globalists" and "Sovereigntists" or "Black Hats" versus "White Hats" or the Legions of Satan versus the God-loving followers of Jesus. . . Jihad v. Western Civ. However you characterize it, everyone feels the tension as though the current phase of this Fourth Turning is an unbearable space between the life and death of the nation. Hence, all the ghouls in the dooryards, reminding us to stay. . . very. . . scared.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/obama-sinister-shadowland-behind-our-politics

'Flat Butt. No Friends. Bad Father': Amazon's Creepy 'About You' Dossiers Go Viral

 Amazon's "About You" page, which lists traits the company has inferred about each customer, went viral this week after a Threads user posted that Amazon concluded she has a flat ass.

Other shoppers began posting their own profiles, with entries such as "cannot keep real plants alive" and "has no friends."

I stumbled upon a page of assumptions that Amazon has made about me based on my purchases and I'm literally speechless. I mean it ain't wrong but damn did you have to call me out like that?

- Megan Montgomery (@fangirlinmegan), on Threads

Most of Montgomery's list was harmless: she owns a Kindle Paperwhite, probably has a Shark robot vacuum and had shopped for a Bluey-themed second birthday. Then, under Product Preferences, Amazon had written "has flat buttocks." Her best guess at the culprit was a pair of butt-scrunch leggings.

The outlet Dexerto's post about it drew millions more views, and shoppers went digging for their own pages - with answers ranging from mundane to brutal. One woman's profile pegged her as a "fifty-year-old man," another said its owner hadn't worn a size medium in years, and a third correctly guessed that she reads Kindle books on her phone in the shower, Futurism reported. Newsweek found users tagged "cat mom" and "Has a bad father."

Other lines shoppers posted from their own pages:

• "Treats cats as biological children" and "constantly repurchased cat hairball treatment"
• "Does not trust people easily" and "cusses when scared"
• "Likes brunettes with muscles" and "husband has skinny legs"
• "Is not a big SpongeBob fan"
• "Finds it hilarious when toys get stuck to ceiling tiles in the classroom"
• "Is interested in world domination" and "likes cheeseburgers"
• "Has never known anyone who lost a leg in an accident"
• "Is too short to reach into a 40-inch deep box" (@rosewrecker, paired with "cannot keep real plants alive")
• "Finds Charlotte annoying and mean"

Tried those leggings hoping to have a butt. My ass looked like an empty scrotum.

- Reply on Threads, after Montgomery's post

"Has a baby" is certainly news to me!

- Reddit user, after checking their page

"Prefers performance athletic socks"... god I'm so boring.

- Reddit user

"Systematically expanding tool collection." What does that even mean? Oh... yeah, I do need another 10mm socket.

- Reddit user

Amazon is just like my SIL who has known me for 30 years but all she knows about me is that I like cats.

- @greywinthrop, on X, October 7

Amazon launched the page on May 13 and says it draws on purchase history, searches, saved lists, product reviews and conversations with its Alexa for Shopping assistant. At launch the company said understanding preferences "is fundamental to providing you with high-quality, relevant recommendations." Shoppers can also ask Alexa for Shopping, "What do you know about me?"

When Business Insider staffers - who are douchebags (to be clear) - checked their own pages, one listed the wrong partner for an editor, while interim corporate editor Thomas Gryta found Amazon had decided he "really likes beef jerky," which he wrote "feels like a judgy accusation from a nutritionist." Deputy editor Paul Squire said a shared household account had scrambled his file, though it did correctly note a cat and a MacBook (shocker!).

Amazon told Business Insider the profiles draw only on activity across its own services, with no third-party data. Asked about the social-media reaction, Amazon declined to comment.

Gupta also noted that every correction a shopper makes hands Amazon labeled training data, straight from the one person who knows the right answer. He called it "the cheapest data-cleaning operation Amazon has ever run."

Amazon pitches About You as a recommendations tool, and its launch post never mentions advertising. But the same kind of profiling runs its ad business. Amazon told EU regulators in March that its ad models can infer a customer's gender from shopping and search patterns. The filing, made under the Digital Markets Act, also describes "lookalike" audiences built to predict which shoppers likely own a luxury vehicle.

Amazon says it keeps the personal data behind those ad profiles "for as long as it is required in order to fulfil the advertising purposes." In Europe, interest-based ads require consent, which users can withdraw. Amazon's ad business brought in $68 billion last year, making it the third-largest digital ad platform behind Google and Meta, as we reported when the FTC moved to sue the company for allegedly inflating what advertisers paid in its ad auctions.

Amazon's handling of customer data has drawn scrutiny before. In 2023 the company paid $25 million to settle FTC charges that it kept children's Alexa voice recordings indefinitely and sometimes failed to honor parents' deletion requests, and $5.8 million over claims that Ring employees had unrestricted access to customers' home camera videos. Amazon denied violating the law.

Alexa conversations are now one of the inputs to About You. In March 2025, Amazon ended a setting that let some Echo owners keep their voice recordings from being sent to its cloud, telling users "we have decided to no longer support this feature" as it expanded Alexa's generative AI features.

Shoppers can see their page in the app under Account, Shopping preferences, About You, or on desktop under "Your Shopping preferences" in the account menu. Entries can be edited or removed individually, which does not erase the underlying data Amazon holds. There is no switch to turn the page off.

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/flat-butt-no-friends-bad-father-amazons-creepy-about-you-dossiers-go-viral

Russian Plague Institute Long Worked With China

 by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times,

The Russian anti-plague research institute, where a lab worker recently succumbed to an unknown form of pneumonia, has worked for many years with various Chinese institutions.

A view of the entrance to the grounds of the anti-plague institute in the city of Irkutsk, Russia, on Oct. 6, 2026. AFP via Getty Images

The Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East has come under scrutiny after initial local reports, based on anonymous sources, alleged that the researcher may have been infected with pneumonic plague during a lab accident.

Russian authorities denied the reports, saying that their investigation showed no connection to the woman's job and no spread of any virus that may have caused her death, which they attributed to pneumonia of unknown etiology.

The institute, located in Siberia about 150 miles from the Russia-Mongolia border, has long cooperated with Chinese infectious disease researchers and authorities. In August, its director, Sergey Balakhonov, gave a speech at the 2026 China-Russia joint emergency drill for cross-border infectious disease outbreaks in Fuyuan, China, at the China-Russia border.

China's People's Liberation Army Northern Theater Command Disease Control Center took part in the drill, Chinese state-run media reported.

The event followed the first joint Russian-Chinese exercises on responding to infectious disease threats, held in Khabarovsk, Russia, in June.

Later in October, the institute will also host Chinese delegates at a conference titled "Modern Challenges in Sanitary Protection of Territories Against the Importation and Spread of Plague and Other Dangerous Infectious Diseases." A similar conference was held in 2024.

In 2017, Balakhonov, his chief researcher D.B. Verzhutsky, and other staff participated in talks in Beijing on Russian-Chinese cooperation in controlling plague and other infections. Li Xinshi, then-president of the Chinese Academy of Inspection and Quarantine, represented the Chinese side during discussions, according to the institute's website.

In 2014, Balakhonov also gave presentations at a conference in Harbin, China, on Russian-Chinese exchanges regarding sanitation and quarantine.

In recent years, Russia and China "have built increasingly institutionalized mechanisms for biological security, pathogen research, and epidemic early warning," states an Oct. 6 report by The Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think tank.

"The resulting system is ambiguously civilian and military and is spreading beyond the bilateral relationship," it states.

The report notes that "Russian authorities have mounted an unusually large containment operation" since the death of the researcher, 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, "while issuing shifting accounts" of what happened.

"[The incident] has exposed an unusual gap between extensive bilateral preparedness and public communication," it states, noting that Beijing issued no public health warning or travel advisory.

"Beijing's silence is particularly incongruous because the incident occurred during the late summer and early autumn plague surveillance season along [China's] northern border, when disease control authorities routinely intensify monitoring of rodent populations and vectors, alongside health screening of incoming passengers."

On Sept. 29, the day Shipilova was hospitalized, the 26th China-Russia Health Cooperation Subcommittee held a videoconference with the Chinese National Disease Control and Prevention Administration to talk about infectious disease prevention and disaster medicine.

China-Russia cooperation in the infectious disease and biosecurity domain stems directly from comments by Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who in a 2021 statement "called for expanded cooperation on infectious disease early warning and response, pharmaceuticals, diagnostic reagents, and vaccines," the report states.

They issued a joint statement that included similar commitments in 2024.

The militaries of both countries have been cooperating in the biosecurity domain, including through joint drills, talks, and supply provisions, according to the report.

U.S. government officials have expressed concern over the incident and asked for more transparency.

"I think it's incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world. That's what they should do," U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Oct. 6.

U.S. President Donald Trump has offered help to Russia in response to the situation surrounding the lab worker's death.

"Anybody that has that kind of a problem, we're always willing to help," Trump told reporters on Oct. 5.

Plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, occurs naturally in rodents in the far eastern Siberian region. Pneumonic plague is a particularly virulent form of the disease that can spread from person to person and leads to death within days unless rapidly treated with antibiotics.

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/russian-plague-institute-long-worked-china

SpaceX wins concessions for internet in Venezuela

 Venezuela's National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel) announced in a statement on Friday that, as part of the country's "policies to democratize access to technology and guarantee the right to communication for Venezuelans," it decided to grant Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) "general concessions" for satellite internet.

"With this measure, adopted in an ordinary session of the Board of Directors, the provision of the Starlink brand satellite internet service is legally authorized throughout the national territory, for a formal operation with domicile and oversight in the country ... With this award, Conatel reaffirms its commitment to the regulation of the radio spectrum, the promotion of new technologies and the digital inclusion of the Venezuelan population," it was written in the statement.

https://breakingthenews.net/Article/SpaceX-wins-concessions-for-internet-in-Venezuela/67269737

NASA seeks industry plans for next-gen space stations

 NASA announced Friday that it is inviting industry proposals for the development of the next generation of commercial space stations.

"In alignment with the President's National Space Policy, NASA is committed to maintaining a sustained American presence in low Earth orbit long after the International Space Station retires," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman stated. Proposals should be submitted by December 8, with NASA expected to award contracts in spring 2027.

NASA has outlined requirements for companies seeking to develop, build, test, certify, and operate commercial destinations in low Earth orbit, including the destination and transportation services needed to support human spaceflight. The International Space Station is scheduled to retire and be deorbited in 2030.

https://breakingthenews.net/Article/NASA-seeks-industry-plans-for-next-gen-space-stations/67269990

IDF targets Syrian man plotting attacks on Israel

 The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Friday that it carried out an airstrike along the Syrian-Lebanese border targeting Yosef Ali al-Hassan, a Syrian national who was allegedly plotting attacks against Israel.

The military described Al-Hassan as "a Syrian terrorist who advanced terror plots against Israeli civilians and IDF forces operating in southern Syria, under the direction of the Iranian terror regime," claiming that several attacks attempted by him in the past year were foiled. However, it did not specify whether the individual targeted was killed in the strike.

Syrian authorities have repeatedly claimed arrests of Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters in its territory, although the Lebanon-based group has always denied that its fighters operate in Syria.

https://breakingthenews.net/Article/IDF-targets-Syrian-man-plotting-attacks-on-Israel/67269897

US up at close amid US-Russia deal

 Major stock exchanges on Wall Street traded higher at the close on Friday as the United States and Russia struck an agreement on diesel that would help lower energy prices. Over in business, SpaceX recently announced a major spectrum deal, prompting optimism about the company's future potential value.

The Dow Jones soared 0.83% or 423 points at the closing bell, as Amazon grew 3.29%. The Nasdaq 100 added 0.51% at 4:00 pm ET, with Moderna surging 14.21%. The S&P 500 grew 0.59% at the end of the session, as Crown Castle popped 15.60%.

The euro traded 0.10% below the dollar at 3:59 pm ET, going for 1.12000.

https://breakingthenews.net/Article/US-up-at-close-amid-US-Russia-deal/67270108