'This is how France will be hanged'

 

There are two ways to die by hanging: asphyxiation or a broken neck. This morbid distinction can be applied to financial markets, and more precisely to the debt issued by the French Treasury.

For now, it is asphyxiation that is being discussed. The alarm is sounding almost everywhere. The yield on France's 10-year OAT Treasury bond is approaching 5%, against 0% GDP growth, while debt service represents the largest spending item in a budget whose deficit continues to widen. Bercy has already had to borrow €90 billion since the beginning of the year to fill a hole that no one expects to see plugged anytime soon. Under these conditions, it is France's public finances that are being asphyxiated, with room for maneuver more than limited, as the draft budget bill demonstrates.

Is the country therefore in danger, as Greece and Italy were during the euro crisis? Not really. During its famous debt auctions, Bercy continues to find buyers and "place the paper" without difficulty. It is true that a yield of around 5%, with inflation at 3%, is objectively a good deal.

Unless. Unless the issuer, in this case the French state, can no longer repay. Or organizes its own default, as the Directory did in 1797 by canceling two-thirds of the public debt of a country bled dry by the Revolution. A measure that makes Jean-Luc Mélenchon look moderate, since the leader of La France Insoumise is proposing to "throw into the fire" less than 20% of the debt, which still amounts to more than €600 billion. But this scenario, which would mean ignoring the treaties and effectively blowing up the euro zone, would indeed amount to hanging France, not by asphyxiation but by breaking its neck. We would move from crisis to crash. Investors would abandon France's signature, while Urssaf Caisse nationale, formerly Acoss, which is already being forced to borrow short-term, would no longer be able to pay pensions. The infernal machine would start turning: the European Central Bank would launch an emergency procedure to buy French government debt, with the implementation in return of an austerity plan drawn up with the men in black of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

This crash-and-purge scenario has already occurred within the euro zone. It sealed, for example, the end of Silvio Berlusconi, who did not survive politically after a letter dated August 2011, co-signed by the then European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and Mario Draghi, then governor of the Bank of Italy. If there is to be a purge, it is better to avoid demagogues, and it was a former European commissioner, the dull Mario Monti, who took on the dirty work.

Are we there yet? Yes, according to Léo Barincou of Oxford Economics, who says that "an Italian-style scenario is taking shape for Paris." No, according to the otherwise highly vigilant Stéphane Boujnah: "There is neither a risk of IMF intervention nor a risk of a solvency crisis." And the head of Euronext was careful to specify that the real risk is "asphyxiation." That is what investors are anticipating for now, guided by the credit-rating agencies.

Scope Ratings, the only European agency, took action on Sept. 21 by cutting its rating from AA- to A+, with a "stable outlook." Not enough to trigger panic. Nor will there be panic on Oct. 23, when Moody's moves from Aa3 to A1. And probably not in November, when S&P Ratings changes the outlook on its A+ rating from "stable" to "negative." And yet, in the meantime, the budget debate and the farce in the National Assembly will once again have shaken the country. Even if this is already anticipated in the asphyxiation scenario.

The real risk, that of default and rupture, will come afterward. It can be located with fairly precise timing in the days following the second round of legislative elections, which will follow the dissolution of the National Assembly, itself following the presidential election. Given the constitutional timetable, that brings us, at best, to the end of June. Assuming no absolute majority emerges, a few days, or weeks, must then be added to form a government. Who will be at Matignon? At Bercy? What economic policy will be used to pull the country out of its predicament? The policy speech to the National Assembly will be scrutinized, as will the confrontation between the new government and leading business executives and investors at the Economic Meetings of Aix in early July, an event regularly attended by European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde. And then, anything is possible.

This is the famous "Liz Truss moment," when markets permanently lose confidence and dismiss politicians. On paper, the short-lived British prime minister and her finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, were more economically credible than Mélenchon or Le Pen. Under pressure from the beginnings of a bond-market crash, this Conservative government, and therefore one not considered extremist, was nevertheless driven from office in September 2022. Not for raising taxes, but for announcing tax cuts. Not for threatening to write off debt, but for announcing that it would continue issuing it. The international arbitrators, who hold nearly 60% of our outstanding public debt, are pragmatists. Extremists or the center bloc? Right-wing or left-wing? It does not matter. Only credibility counts. We will need some seriousness.

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/this-is-how-france-will-be-hanged-ce785ddbd98df523

Jay Clayton to lead Trump's AI task force

 According to Channel NewsAsia, citing The Wall Street Journal, the White House has established an artificial intelligence task force. It is to study the technology’s risks and opportunities and prepare recommendations for the federal government.

Task force responsibilities

The task force must determine what role the US federal government should play in overseeing the technology. Its report is to be submitted within 120 days.

Head and name of the structure

The group will be led by Jay Clayton, who heads the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence. According to the WSJ, the new structure is called the Super Intelligence Force. The newspaper reported on its creation on Saturday, October 3, citing Clayton.

A senior White House official cited by the WSJ said that Clayton’s leadership would mean he would effectively serve as President Donald Trump’s artificial intelligence coordinator.

https://ua.news/en/world/wsj-dzhei-kleiton-ocholit-robochu-grupu-trampa-zi-shi-channel-newsasia

Iran knows US 'is winning' as Operation Economic Outcast inflicts damage, Treasury official says

 A top official at the Treasury Department told FOX Business she believes the "Iranians know that the U.S. is winning" as the Operation Economic Outcast sanctions campaign is ramping up pressure against Tehran. 

Under Secretary for International Affairs Erin Browne made the remark this week as Iran's official currency plunged to record lows with an exchange rate of over 2.5 million rials to the American dollar. 

"I think the Iranians know that the U.S. is winning in terms of our economic isolation and Economic Outcast against Iran. And we've seen the rial fall to its lowest levels. Again, on Tuesday, it hit an all-time low," Browne said.  

"So we're seeing the economic damage that this conflict is imposing upon Iran. And the U.S. will continue and be completely relentless in ensuring that they are completely isolated from the global financial system as long as this conflict remains in practice," she added. 

When the Treasury Department launched Operation Economic Outcast against Iran on Aug. 24, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a news release, described it as an "economic onslaught against Iran’s financial connections around the globe." 

"Teams from the Departments of Treasury, State, and War are engaging counterparts around the world to make clear that the United States expects immediate action. Every country will be given a defined timeline to shut down the Iran-related activity we have identified. If they fail to act, Treasury will act," the department said at the time. 

"Any entity that facilitates money laundering or sanctions evasion on behalf of Iran risks being cut off from the U.S. financial system," it added, noting that the campaign "also expands secondary sanctions exposure for those who continue doing business with the Iranian regime and will accelerate the pace of U.S. enforcement." 

The aggressive strategy, described as an "Economic D-Day," targets critical industries such as Iran's digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping in an effort to eliminate the revenue streams that fund international terrorism, Bessent said.  

"So over the last month, Operation Economic Outcast has been a complete success," Browne told FOX Business. "Under the direction of President Trump, the U.S. is systematically ending all access of Iran to the financial system globally. So not only are we cutting them off with respect to the financial system, we are also cutting them off militarily and cutting them off from an industrial sector standpoint, so that they will have no access for funds on a go-forward basis." 

"We have moved from maximum pressure to absolute isolation, and this has been really effective. Even in the last week, we've taken a number of steps as a government in order to cut off Iran across all three avenues," she added. "So financially, we have continued to put pressure on them to end any type of financing that they do on a global basis, including cutting them off from all financial networks.

"We've also taken steps militarily, as you've seen over the last few weeks. In fact, this week, we sanctioned another 11 individuals in order to end any type of military procurement of the Iranian army. And then also, from an industrial perspective, we have continued to destroy their industrial framework and their logistical framework so that they are cut off from all logistical transportation, including from their aviation sector." 

Bessent announced this week on X that "Iran loaded ZERO crude oil onto tankers in September," as the Trump administration is "cutting off the Iranian regime’s most critical source of revenue." 

Just over the last week, as part of the campaign, the Treasury Department also said it sanctioned the "A7 Network, a shadow banking network with ties to Russia used by the Iranian regime to evade sanctions." 

"The A7 Network was created and backed by U.S.-sanctioned persons in order to evade sanctions. It has developed a global web of Sub-Agents, companies that are purpose-built to disguise payments linked to sanctioned sectors and persons as ordinary commercial activity," the department said Thursday. "The A7 Network has been leveraged by Iran, including Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps." 

The day before, the Treasury said it was "targeting some of the last significant elements of Iran’s failing industrial infrastructure, including its rail and automotive conglomerates." 

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/iran-knows-us-is-winning-operation-economic-outcast-campaign-inflicts-damage-treasury-official-says

Miracles and heroism

 by Mike McDaniel

They’re being called “heroic,” those Israelis who subdued an Islamist demon who was only 30 seconds from killing everyone on the FlyDubai flight:

Graphic: X Post

And they are heroes, heroes born of necessity, of living in a tiny nation surrounded by monsters who want to kill them all. They fight or die. They rise to each occasion or perish. I take nothing away from them, but ask: to what has Western Civilization come that we take it for granted that most of us wouldn’t act as they did, even when we know there are untold millions who want us dead and actively seek to kill us? When a few do what we all should be willing and prepared to do, they stand out.

And what does the media do? They maintain the “religion of peace/Islamophobia” narrative at all costs: 

CNN called it “an internal personnel incident between pilots.” The New York Times called it “a clash in the cockpit.” Reuters headlined it: “A pilot brawl, then a rapid descent: Passengers recount chaos in flydubai flight.”

As ever, the BBC excelled itself as a disgrace to journalism. BBC News reported: “Israel’s far right national security minister Ben-Gvir says that an Israel bound flight that landed in Saudi Arabia was due to a terrorist who wanted to crash the plane and kill Israelis.”

 

Wouldn’t that be the conclusion of any reasonable human being? Wouldn’t that be an entirely plausible conclusion in anticipation of evidence to the contrary?  Evidence like this:

“We know that he underwent Islamist radical indoctrination,” [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu said in an interview with Fox News, citing information Israel has learned during its investigation.

A fellow pilot told Israel’s Channel 16 journalist Yosef Yisrael the attacker was “someone characterized by very strange behavior, especially around religious observances that were out of step with his surroundings.”

He wouldn’t shake hands with women and prayed so much it stood out even for a Muslim.  This is particularly interesting and indicative of conspiracy:

“There is no other way to put it, we hired the services of a terrorist and nearly caused the deaths of 180 people,” the pilot told Yisrael. “Usually only Emiratis fly to Israel. It is not clear how he got on this flight.”

Israel requires anyone who enters to maintain a passport from a country that has diplomatic relations with Israel; Oman does not.

“This is a clear breach of the agreement,” a source within Israel’s transportation ministry told the Jerusalem Post.

“Every pilot that is going to be flying into Israel, we are going to know the pilots’ identities, know who they are, and do some type of security check,” Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for Netanyahu’s office, told Reuters.

How did the attacker manage to get a copilot assignment on that flight without outside help?  Many are calling the passengers’ rescue a “minor miracle.”  Here’s where it began:

This surprises no one:  

President Trump suggested Thursday that Iran was behind the failed hijacking of an Israel-bound flydubai flight, warning the Islamic Republic would be struck “very hard” if it was proven to be behind the foiled terror attack.

“I would say the answer, based on what I’m hearing, is yes, but we’re working on it right now.”

Since 9/11, many Americans boarding any flight prepare themselves. They ask: “what if?”   “What will I do?” “Who on this flight looks like they might be a terrorist?” “Who looks like they’d help me?” I fly very little but certainly ask those questions. It’s hard to imagine that a larger percentage of Israelis don’t do the same thing, and they proved it.

Heroes? Oh yes, and if Western Civilization is going to survive, we need them more than ever. 

A minor miracle? Is there such a thing, or is there no degree to God’s miracles? Can there be anything minor about the right people being on that flight, one of thousands every day, doing precisely the right things at the right times, not only to subdue the terrorist, but what of the plumber who calmly took the pilot’s seat and pulled the jet out of a dive with 30 seconds to spare? How did that jet hold together while enduring stresses far beyond its design limits? Will that airframe ever fly again? And what of a qualified flight crew ready and able to land that 737 with essentially no rudder?

Was the survival of all those people—God’s chosen people—inspired by God? Yes, and it ought to inspire us all to be prepared, recognize reality, and do what’s necessary, like the heroes on that flight.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/10/miracles-and-heroism/

Under my thumb?

 by Silvio Canto, Jr.

Down in Texas, we are watching a lot of TV ads about the Paxton-Talarico campaign. I will vote for Paxton, but the ads are indeed entertaining. I love the one about Talarico saying that the billionaires are after him or that he is just another Texas guy who loves a good steak and a beer. They are certainly doing their best to turn a freak into a normal guy.

The whole rebranding of Talarico is not persuading Hasan Piker. This is what Piker said in a recent interview:

Well, there it is in full living color. Hasan, the harmless streamer, is reminding us all that James Talarico is under his thumb. If elected, Talarico will play ball and return to the land of six genders and neighbors with a uterus.

Honestly, is anyone surprised that this effort to rebrand Talarico is a fraud? This is the same Talarico who hates gerrymandering and then ran to Illinois, where Democrats drew the districts: 14 Democrats, 3 GOP!

I hope that Paxton’s ads keep reminding the voters that Talarico is a Texas version of Piker.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/10/under-my-thumb/

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/