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Saturday, October 3, 2026

All Hands on Deck for the Midterms

by J.B. Shurk

The midterm elections are a month away, and I would like to ask a favor: Please make sure that you vote. Please encourage your friends and family to vote. We need all the help that we can get.

Perhaps you feel that voting is a useless exercise that exists to legitimize bad outcomes — a way of forcing citizens to accept responsibility for things they did not do. “You get the government you vote for,” we often hear, but that’s not exactly true. Unelected bureaucrats and judges from unaccountable agencies and Constitution-subverting courts give us a lot of government that none of us want! “If voting made a difference, it would be illegal,” the old saw goes. There’s probably a layer of truth in that hunk of ore.

But voting can make a difference! We’ve seen what a difference it can make over the last ten years!

There’s no way in Hades that the powers that be wanted President Donald J. Trump in office. Bill Kristol and all of the “conservative thought leaders” in his orbit worked to elect Hillary Clinton back in 2016. Duplicitous Mitt Romney delivered one of the most hateful anti-Trump screeds on national television that year. Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan advised fellow lawmakers not to say anything positive about Trump heading into the general election. Economists predicted that a Trump victory would send the country into a depression. Retired generals predicted that Trump would lead the country into WWIII. Political marketing firms and campaign consultants essentially blacklisted anybody who considered working for the Republican nominee. The only places you could find anything positive about his candidacy were rebellious publications such as this one!

Boy, oh boy, when Trump won, you could almost see the Deep State Establishment melting in real time. Do you remember how all the networks waited hours to call the election because none of them could stomach admitting the truth? Hillary Clinton was too busy drinking, crying, screaming, throwing things — whatever — to concede publicly until ten hours after Trump had become president-elect. Trump strolled out to celebrate victory in the early morning hours, and, with a coy little smile on his face, repeated several times, “Elections are a complicated business, folks.” For the next ten weeks, it seemed as if “The World Turned Upside Down” were playing on repeat across cable news.

The day after Trump won, Speaker Ryan was so flabbergasted by the result that he sounded like a talking squirrel hopped up on cocaine and amphetamines during every television interview: Wow! What a victory! I’m totally behind Trump! Republicans in Congress are totally behind Trump! One hundred percent! Anybody have peanuts? I need some extra protein after my P90X workout! (Spoiler alert: Ryan and his congressional RINOs were “behind Trump” only because they intended to repeatedly stab him in the back.) Hollywood actors — including most of the cast from The West Wing — produced videos encouraging members of the Electoral College to disregard the voters’ will and install Hillary in the White House. Extremely embarrassed lame duck Barack Obama — who had organized a lavish send-off for himself amid the ancient ruins of Athens a fortnight later — blamed Trump’s election on “fake news.” (That’s right! Obama used that term before Trump repurposed it for his own trademark advantage.) In the background, of course, we were beginning to see the emergence of the Obama-Clinton-Brennan-Comey-Clapper-Rice Russia Collusion Hoax in which Democrats used the CIA and FBI to frame Trump as a Russian spy in an effort to prompt his impeachment and removal from office (or what honest people call an attempted coup d’état) — an egregious crime against the American people for which none of the conspirators has been brought to justice.

Trump won in 2016 because Republican voters showed up! He won despite the fact that Hillary outspent him four-to-one. He won despite the fact that news coverage of his campaign was 100% negative, while Hillary’s coverage was nearly 100% positive. He won despite the fact that every prominent “elite” on both sides of the Atlantic openly laughed at him and spoke of Hillary’s presidency as if it were foreordained. President Trump won in 2016 for one reason: His voters went to the polls in droves.

Fast-forward to 2020, and we all know what happened. The Deep State Establishment stole the election. The election was so obviously stolen that Big Tech social media platforms censored everyone who pointed out all of the unbelievable election irregularities. President Trump won nearly every traditional bellwether county across the country by double-digits and increased his total number of votes by over eleven million. Nobody has ever done that and lost an election, but the corporate news media pushed the Establishment propaganda that perennially unpopular Joe Biden had somehow won more votes than any candidate in American history — including fifteen million more than Obama won in 2012 and four million more than Trump won in 2024!

While Dementia Joe hid in his basement during that campaign, state officials used COVID as a pretext to violate election laws and permit the dumping of mail-in-ballots lacking valid authentication into unsupervised drop boxes in battleground states. Mark Zuckerberg and other tech titans transferred hundreds of millions of dollars into the bank accounts of Democrat political operatives. There were allegations of electoral fraud across the country. Witnesses attested that unlawful ballots — including those lacking dates and signatures — were counted. Nevertheless, state and federal courts conspired with the political and media Establishments to cover up what was almost certainly the biggest electoral theft in American history.

A few months later, Time published a story admitting that “a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information” rigged the 2020 election. Of course, the writer of that public confession, Molly Ball, claimed that the conspirators “were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.”

The plan was to convince Americans that Trump was unpopular, even though he won eleven million more votes in 2020 than when he clobbered Hillary. Using lawfare and information warfare against the American people, the Establishment attempted to destroy Trump and his MAGA supporters by preposterously accusing election integrity protesters of being “insurrectionists” who were somehow trying to overthrow the government without any weapons on January 6, 2021. Fraudulently-installed pretend-President Biden oversaw an FBI and DOJ that worked to imprison MAGA voters for years and Trump for life. Paul Ryan, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Mitch McConnell, and other RINOs (including most Republicans in the Senate) tried desperately to convince voters that Trump should be condemned and forgotten. Their efforts failed.

Trump voters came out in force in 2024 and made sure that the election was too big to rig. Even though Ryan and other RINOs told us that Trump appealed only to angry white males, the president did better than any Republican since Eisenhower with almost every minority voting bloc. Trump has expanded the Republican Party more than anyone alive today.

I want President Trump to be in a position to use every hour he has left in office to advance the MAGA agenda. He is destroying globalism. He is bringing industry and manufacturing back home. He has secured the borders and dramatically reduced violent crime. He is putting America on a path to lead the world for centuries. Help him continue on his journey. Remember why we’ve been fighting for more than a decade. Surprise the Establishment — once again! — by coming out in huge numbers to support Trump for the midterms.

The Establishment has one job: to discourage you. I want you to remember how much we’ve already accomplished! We’re so close to saving this country. We need another victory. All hands on deck!

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/10/all-hands-on-deck-for-the-midterms/

'Siberian Plague-Lab Death Draws FSB Security Escort For Ambulances'

A possible plague case in Siberia has triggered a major containment effort after the death of a 28-year-old employee of an anti-plague laboratory. A hospital wing is under quarantine, nearly 200 people are reportedly under observation, and Russia's chief sanitary official has flown in. Local outlets say FSB units have been escorting ambulances carrying the woman's contacts for examination.

The authorities are clearly taking the threat seriously - but getting a straight answer out of the feds is another matter. Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev is still calling it a "particularly dangerous infection," while assuring residents that every identified contact is symptom-free and testing negative.

The dead lab worker has been identified as Daria Shipilova, a laboratory assistant at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, according to Lyudi Baikala and REN TV. She was admitted to hospital in Shelekhov with severe pneumonia, placed on a ventilator, and died. Reports differ slightly on the timeline: The Moscow Times gives a September 29 admission and a Thursday death (48 hours), while Lyudi Baikala says she spent three days in hospital.

According to The Moscow Times, Shipilova told medical staff she had accidentally broken a tube containing live bacteria while collecting samples. Lyudi Baikala, citing journalist Pavel Stepanov and the Telegram channel Mash, placed the alleged accident on September 25 and linked it to plague bacteria. Those reports describe the illness as pneumonic plague, although neither that diagnosis nor the laboratory accident has been publicly confirmed by investigators. IRK.ru reported that doctors initially suspected severe COVID and sent her to the hospital's COVID center.

By the evening of October 1, security and administrative officials were meeting in Irkutsk. Lyudi Baikala, citing a source close to law enforcement, reported that FSB units began accompanying ambulances transporting Shipilova's contacts for examination that day. The Insider carried the same account, while residents reported seeing people in protective suits on the streets. The FSB has not confirmed the escorts.

Shelekhov district head Maxim Modin confirmed that the hospital's inpatient department was under quarantine; the outpatient clinic remained open. Kobzev said the sanitary-epidemiological commission had convened on October 2 over a suspected "particularly dangerous infection." Anna Popova, who heads Rospotrebnadzor, the federal agency that runs Russia's disease surveillance and owns the anti-plague institutes, traveled to attend. The governor told TASS it was premature to identify the disease and made no mention of a death. Irkutsk also postponed a city cleanup day scheduled for October 3.

The reported contact numbers suggest how widely authorities are casting the net. REN TV and Izvestia put the total at roughly 197, with 189 hospitalized for observation: 114 in one facility, 63 in another, and 12 at the anti-plague institute. Eight remained outside hospital, and some accounts said the list was still growing. No secondary infection has been confirmed. Kobzev's October 2 statement said the contacts had no symptoms and negative tests, although some media reports claimed several people under observation had developed symptoms.

First Official Use Of 'Plague'

The leader of Buryatia (the next region over from the lab), Alexey Tsydenov, wrote that the woman who died of plague in Irkutsk region had not visited his republic. Citing Rospotrebnadzor and his government, he also said Buryatia had no plague foci, including along the Mongolian border. But even that acknowledgment became less definite: Meduza reported that he later edited the post to say she "may have died of plague." He did not identify the pneumonic form.

Meanwhile, competing accounts sent Shipilova to Thailand or Buryatia before she fell ill. Tsydenov denied the Buryatia visit. Gennady Onishchenko, who ran Rospotrebnadzor until 2013, questioned whether plague was involved at all, pointing to dormant rodents and fleas and snow already falling in Buryatia. That argument addresses a possible wildlife exposure; it does not resolve the allegation that she broke a tube of bacteria at work.

Izvestia and the Telegram channel Ostorozhno Novosti both report that investigators have opened a criminal case under Article 236, which covers sanitary violations that cause death by negligence. Nobody has confirmed it on the record. That charge only makes sense if somebody broke a rule at work.

By Saturday, some of the public information was disappearing. Baikalsk's administration posted a notice urging residents to limit travel to Shelekhov and nearby settlements, citing "unofficial information" about a plague case. Roughly two hours later, the notice was gone. REN TV also deleted five Telegram posts about the Shelekhov hospitalization figures.

Kobzev's Saturday post concerned an inspection by Roszdravnadzor, the healthcare-quality regulator rather than the epidemiological service, and did not address the infection. Comments asking why there was still no official statement went unanswered. Meanwhile, Lyudi Baikala reported that pharmacies in Irkutsk and Shelekhov had sold out of antibiotics.

The institute where Shipilova worked was founded in 1934 to fight plague and still leads plague surveillance for the region, alongside cholera, anthrax and tularemia. It is one of five such institutes nationally and the only one covering Siberia and the Far East. Natural plague foci remain in parts of southern Siberia, including Tuva, Altai and Transbaikal. Russia's last widely reported human case involved a child in the Altai Republic in 2016 and was linked to marmots.

The negative tests are welcome news, and the reports so far do not establish a spreading outbreak. But a young laboratory worker is dead, a hospital wing is quarantined, and almost 200 contacts have reportedly been identified. "Particularly dangerous infection" is a description of the stakes. It still isn't an explanation of what happened.

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/siberian-plague-lab-death-draws-fsb-escort-ambulances

'UAE to release Iranian prisoners, Iranian state media says'

A number of Iranian prisoners held in the United Arab Emirates will be released and returned to Iran, Iranian state media reported Saturday.

The report said the releases followed efforts by an Iranian diplomatic and security delegation.

It did not say how many prisoners would be freed, identify them or provide details about why they had been detained.

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202610033365

Saudi-led coalition said to strike Yemen's capital

The Saudi Arabian-led coalition has targeted Yemen's capital, Sanaa, the Houthi-affiliated Saba News Agency reported.

The outlet also alleged that the coalition launched missile strikes on the Sahar district in the northwestern Sa'dah Governorate. The district has often been cited as Yemen's food basket.

Previously, in response to Saudi Arabia's recent attacks, the Houthis claimed they targeted Saudi Aramco facilities in Riyadh.

https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Saudi-led-coalition-said-to-strike-Yemen's-capital/67228514

Iran’s terrifying new terror tactic may be turning airline pilots into 9/11-style attackers: former IDF colonel

The hijacking of the Dubai airliner carrying Israeli passengers might be the beginning of a horrifying new terrorist tactic of recruiting and radicalizing real pilots to do 9/11-style attacks, a former IDF colonel and veteran intelligence officer warns.

“An individual doesn’t get the idea on his own to crash a plane full of people including himself. Somebody told him that if you do that you get your 72 virgins,” Miri Eisin, now an Israeli government spokesman, told The Post.

“If you think back to past plane hijackings, including 9/11, the hijacker was never the pilot of the plane. . . . This could be a new kind of suicide bomber,” she said.

Eisin, who served in the Israel Defense Forces as an intelligence officer for over 20 years, said she immediately suspected Iran’s hand in the near-tragic FlyDubai hijacking — though she was careful to stress she has no direct evidence and that the investigation is ongoing.

President Trump has also suggested Iran might have been involved, but did not elaborate.

The pilot has been identified by The Wall Street Journal as an Omani national named Hamam al-Hammami. He had previously been banned from flying by Oman due to suspicions he had become radicalized, according to the publication.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the attacker had been subject to “Islamic radicalization.”

“This to me is very much something that could have come from Hezbollah or the IRGC Quds Force, this is the kind of things that they think of,” she said.

Eisin said that Iran, if responsible for the attack, may be trying to unleash a new kind of suicide bomber by infiltrating airlines with radicalized pilots who could launch an attack at any time.

Eisin said a pilot’s professional training would not make him immune to extremist indoctrination.

“Just because someone’s a pilot doesn’t mean they can’t be radicalized, people from all walks of life could be radicalized. [Syrian dictator] Bashar al-Assad was a doctor, Josef Mengele was a doctor,” she said.

“And if you kill Israelis, the whole world applauds you,” she added.

Oded Ailam, a former deputy head of global operations for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, said recruiting a commercial pilot to deliberately crash a plane would require a far more elaborate process than persuading a young suicide bomber to carry out an attack.

“Recruiting and convincing a pilot to do something like that, it’s not the same as telling a 15-year-old to strap on a bomb and walk into a promenade and explode himself. This is a very sophisticated and long operation,” he said.

Ailam, who is now a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, said that it’s likely that Iran was able to radicalize the pilot passively without formally recruiting him via its vast array of anti-Israel propaganda online and in other venues.

Ailam said that the prospect of lone wolf extremists could pose an even more dangerous threat to air travel than organized terror cells that could be identified and disrupted.

“Terror combined with mental disturbances in the pilot, when you combine it together the outcome is horrific. There are a lot of people who are being radicalized who are airline pilots,” he said.

Ailam said the flydubai attack will likely lead governments to rethink their post-9/11 security measures, and he predicts airlines will soon have to install technology that lets crew access the cockpit in the case of a copycat attack.

“It’s impossible to screen every pilot, the answer will have to be technological,” he said.

https://nypost.com/2026/10/03/world-news/irans-terrifying-new-terror-tactic-may-be-turning-airline-pilots-into-9-11-style-attackers-former-idf-colonel-warns/

Madrid housing protests fuel speculation over Spanish election

Thousands of people took to the streets of Madrid on Saturday, joining nationwide protests over housing costs that could increase pressure on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call a snap election.

The demonstrations were sparked by last week’s eviction of an 87-year-old disabled woman, underlining that housing is top concern for many Spaniards. On Friday, parliament rejected the government’s emergency housing package, which could prompt Sanchez to bring forward elections due for next year.

The protesters, which set off from different parts of the Spanish capital, headed toward Plaza de Cibeles, a landmark square and traffic junction in central Madrid. The demonstration was organized by the Tenants’ Union, who also called for marches across more than 50 cities throughout the weekend.

The protesters in Madrid chanted: “What’s going on? We don’t have a home!” and, at intervals, raised their arms and shook their house keys, producing a ripple of metallic jangle through the crowd. Signs called for a general strike and rent controls.

“I rent, and if I want to move, which I’d like to do, I can’t, because prices are exorbitant,” said Nuria López, a senior compliance officer at a large company, who said 40% of her wages go on rent. “And if I want to buy a home, I can’t do that either, because I don’t have the money for a down payment.”

Spain’s housing crisis has deepened over the years, consuming an increasing share of incomes and fueling public anger. While the problem exists in many countries, Spain’s youth and low-income workers have been particularly hard hit with rents and house prices far outpacing wages. More than two-thirds of adults under 34 live with their parents.

“I arrived in Madrid as a student and am now here as a worker; I’ve gone from having my parents pay my entire rent to still needing their help, even with a full-time job,” said Alejandro Garcia, 27. The one-bedroom flat he shares with his boyfriend costs €990 ($1,114) a month, representing a large chunk of their wages.

In the second quarter of 2026, Spanish house prices increased 12% from a year earlier, more than twice the European Union average. Spain has also built far fewer houses than other high-income countries over the last decade, and faces a shortage of about 750,000 homes according to the Bank of Spain.

Eldiario.es, a news website, reported that Sánchez will decide over the weekend whether to call an election, with Nov. 29 as a tentative date — legally, he has until July 2027 to call the election. Housing is a particularly sensitive issue for the left and could help mobilize its voters.

Belén Barrera, a university researcher, said she has little hope that the government passes effective measures.

“We cannot trust public institutions right now,” she said. “It’s a situation where the last straw has been reached.”

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/madrid-housing-protests-fuel-speculation-over-spanish-election

Retinal Neurodegeneration May Begin Before Prediabetes A1c Threshold

Retinal neurodegeneration may begin at A1c levels below the threshold currently used to define prediabetes, according to an analysis of more than 32,000 participants from the UK Biobank.

Investigators identified a turning point at approximately an A1c of 5.4 in the relationship between A1c and ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer (GCL-IPL) thickness, below both the 5.7 threshold used to define prediabetes and the 6.5 diagnostic threshold for diabetes. For total macular thickness, the estimated turning point was even lower, at approximately 5.3.

"This means that neuronal loss — and this is important — is taking place before current diagnostic criteria of diabetes," study lead Rafael Simó, MD, PhD, of the Diabetes and Metabolism Research Unit, Vall d'Hebron Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain, said in presenting the findings at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) 2026 Annual Meeting.

To put the magnitude of the study findings into context, participants with diabetes had an approximately 1-µm reduction in GCL-IPL thickness compared with those with normal glucose levels, equivalent to about 6.5 years of physiological age-related retinal thinning. Among participants with prediabetes, total macular thickness was reduced by approximately 1.5 µm, comparable to at least 4 years of age-related retinal thinning.

Searching for an A1c Retinal Turning Point

The diagnosis of prediabetes and diabetes is based on glycemic thresholds associated with the development of microvascular disease. However, diabetic retinopathy is increasingly understood as a complex neurovascular disease, with neurodegeneration occurring early in its development, explained Simó.

There is "robust evidence," he said, that "the thinning of specific neuronal retinal layers can occur before overt microvascular abnormalities are detectable by ophthalmoscopic examination." If this is the case, "why do we have to wait until microvascular damage exists?" he asked.

Simó and colleagues therefore investigated whether retinal neurodegeneration might begin at A1c levels below current diagnostic cut offs, and if so, if they could identify an A1c threshold associated with the thinning of neuroretinal layers.

The analysis included 32,581 UK Biobank participants without a previous diagnosis of diabetes. Individuals with ocular diseases that could affect retinal thickness and neurodegenerative diseases were excluded. Retinal thickness was assessed using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT).

The researchers used restricted cubic spline analysis to examine nonlinear relationships between A1c and retinal thickness, with changes in slope evaluated using the Davies test. Analyses were adjusted for age, sex, mean arterial blood pressure, waist circumference, ethnicity, smoking status, and alcohol consumption. A sensitivity analysis was conducted in 20,380 participants with retinal data segmented according to the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study system.

Retinal Thinning Before Prediabetes

The relationship between A1c and retinal thickness was nonlinear. In the GCL-IPL, retinal thickness initially increased slightly before reaching a turning point at an A1c of approximately 5.4, after which progressive thinning was observed as A1c increased. A similar pattern was observed across the neuronal retinal layers, whereas the retinal pigment epithelium behaved differently.

When total macular thickness was used as an integrated measure of all neuronal retinal layers, significant differences were seen not only between people with prediabetes and diabetes, but also between those with prediabetes and normal glucose levels. The estimated turning point for total macular thickness was at an A1c of approximately 5.3.

The findings support the concept that neural retinal changes can precede the vascular abnormalities traditionally associated with diabetic retinopathy.

"Our data extend and reinforce the concept that neurodegeneration is an early event in diabetic retinopathy," said Simó, adding that, overall, these findings "suggest that current diagnosis of diabetes based on A1c levels might need to be revisited."

What Might Drive the Changes?

The observational analysis could not establish that A1c levels around the identified turning points caused retinal neurodegeneration, nor do the turning points represent clinical thresholds at which an individual patient develops retinopathy, the researchers pointed out.

Further longitudinal research will be needed to determine whether retinal thinning at these lower A1c levels predicts subsequent diabetic retinopathy or diabetes and whether OCT-derived retinal measures could ultimately have a role in identifying individuals at increased metabolic or ocular risk.

Simó also emphasized that the study was not designed to establish the mechanism underlying the association. However, he highlighted insulin resistance as one potential contributor.

Previous experimental evidence suggests that intraocular insulin resistance could contribute to retinal neurodegeneration, he explained. Retinal neurons express insulin receptors, and impaired insulin signaling could affect neuronal survival. Simó also mentioned evidence linking systemic insulin resistance with thinning of neuronal retinal layers.

All this points "to insulin resistance as the most important element accounting for these findings," he said.

Could Earlier Intervention Help?

Commenting on the findings, session moderator Lena Thorn, MD, PhD, noted that the early appearance of neuroretinal thinning raised the question of whether earlier intervention could alter its course.

"You show that neuroretinal thinning occurs quite early in the disease process but is there any evidence that interventions at an earlier phase can slow down the thinning of the retina?" she asked.

Simó said there was evidence from experimental studies, but when Thorn asked specifically whether this had been demonstrated in humans, he replied with a no.

Simó disclosed relationships with Novo Nordisk, Abbott, Dexcom, Bayer, AstraZeneca, Menarini, and D-Sight. Thorn has declared no relevant disclosures.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/retinal-neurodegeneration-may-begin-before-prediabetes-a1c-2026a10010xe

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Saturday, October 3, 2026

First Official Use Of 'Plague'

Retinal Thinning Before Prediabetes

What Might Drive the Changes?

Could Earlier Intervention Help?