Amid a dearth of macro data due to the shutdowns, this month’s Small Business Optimism survey suddenly becomes noteworthy with the headline sentiment index dipping in September to a three-month low (down 2 pts to 98.8)on less optimism about the economic outlook and greater concern about excess inventory.

Source: Bloomberg

Five of the 10 components that make up the gauge decreased, while three were unchanged.

Owners grew more anxious about inflation, with 14% of owners reporting that rising costs were their biggest problem in operating their business, up 3 points from August.

A net 31% plan to raise prices in the next three months, up 5 points and the largest share since June.

“While most owners evaluate their own business as currently healthy, they are having to manage rising inflationary pressures, slower sales expectations, and ongoing labor market challenges,” Bill Dunkelberg, NFIB chief economist, said in a statement.

But while uncertainty was elevated (the fourth-highest reading in over 51 years)…

Source: Bloomberg

…the employment components showed improvement – positive employment change, hiring plans continuing to increase, compensation for labor higher.

Hiring plans are at their highest level since January.

So to summarize the somewhat strange NFIB data – Earnings expectations are rising as are hiring intentions but the headline confidence number is lower?

Finally, NFIB notes that whatever impact the government shutdown has on small businesses, it will show up in the October survey. Questionnaires were mailed out on October 1.

Authored by Jeanine Yuen via The College Fix,

About one in three Brown University freshmen say they are gay, bisexual, transgender, or one of the other numerous options, according to a recent survey by the student newspaper.

The numbers are somewhat similar to a survey two years ago, also by the Brown Daily Herald, which found 40 percent of the student body identified as LGBTQ. 

The survey garnered 733 responses, which is about half of the class of 2029.

Of the respondents, 12.8 percent said they were bisexual, five percent said they were “questioning or unsure,” six percent said they were gay or lesbian, and 1.6 percent said they were “pansexual.”

Several social scientists provided insights into the data and broader trends of LGBT identification among college-aged students.

Eric Kaufmann, a professor of political science at the University of Buckingham, said the percentages are close to 30 percent across the entire student data set, with some schools seeing 40-50 percent LGBT identification. 

Kaufmann attributed this to “female bisexuality” – a figure that has nearly doubled since the 2010s.

He previously has conducted research on trends in LGBT identification.

The social scientist says it seems the increase is linked to mental illness and social pressure.

“As the share of female bisexuals has soared, the number of them having same-sex relationships has gone down. That tells you something: it’s more of an identity than a behavior,” Kaufmann wrote in an email to The Fix. 

“And the rate is not higher among university students than non-college young people,” he said.

“So this is only  – in my view – partly connected to woke ideology and politics.” 

A quantitative social scientist who regularly comments on social issue polling and studies provided comments on why the incoming class at Brown might identify as LGBT at a smaller percentage than the student body several years ago.

“First, multiple polls have shown that younger members of Generation Z are more politically conservative than older members of Generation Z,” Professor Michael New told The Fix via email. 

“Additionally, multiple news reports indicate that this generation of young men are more religious and more likely to attend church than previous generations of young men,” the Catholic University of America professor said.

He also explained why LGBT identification might still be higher overall at Brown than other universities.

There is a strong likelihood  “students at elite universities, like Brown, are more likely to identify as LGBT than other members of their age demographic” due to higher socioeconomic backgrounds and secularity,” he said.

Research by Kaufmann, the Buckingham social scientist, has found similar results.

About 23 percent of Gen Z identifies as gay, transgender, or another sexual orientation, according to Gallup.

Gallup’s survey also revealed the average percentage of Gen Z adults identifying as LGBT to be 22.7 percent in the past two years. The average drops as they survey older generations. 

A representative for the polling company told The College Fix the differences could be because “while LGBTQ+ Americans across generations realized they were LGBTQ+ at similar ages, those in older generations came out at much later points in life than young LGBTQ+ Americans today.”

“[I]f you realize you are LGBTQ+ during an era of greater acceptance, you are more likely to self-identify as LGBTQ+ than if you came of age in a time of comparatively less acceptance,” Justin McCarthy wrote in an email to The Fix.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu pulled off the impossible – for now – by suspending President Emmanuel Macron’s 2023 pension reform, which raised the retirement age. The desperate political maneuvering was aimed at securing crucial support from the Socialist Party in France’s National Assembly to survive no-confidence votes on Thursday, where Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has vowed to try to topple him.

French bond markets rallied on the news. The 10-year yield fell seven basis points to 3.4%, the lowest since mid-August, narrowing the spread over German Bunds to 79 bps. This is one of the sharpest intraday tightening moves this year. France’s CAC40 reversed most of the session’s losses as it appears Macron’s last-ditch effort of doing whatever it takes to avoid a snap election has paid off – for now. 

“France’s CAC 40 benchmark closed the session 0.2% lower, after reversing most of the day’s losses. The index had fallen as much as 1.4% in early trading. A Barclays Plc basket containing companies most exposed to French domestic risks turned positive in afternoon trading and ended up 0.7% on the day, led by gains in lender Societe Generale SA, construction company Vinci SA, and telecommunications provider Orange SA,” Bloomberg EMEA Equities Managing Editor Blaise Robinson wrote in a BBG Top Live Blogs post. 

Bloomberg Opinion analyst Lionel Laurent noted, “It looks like Emmanuel Macron’s last-ditch strategy of doing whatever it takes to avoid snap elections has paid off. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu appears to have clinched the support of the center-left Socialists by suspending pension reform until the 2027 presidential elections,” adding, “Meanwhile, the weakened and divided center-right Republicans are also likely to back Lecornu rather than face a potential bruising at the ballot box. That’ll be enough for this government to live to fight another day, and for markets to breathe a sigh of relief. Don’t bet on a lasting peace, though.” 

On Thursday, Lecornu’s government faces no-confidence votes, backed by Le Pen’s National Rally and far-left parties. After Macron’s pension reform news, the Socialist Party said it would not vote to oust Lecornu. 

“I will propose to parliament that we suspend the 2023 pension reform until after the presidential election,” Lecornu said. “There will be no increase in the retirement age between now and January 2028.”

He continued, “Some would like to see this parliamentary crisis turn into a crisis of the regime. That will not happen thanks to the institutions of the Fifth Republic and its supporters.”

Macron’s grip on power has eroded since last year’s failed snap elections. He has given Lecornu “carte blanche” to restore stability and end one of the worst political crises for France in years. If Lecornu loses the confidence vote on Thursday, Macron will be forced to dissolve parliament and call new elections. 

Two of Lecornu’s predecessors, Michel Barnier and Francois Bayrou, have already resigned over their plans to rein in out-of-control spending, which has led to France having the largest budget deficit in the bloc. 

Suspending pension overhaul marks a major retreat from Macron’s economic reform agenda, which had goals to make France “work more” to sustain growth and repair public finances.

National Rally’s Jordan Bardella wrote on X, “The only common denominator of this majority without rhyme or reason, ready for all sorts of deal-making, is the fear of the ballot boxes and the fear of the people.” 

À l’Assemblée nationale, des Républicains au PS, c’est l’amicale des sauveurs d’Emmanuel Macron qui se succède à la tribune.

Le seul dénominateur commun de cette majorité sans queue ni tête, prête à tous les marchandages, c’est la peur des urnes et la peur du peuple. #DirectAN

— Jordan Bardella (@J_Bardella) October 14, 2025

Bardella continued, “With the Faure-Macron pact, the Socialist Party allows the President of the Republic to pursue a policy massively rejected by the French. If there remains a bit of coherence and honor among certain PS deputies, they will have to make it known this Thursday during the vote on the motions of censure. Or accept, before history, to have turned their backs on the French people, ignored their expectations and their sufferings.” 

Avec le pacte Faure-Macron, le Parti socialiste permet au président de la République de poursuivre une politique massivement rejetée par les Français.

S’il reste un peu de cohérence et d’honneur à certains députés du PS, ils devront le faire savoir ce jeudi lors du vote des…

— Jordan Bardella (@J_Bardella) October 14, 2025

All eyes on Thursday. 

Today is October 14, and as the Office of Nuclear Energy wrote back in August, should mark the first meeting of the Defense Production Act Consortium who is seeking agreements with U.S. nuclear companies as part of an effort to rebuild the nation’s nuclear fuel supply chain

The consortium, first announced by DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy on August 22, marks a major step in strengthening domestic nuclear fuel cycle capacity and reducing America’s dependence on foreign sources of enriched uranium.

The DPA Consortium was created in accordance with President Trump’s Executive Order on Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base and will use the authorities of the Defense Production Act to coordinate industry efforts across the nuclear fuel cycle. Under the program, DOE will establish voluntary agreements with U.S. companies involved in mining, milling, conversion, enrichment, deconversion, fuel fabrication, recycling, and reprocessing. The goal is to ensure the availability of reliable nuclear fuel for the nation’s reactors and to support the growth of a secure, independent nuclear energy sector.

“There are major gaps in our nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure that leave the United States heavily dependent on foreign sources of enriched uranium,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Mike Goff when the initiative was announced in August. “By leveraging authorities in the Defense Production Act, DOE is able to take swift action to bring all parties to the table to accelerate our path toward a more secure and independent energy future.”

DOE issued an interim final rule this summer that outlines the standards and procedures for executing voluntary agreements under Section 708 of the DPA, which provides a defense from antitrust laws when specific criteria are met. The rule will take effect 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register, and DOE invited public comments within the same timeframe. Since then, the Office of Nuclear Energy has been engaging with industry participants to identify key players and establish both near- and long-term objectives for the consortium’s work.

The first meeting taking place today is expected to focus on mapping out critical supply chain gaps, from uranium conversion and enrichment to fabrication and recycling. Participants will begin discussions on how to coordinate timelines for expanding capacity, share essential data across sectors, and identify regulatory or financial bottlenecks that could be addressed using DPA authorities. The meeting represents the beginning of a sustained effort to organize and align the nuclear fuel industry in a way that balances national security needs with commercial growth.

The DPA Consortium will operate separately from existing DOE programs for low-enriched uranium (LEU) and high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) procurement and allocation, but its work may inform future programmatic decisions.

As the United States looks to expand clean, reliable nuclear power as part of its energy future, the DPA Consortium stands as a key mechanism for aligning industry collaboration, government support, and strategic investment in the nation’s nuclear fuel infrastructure.

As we noted weeks ago, readers of ZeroHedge are well aware that we believe Centrus Energy could be the next obvious candidate for the U.S. government to cozy up to and acquire a stake (similar to how the Trump admin recently did with rare earth company MP Materials and of course Intel, both of which we correctly predicted ahead of time, here and here). We have also followed ASP Isotopes closely, which yesterday issued a business update and its largest-ever supply contract for enriched silicon-28.

About a month ago Centrus announced it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) and POSCO International to explore potential investment in expanding its enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio.

The signing ceremony drew high-level attention, with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Korea’s Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jung-kwan both in attendance. The deal underscores a growing U.S.–Korea partnership in civilian nuclear energy — and highlights the demand for secure, non-Russian sources of uranium enrichment.

On Monday, the Dutch government took control of Chinese-owned semiconductor maker Nexperia – citing risks to Europe’s economic security after alleging “serious governance shortcomings” at the company.

One day later, and the EU is on the cusp of applying major pressure on Beijing. As Bloomberg reports, the European Union is “considering forcing Chinese firms to hand over technology to European companies if they want to operate locally,” in an aggressive new push to make the bloc more competitive – particularly when it comes to electric vehicles and the transfers of battery technology and know-how.

The new rues would apply to companies seeking access to key digital and manufacturing markets such as cars and batteries, and would also require Chinese firms to use a set amount of EU goods or labor, according to people familiar with the plans.

Another lever under discussion would be to force joint ventures. 

The new rules, which would be on the table for November, would apply to all non-EU firms, with the goal of keeping China’s manufacturing from overwhelming European industry.

“We are welcoming foreign direct investment under the conditions that they are real investment,” said EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic in a Tuesday statement to reporters, following an EU trade ministers’ meeting in Horsens, Denmark, adding that the move would mean job creation in Europe, value added to Europe, and technology transfers to Europe, “as European companies have been doing when they’ve been investing in China.”

The potential move comes at a key moment in Europe – as the Chinese government’s subsidized wares have been dominating EU industries, while Beijing’s looming restrictions on rare earth minerals threaten to further hamstring the bloc’s manufacturers. That said, Bloomberg suggests targeting China is likely to provoke retaliation – potentially damaging a critical trading relationship.

“Several measures are being considered to foster a strong, competitive, and decarbonised European industry,” said Thomas Regnier, a spokesperson for the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm preparing the regulations, adding that “no final decision has been made regarding the exact scope and nature of these measures.” ‘Decarbonised’ eh? 

The tit-for-tat between China and Europe has already begun – with the EU recently moving to double tariffs on steel imports to offset Chinese dumping, while Beijing – days later – said it would adopt new export controls on critical rare earth minerals, prompting the EU to adopt a more defensive position in regards to dependency on China – something the bloc has spent the last few years vowing to protect against. The new regulations would accelerate that effort, arriving as part of a legislative proposal called the Industrial Accelerator Act. 

“The future of clean tech will continue to be made in Europe,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last month. “But for that, we also need to make sure that our industry has the materials here in Europe.”

“In sum, when it comes to digital and clean tech: faster, smarter and more European,” she continued. 

With its plan, the EU is mimicking Beijing, which has long put strict parameters on outside firms wanting to enter its market. Simultaneously, China has invested heavily in Europe and other parts of the world through its Belt and Road Initiative, hoovering up technical knowledge in the process. -Bloomberg

Speaking after the ministers’ meeting, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen says that the EU “should be inspired” by the move, adding “We find ourselves in new circumstances. It’s not just about free trade, free trade, free trade, even though we subscribe to this idea.”

Europe’s economy has been dragged down by Germany’s dismal performance, causing lobbying groups to call for the commission to consider drastic action to gain access to technologies for which China has developed an edge.

“It’s essential that foreign investments, such as in batteries and other clean tech, come with technology transfer and the skilling of European workforce,” according to Victor van Hoorn, director at the industry group Cleantech for Europe. “This needs to be agreed upon at EU level.” 

Rasmussen backed the statement, saying “If we invite China’s investments to Europe, it must come with the precondition that we also have some kind of technology transfer.“

To wit, Europe is sucking wind when it comes to EV battery tech, with EU automakers heavily reliant on Beijing for these components.

The Chinese have already begun scaling up their presence in Europe, with companies such as BYD Co. investing in a plant in Hungary, and vowing to ramp up EV battery production across the continent. 

One of China’s largest advanced battery makers, CATL, is planning to send 2,000 workers to build and staff a ($4.6 billion) battery plant in Spain in a joint venture with Stellantis. 

Under the terms of the new proposal, foreign carmakers wanting to sell cars in the EU would have to locally source a specific amount of goods and services, while simplifying the permitting process for European companies. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Scott Jennings, the only person with a brain working at CNN, has blasted Democrats, and in particular Barack Hussein Obama, who still refuse to give credit to President Trump for negotiating an historic peace deal in Gaza.

As we highlighted earlier, Obama put out a statement expressing relief and thanks that the killing is coming to an end, but purposefully neglected to mention Trump’s role, prompting massive backlash.

“[Obama’s] been the most hyper-political and hyper-partisan post-president we’ve ever had. He’s STILL acting that way!” Jennings asserted.

He added, “The fact that [Trump] is having this extraordinary success on the world stage…I just think Democrats, from Obama on down, are having a heck of a time understanding where they went wrong, and how Donald Trump has captivated a nation and now the entire World.”

“They’re not over the fact that Donald Trump won the national popular vote last year,” Jennings continued, adding “And they keep warning about the same things that they were warning and fussing about during the campaign, to which the American people then responded to.”

“I think Donald Trump is executing every part of his agenda in almost exactly the way that he promised he was going to,” Jennings urged, adding “including enforcing laws in the United States that have been on the books for a very, very long time that his predecessor chose simply not to execute.”

Watch:

🚨 SCOTT JENNINGS fires back at Barack Hussein Obama and Democrats who REFUSE to credit President Trump for historic peace in Gaza 🫳🎤

“[Obama’s] been the most hyper-political and hyper-partisan post-president we’ve ever had. He’s STILL acting that way!”

“The fact that he’s… pic.twitter.com/U4lbAzQtYM

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 13, 2025

While Obama refuses to credit Trump, others including Bill Clinton and Joe Biden have, however reluctantly, done so.

🚨 BREAKING: Former President BILL CLINTON gives President Trump credit for the ceasefire and hostage release between Hamas and Israel.

Something Hussein Obama couldn’t bring himself to do.

“President Trump and his administration, Qatar, and other regional actors deserve great… pic.twitter.com/lagja8rv71

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 13, 2025

🚨 NOW – PRESIDENT TRUMP on former President BILL CLINTON giving him credit for the Gaza peace deal: “I’ve ALWAYS liked Bill Clinton. Always gotten along with him. He came to my wedding.”

“I’ve always liked him. I thought it was very nice, actually. And what is he doing? He’s… pic.twitter.com/tRQjLrpLXW

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 13, 2025

🚨 BREAKING: Former President Joe Biden says, “I COMMEND President Trump and his team for their work to get a renewed [Gaza] ceasefire deal over the finish line.”

That’s the 2nd Democrat president to acknowledge Trump at least played A ROLE in this. Hussein refused.

“The road… pic.twitter.com/mTydxln97G

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 13, 2025

The extremist wing of the Democratic Party however…

🚨 JUST IN: Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) hits a NEW LOW – declaring that the President Trump-drawn Gaza ceasefire, the return of all living hostages, and over two dozen world leaders joining Trump in Egypt for a peace summit is just “pretending to be the president of peace.” pic.twitter.com/rDa9C4Y4Oi

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 13, 2025

Trump was lauded by several world leaders in Israel yesterday, including the Prime Minister of Pakistan, who nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, stating “He is genuinely a man of peace…the most wonderful candidate for the peace prize…saved millions of people. The world will remember you as a man who did everything to stop eight wars.”

🚨 BREAKING: In an incredible moment, the prime minister of Pakistan NOMINATES President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2026

“I would like to nominate this great president for NOBEL PEACE PRIZE!”

“He is GENUINELY a man of peace…the most wonderful candidate for the peace… pic.twitter.com/viBiUasRXK

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 13, 2025

They all lined up to shake hands and have a photo with Trump.

All these world leaders lining up to shake @POTUS hand for making this happen

Donald Trump will go down as possibly the greatest President in US history for being THE peacemaker who brings peace to the middle east pic.twitter.com/LecdEcPJn5

— Grifty (@TheGriftReport) October 13, 2025

🚨 JUST IN: After every world leader in Egypt lined up to meet President Trump one-by-one, they pose for a historic photo

TRUMP: “We just made a big deal today, so we’ll smile! Biggest EVER!” 🇺🇸

‘PEACE 2025’

He’s done it. pic.twitter.com/RWyG1IEQYf

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 13, 2025

Even sections of the leftist media can no longer deny Trump is the peace President.

Podcaster Patrick Bet-David succinctly described the bind that leftists find themselves in now when it comes to Trump’s success.

“They can’t stand that this guy is winning!” he told Jesse Watters, adding “Go to ANY game in sports, any comeback, any story of redemption! Tell me a better story of redemption of a living human being in America the last 50 years than Donald J. Trump. Maybe go back 100 years. Who has redeemed themselves the way this man has? Who has done it? I don’t know!”

“Who has come back and, was ‘supposed’ to start World War 3? He’s done some say five, seven plus…peace deals. Who has done that? Not a lot of people!” Bet-David further urged.

He added, “There’s a thing that a lot of people have to be paying attention to, and this is for me, going into 2028, as you put on the scorecard of what skill sets we want of somebody to be the President of the United States, I think those days of diplomacy, the ‘right’ degree, ‘right’ school, ‘right’ pedigree are behind us!”

🚨 JUST IN: Patrick Bet-David NAILS IT on why Democrats are powerless in the face of President Trump’s triumph on the world stage

“Go to ANY game in sports, any comeback, any story of redemption! Tell me a BETTER story of redemption of a living human being in America the last 50… pic.twitter.com/13fbjB1gge

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 14, 2025

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld echoed the sentiments, noting “Where are his critics today? They’re so small, I can’t see them!”

“Perhaps your ego was hurt by the fact he believed these great things could happen. And he was persistent, relentless, positive. That just seemed so alien to you!” Gutfeld continued.

“Where is Bill Kristol? Where is Adam Kinzinger? Liz Cheney? Gavin Newsom? Vindman? Where are these people?” Gutfeld added. “We should do a show on Fox Nation called Where Are They Now? Because I want to know, how do you look in the mirror when you see, after years of mocking people who had faith in this guy, people who risked a lot of stuff to support Trump that you made fun of, the George Takei’s of the world that ridiculed him, where are they!?”

“This guy is solving world peace. He closed the border. He’s trying to reduce crime. He would not accept the managed decline and the constant death. He became unacceptable to them, to the people that were in power. He thought big. He sees everything as a moonshot. ‘What could happen? Maybe not.’ He thought that the impossible was possible,” Gutfeld further asserted.

🚨 BREAKING: Greg Gutfeld GOES OFF on the never-Trumpers following peace in Gaza – “Don’t you owe the people you mocked AN APOLOGY?”

“I would love for never-Trumpers to ask themselves about the possibility that the things that they hated about him are what make him SUCCESSFUL!”… pic.twitter.com/iTL7kpFmMq

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 13, 2025

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

The political left believes that enforcing basic laws is an act of “tyranny” as long as those laws are inconvenient to their agenda.  And hypocritically, when they are in government power any notion of civil liberty goes out the window, as we witnessed during the Biden Administration’s widespread censorship of social media and Democrat efforts to prosecute their opponents for fabricated crimes.  

Anyone with a sense of memory will find it difficult to muster an ounce of sympathy for the Dems after years of leftist oppression.  Cancel culture was created by the progressives as a nuclear option against their political opponents.  They used it without hesitation, and payback is a bitch.  

To the credit of conservatives and moderates, efforts to exact “revenge” have been limited despite the endless list of trespasses by Democrats, not to mention the riots, mob intimidation and politically motivated murders committed by woke activists.  There has been no mass vigilantism to punish them, at least not yet.  

If Democrats were smart they would count themselves lucky, keep their heads down and stay out of the way as the Trump White House works to repair the damage done by Joe Biden and his handlers.  Trump’s election victory with a stunning lead in the Electoral College and a clear popular majority was a message to Dems that their policies and ideals are not wanted by the public.

Alas, acceptance and peace is not the way of the political left.  They claim to love “democracy”, but only if it works in their favor.  They must double down and cause more problems; it’s all they know. 

Case in point:  Senator Chuck Schumer still can’t keep his big mouth shut when it comes to his repeated calls for activists to “rise up” and disrupt lawful White House policies.  On MSNBC this week, Schumer discussed the government shutdown, as well as the indictments of Letitia James and John Bolton.  Schumer once again called for a public uprising to stop Trump, which is likely in preparation for the “No Kings” protests scheduled for October 18th.  

The New York Senator plays the usual rhetorical games of old politics, attempting to place the blame on Republicans for the shutdown even though Republicans have voted in favor of funding measures (ending the shutdown) seven times while Democrats have voted against funding seven times.  Democrats specifically want ACA health benefits to extend to “documented migrants”, which includes millions of migrants who entered the US illegally during Biden’s term and claimed asylum. 

The standoff over the shutdown hinges primarily on Dems refusing to accept any cuts to government subsidized healthcare, which has been an abject failure ever since Obamacare provisions were passed in 2010. 

But the budget conflict is largely overshadowed by the ongoing battle over mass deportations of illegal migrants and the investigations into Democrat corruption.  Schumer has consistently compared Trump’s deportation policies to “fascism”, even though most countries in the world enforce deportations of illegal migrants. 

The deployment of National Guard troops has been mostly relegated to protecting ICE agents from Antifa violence.  Activist groups funded by subversive leftist NGOs operate like an army of saboteurs without uniforms or rules of engagement, and Democrat leaders in blue cities protect them.  It makes perfect sense for Trump to ensure the safety of the people trying to enforce lawful immigration rules.  It should also be noted that the majority of Americans continue to support deportations.

Despite this fact, Democrats are hellbent on using their influence (and NGO cash) to rally activists in blue cities and disrupt immigration officials.  Remember when leftists insisted that conservatives were “insurrectionists” over a single protest in Washington DC?  The upcoming “No Kings” protests (which largely flopped the last time they were held) are meant to create an image of false consensus against deportations, but they are also meant to inspire further mob interference. 

The incessant lies about “tyranny” and “fascism” have directly inspired numerous acts of leftist violence. 

“Authoritarianism, it’s a cancer… We thought it couldn’t happen here… and now the disease is growing, metastasizing in America. But there is a cure — it requires you. On October 18, Americans will stand up, peacefully, for what makes America, America.” @OfTheBraveUSA pic.twitter.com/JXBUlbNAtl

— George Conway 🇺🇸🚫👑🐸 (@gtconway3d) October 13, 2025

Oddly, it’s the investigations into establishment operatives like New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and former National Security Advisor John Bolton that terrify Schumer the most.    

Corruption among Democrats has been cancerous, but few if any politicians or middlemen ever seem to face consequences.  For decades there has been an unspoken rule among both major parties that the legal system would be rarely if ever used against the opposing side.  This all changed when Democrats tried to bury Trump with false charges and undermine the will of the voting public. 

It would seem that Democrats are most fearful of being held personally accountable.  Their calls for “No Kings” may simply be a strategy to distract from the exposure they face as their actions over the years are more closely scrutinized.  

Authored by Paul Thacker via The DisInformation Chronicle,

A few years back, I kept tripping across one of the many “disinformation experts” who popped up during the COVID pandemic like mushrooms on a rotten log after a hard night’s rain. I had no clue who Imran Ahmed was, nor his Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), but the Biden White House plucked him from obscurity to anoint him an expert on COVID vaccines and to censor their critics.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki quoted from a CCDH report, at a July 2021 press briefing, and accused Facebook of undermining Biden’s federal vaccine policies. “There’s about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms,” Psaki claimed, warning social media companies to shut down these “misinformation” accounts. One of the people targeted by that report, just happened to be a direct threat to President Biden—Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was planning to run against Biden as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.

“They’re killing people,” President Biden told a reporter, leveling the charge of murder against Facebook for providing a platform for people such as Kennedy.

Intrigued, I began digging into the Center for Countering Digital Hate. In a 3,300-word investigation for Tablet, I exposed CCDH—not for being a trusted source on vaccines—but as a fraudulent political operation formed by two staffers working for the British Labour Party: Morgan McSweeney and Imran Ahmed. These two characters created CCDH and several other dark money nonprofits to install Keir Starmer as the head of Labour. Starmer is now the Prime Minister of England and Morgan McSweeney is his chief of staff. After its success in the UK, CCDH then began operating in DC and coordinating with Democrats to attack critics of the Biden administration.

Right before the U.S. elections, I released internal documents given to me by a whistleblower working at CCDH that showed the group’s goal was to “Kill Musk’s Twitter.” Co-written with Matt Taibbi, the “Kill Musk’s Twitter” article rocketed across the internet with follow stories appearing in The Spectator, Guardian, The Express Tribune, The Telegraph, UnHerd, and the Washington Post.

London-based investigative reporter Paul Holden also started looking into the Center for Countering Digital Hate beginning in 2021 when got his hands on a tranche of leaked internal Labour Party documents that were making their way around British media circles. Delving into the emails, he ran across the names Morgan McSweeney and Imran Ahmed and began piecing together their secret campaign to to push out Labour’s leftist leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and install Keir Starmer as his replacement.

Fleshing out these documents with three years of reporting, Holden has published his findings in a new book released today titled “The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, and the Crisis of British Democracy.” News of Holden’s book has leaked to the British press, leading for calls that Morgan McSweeney be investigated for criminal activity for the scandal now called “McSweeneygate.” To run his campaign for Starmer, McSweeney lied to the British Election Commission about political donations that funded his work with Ahmed. McSweeney and Ahmed also appear to have hired private investigators to dig into Holden’s background and shut down his reporting.

Holden hails from South Africa where three of his six books were investigative bestsellers, and his last was long-listed for the Sunday Times literary prize for non-fiction. Since 2019, Holden has led Shadow World Investigation’s work on state corruption, investigating how the Gupta family looted South Africa with the help of corporations in the US, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and China.

“It’s a pretty Shakespearean story,” Holden told me, sitting on a leather sofa in his North London living room. The story begins in 2017, with Morgan McSweeney and Imran Ahmed plotting to take over the British government. McSweeney is now at the heart of that government and Ahmed has made CCDH a huge player in the States. Their overall goal: censor anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs.

“I am not for an organization trying to get the government to censor my legal speech,” Holden added.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

THACKER: I got into looking at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, when they released that “Disinformation Dozen” report that the Biden White House amplified to attack anyone critical of vaccine mandates. I looked into their background and found out that they are a British group run by a guy named Imran Ahmed who was a staffer for Labour Party members of the UK Parliament.

I just started thinking, “How does a guy from London land in DC, and pop up being quoted from the White House? That’s so unnatural.” How did you start looking into this? Who is Imran Ahmed and who is Morgan McSweeney?

HOLDEN: I was in much the same position as you. I had never heard of these people before, I would say, late 2021. I’d been given access to this phenomenal leak of documents out of the Labour Party. Initially, there wasn’t much here, but then I came across these emails about Morgan McSweeney and this organization called Labour Together.

At the time I thought Labour Together was this very anodyne, boring think tank, because that’s how they presented themselves in public

THACKER: Just so readers know, the Labour Party is like the political left, sort of similar to the Democrats. On the other side, is the Conservatives or the “Tories,” which would be like the Republicans.

HOLDEN: Yeah, so Labour is the more liberal party. But the important thing is that Morgan McSweeney and Iman Ahmad are the most centrist part of that liberal party.

THACKER: This would be the Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden wing of the Democrats. The Wall Street friendly types, who now line up behind Big Pharma and the defense contractors.

HOLDEN: Yes. They are part of a centrist establishment really, and they are at constant, non-stop war with the more left-wing parts of the Labour Party.

Imran Ahmed, has got a bit of an odd backstory. He comes from Manchester. He was a banker for a while and then, according to his own sort of personal biographies, 9-11 changes his thinking, makes him realize that bullying is bad. He then goes back to university and studies politics at Cambridge, and then disappears, for like six or seven years. We don’t really know what he does in this period of time. He’s only ever said in one interview that he was doing management consulting in the Middle East.

He re-emerges in 2011, and goes to work for a Member of Parliament for free. That begins a five, six, seven-year career in the Labour Party. He also works a little bit, as far as I can make out, on Sadiq Khan’s mayoral campaign for London in around 2015.

He then goes to work for or this MP called Hilary Benn. And this is where it becomes important, because in 2015 Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader of the Labour Party.

THACKER: Imran does have a weird backstory. I reported for Tablet that Imran told a close friend that he had applied to work for British intelligence. But Imran won’t address his ties to British intelligence.

So Jeremy Corbyn becoming head of the Labour Party would be like Bernie Sanders becomes head of the Democratic Party.

HOLDEN: Right. Corbyn became the Labour Party’s candidate to be the Prime Minister. When Bernie Sanders was close to becoming their candidate for President, the establishment Democrats made sure he couldn’t win.

That pretty much happens to Jeremy Corbyn, as well.

THACKER: There was one crazy point in which Bernie Sanders was actually being accused of being anti-Semitic, and he’s Jewish. It was crazy.

HOLDEN: For somebody like Iman Ahmad, the Corbyn victory is anathema to him. He is not from that faction of Labour, and he doesn’t like Jeremy Corbyn. Also, Jeremy Corbyn will be a threat to his own political and career ambitions in the Labour Party.

I’ve spoken to loads of people in the Labour Party, and people suspect that Imran Ahmed is a key source of leaks against Jeremy Corbyn. In the leaked Labour Party documents, I start to see emails of Ahmed working with journalists. He’s clearly got a taste for briefing stories.

Around the time Corbyn wins, he goes and works for another Labour MP called Angela Eagle who is anti-Corbyn. For a brief period of time, there is a sense that Angela Eagle may even challenge Jeremy Corbyn to be leader of the Labour Party.

The Labour Party documents that I’ve seen show Imran Ahmed is trying to protect Angela Eagle from the possibility that her own constituents might vote her out. He is working to make the left wing seem like they’re a bunch of thugs. He’s also railing against small… independent journalists and small independent media outlets who are fact-checking these claims he stirring up in the press.

THACKER: So Imran doesn’t like people like me.

HOLDEN: He doesn’t like people like you and me. He worked with the big media outlets, seeding stories into the mainstream, that are then being fact-checked by these smaller outlets.

Everyone believes Jeremy Corbyn is going to crash and burn, but in 2017 there’s a general election and Jeremy Corbyn gets the Labour Party’s best vote since Tony Blair. Suddenly it’s like, “Oh shit, Corbyn is actually electable!”

For people like Morgan McSweeney and Imran Ahmed, this is the moment where they’re at the weakest in the party. And they’ve got to do something about that.

THACKER: When Corbyn was potentially going to become Prime Minister, one of his supporters is actor, Mark Ruffalo. Now Ruffalo is on social media supporting Imran Ahmed, who helped kill Corbyn, because Ruffalo is too stupid to realize who Imran Ahmed really is.

HOLDEN: I feel genuine sorrow for Mark Ruffalo. He doesn’t strike me as a bad-faith individual, but I do think that if he knew what Iman Ahmad was doing then and what he’s been doing behind the scenes now, he would be deeply upset by it.

THACKER: Many people just don’t know who Imran Ahmed really is.

HOLDEN: Right. So in 2017, Morgan McSweeney comes in. He’s originally from Ireland and starts working for the Labour Party in 2003, 2004. His first job is working under Peter Mandelson, on rapid rebuttal press. But he then becomes very close friends with Steve Reed, who’s now in a very senior position in the Labour government.

Back then, McSweeney’s primary focus is local politics, like South London stuff. But in 2015, he is the campaign manager for an MP called Liz Kendall who was standing against Jeremy Corbyn. Well, she gets trounced.

So McSweeney is part of a Labour Party faction that is pretty marginal in voter numbers but is quite powerful with media access. In 2017, McSweeney left local government issues behind and joins Labour Together. Labour Together was formed to unite the conservative and liberal factions, so the party could focus on beating the Conservatives.

THACKER: So Labour Together’s original concept was to stop the left and the right factions, to stop the squabbling. But then McSweeney changes this?

HOLDEN: Exactly. McSweeney sets about doing the exact opposite of bringing Labour together. Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party got around 40% of the vote in 2017. A huge number.

McSweeney is like, “Okay, we need to go about undermining this, undermining Jeremy Corbyn’s chance of success.” McSweeney writes this briefing document for Labour Together, which plots a path to, first of all, destroy Corbynism from within the Labour Party. Second, identify somebody to replace Jeremy Corbyn, who is eventually Keir Starmer, who’s now the Prime Minister.

Now, we only learned this year about the document McSweeney wrote in 2017. McSweeney is essentially the reason we have Keir Starmer as Prime Minister.

One of things McSweeney identifies back in 2017 is that the Corbyn movement has produced this really vibrant, pretty powerful, economically successful left-wing media ecosystem. It’s independent of the mainstream media, and outside of McSweeney and Ahmed’s ability to control. They can’t control the narrative.

From 2018 onwards, McSweeney and Ahmed start working together full-time. According to one recent retelling, there’s only four people who are allowed in Labour Together’s office: two young staffers, Morgan McSweeney and Imran Ahmed.

A main objective was destroying media aligned with Jeremy Corbyn.

THACKER: You’ve got Morgan McSweeney and Imran Ahmed feeding stories to the Jewish Chronicle, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and the other big outlets. I know they helped to tank the Canary. Who else threatened them?

HOLDEN: Their main threat was the Canary and the other one, it’s slightly smaller, is Evolve Politics. The most important thing is that there’s a huge social media network that supports Corbyn, and a lot of that content was driven by the Canary’s reporting. By 2019 the Canary had published thousands of articles and had around 25 full-time staff.

The Canary has an editorial line, which is basically left wing, and their tone is a bit tabloidy, but they’re a legit media organization with good investigative journalists. And they were fact-checking other papers who basically running stuff likely planted by Ahmed and McSweeney.

People have now written about how, back in 2018 or 2019, Morgan McSweeney was just obsessed with the Canary. Wouldn’t shut up about it. There’s a quote that’s been published in a book by a former Guardian editor where McSweeney says, “It’s like, unless we destroy the canaries, they’re gonna destroy us.

And that’s the thing I think is so interesting about the story. That 2017 McSweeney document I told you about, about how he wanted to destroy the Labour from within, they couldn’t do that openly. They had to do it in secret. They made Labour Together look in public like this friendly cross-faction of kumbaya, “Let’s all meet and discuss our differences….” It’s actually this viciously factional organizations They basically run a misinformation campaign.

THACKER: From the beginning, McSweeney and Ahmed are operating Labour Together with all these hidden groups to attack anything that threatened their idea of what is true. And yet their whole tactic was to say, “You’re misinformation! You’re wrong!”

Their whole game is to pretend they’re stopping misinformation; what they’re actually doing is spreading misinformation to attack anyone who has an independent thought that differs from their own.

HOLDEN: It’s so messed up. It takes a long time for even me to realize, pull back and start understanding. From 2017 they establish a campaign of misinforming the public about who they are and what they’re doing. There’s also the issue of the money.

They’re taking in loads of money and they’re not reporting it to the Electoral Commission. They’re actually funded by close to a million pounds in donations from very political figures. That’s not known to the public at the time either.

They launch the “Stop Funding Fake News” SFFN campaign in March 2019 pretending they’re just a bunch of grassroots activists. It’s all about “We don’t want to reveal our identity, we’re just people who are committed to the truth and fighting hate.” But nobody knows at the time it’s actually Morgan McSweeney and Imran Ahmed—a Labour Party spin doctor. Nor that this campaign is supported by Steve Reed, who at the time was an MP and is now in Starmer’s cabinet.

They present themselves as grassroots. They’re actually this collection of very well-connected political figures who are funded with huge amounts of money from undeclared donors.

THACKER: They were also going after Breitbart in the UK. Breitbart is an American conservative media outlet affiliated with Steve Bannon at one time. Meanwhile, Stop Funding Fake News is telling the media, “We’re scared to tell you who we are, because then we’ll be attacked.”

Yet they attacked and condemned at will, anonymously—without disclosing who was funding them—anyone who dared express opinions they didn’t like. You don’t need to like a conservative Breitbart or a liberal Canary to know that people have a right to have those particular point of views without being attacked relentlessly by some dark money outfit like Imran Ahmed and Morgan McSweeney.

HOLDEN: The fundamental issue is transparency. They were pressuring outlets reporting their opinions and ideas and then destroying them without any way of answering back. McSweeney and Ahmed were really successful against the Canary, cutting their advertising revenue. They still struggle at the Canary as a result.

But as it was happening the Canary they can’t do anything about it because they don’t know who’s attacking them. If the editors could have pointed out, “Look, this is just Morgan McSweeney and Imran Ahmed, they don’t like us.” That would have been it.

But there’s also a legal dimension. If you don’t know it’s McSweeneyy Ahmed defaming you with anonymous accounts, you can’t sue them. On social media, there were times when Evolve Politics would ask, “Who are you? Stop this. I wanna send you a cease and desist letter, because you’re lying about us and affecting our ability to earn our income.”

There was no way of taking that legal action.

Stop Funding Fake News was not this heroic campaign to end disinformation and hate, because if you actually check their factual claims, they really don’t stand up. It was basically a misinformation campaign that’s no different from what Russia does. Hidden money for undisclosed political purposes, attacking people to create chaos.

Morgan McSweeney destroyed the Canary as a way of also destroying Corbynism, so that he can then select the next person to lead the Labour Party—so that person can be the next Prime Minister. It’s a misinformation campaign that succeeds in ways probably no other misinformation campaign has ever succeeded.

THACKER: Why is the media ecosystem in the UK is so weird. Why were they so incurious when they’re being contacted by McSweeney and Ahmed? Why would they go and quote the crap McSweeney and Ahmed were throwing around, without disclosing who they are being contacted by? The British media was complicit in this misinformation campaign.

HOLDEN: That is an incredibly good question to be asking of the British media ecosystem. It’s really genuinely crazy that, in certain instances, we’ve only found out this year about articles Morgan McSweeney and Imran Ahmed were placing back in 2018. That’s a mad situation to be in.

I’m generalizing very broadly, because there’s caveats here, but generally speaking the mainstream British newspapers set the news agenda and are pretty hostile to the politics of Jeremy Corbyn. They were pretty happy to be taking stuff from a campaign that was undermining him.

There was also a conflict of interest. The Canary was successful and taking readers from other platforms. And the Canary often had this very aggressive, confrontational approach to mainstream media outlets. If the BBC published something and they thought there were errors in it, they would call that out, “Hey BBC, you’ve made a mistake. BBC is biased.”

THACKER: The British media was complicit in this misinformation campaign. And they did it for politics and for financial reasons to kill off critical competitors.

HOLDEN: Also, 2019 was this insane period of reporting in the UK. There was hysteria around the possibility that Jeremy Corbyn can be prime minister. Imagine if Bernie Sanders had a real chance to be the Democratic candidate for president. There would be loads of stuff happening in the same way that when Trump became the Republican candidate.

THACKER: This hysteria around Trump is still happening. Half the time you read stuff about Trump … I don’t know if it’s true or not. Like that’s the whole problem. I don’t mind reading things that are negative about Trump, if they’re true, but so many times . . . .

We had years of some bullshit story that there was possibly a pee-tape that was secretly recorded with Trump and prostitutes in Russia. Nonsense crazy stuff, with Trump and Putin plotting to take over America. The reporters at the New York Times who did much of this nonsense reporting then won a Pulitzer.

We have Trump Derangement Syndrome. You have Corbyn Derangement Syndrome (CBS) in the UK?

HOLDEN: That’s a pretty good way of putting it. What it’s taught me, and should teach everyone if you want to learn lessons from it: you have to read all your media against the grain. You’ve got to be checking constantly. You’ve gotta have a wide range of sources because everybody makes mistakes.

Reporting that’s presented as established fact by the mainstream media is often, years later, found to be problematic.

THACKER: Read wisely. Read widely.

HOLDEN: Right. The proper approach is to be skeptical about everything you read. You should be skeptical of me; you should be skeptical of you. People should be skeptical of the Times and the New York Times. They should also be skeptical of the Canary. Read things carefully.

You have moments where it’s accepted that a fact has been established by the mainstream media. And if you challenge that fact, or you question that fact in any meaningful way, you’re immediately seen as falling outside of the acceptable commons for discussion.

Yet independent media are often the ones who push at a topic and then reveal the truth.

Read the rest here…

The fallout from the Novelis aluminum mill fire in Oswego, New York, which shut the plant down until early next year, continues to worsen for Ford Motor. The automaker is now preparing to scale back production of at least five models amid a tightening aluminum supply crunch. 

The Wall Street Journal reports that production of its three-row SUVs, the Expedition and Lincoln Navigator, at the Kentucky Truck Plant has been reduced due to “difficulties with aluminum supply.” 

Here’s more from WSJ:

To preserve aluminum supply, Ford also stopped work at its other assembly plant in Louisville, Ky., last week, according to a UAW official, resuming this week with only one of two shifts operating. That plant is in the final months of producing the Escape SUV and its luxury cousin, the Lincoln Corsair. The Escape will end production in December, the official said, as Ford prepares to build a new electric pickup at the Louisville plant. Ford this week is also idling its Dearborn, Mich., plant that produces its current electric pickup, the F-150 Lightning, because of the aluminum issue, Reuters reported last week.

AutoForecast Solutions analyst pointed out, “They’re focusing all their energy on making sure all their F-150s get built.” 

However, a United Auto Workers member at the Kentucky plant wrote in a Facebook post that producing the Super Duty pickups “may run short today, tonight, and possibly over the next few shifts.”

Some context about the Novelis fire at its Oswego plant: A Sept. 16 fire destroyed the building housing the hot mill, rendering the plant inoperable until at least early 2026. This part of the facility is where sheet aluminum used by the auto industry is produced. It supplies 40% of all aluminum sheet used by U.S. automakers, making it a very critical production node for America’s auto industry. WSJ noted that Ford is the mill’s largest customer. 

Last week, Evercore ISI analyst Chris McNally wrote in a note to clients, “We believe this is largely a Ford issue, at this time being, although we are continuing to check knock-on effects for [Stellantis] and Toyota as well,” adding, the disruption at the Dearborn plant will generate a $500 million to $1 billion hit to Ford’s EBIT.

Ford shares have dropped about 10% on the Oswego fire and the resulting production cuts or halts of five vehicle lines. Year-to-date, shares are up 16.5%. 

While entirely unrelated, it’s worth noting that Ford’s production woes come at a time when cracks have begun to appear in the subprime auto credit markets.

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Oct. 13 that he thinks the ongoing federal government shutdown might become the longest in the nation’s history, and that he “won’t negotiate” with Democrats until they abandon their health care demands to reopen.

Speaking to reporters at the Capitol on the shutdown’s 13th day, Johnson said he wasn’t aware of the details surrounding the Trump administration laying off thousands of federal workers during the lapse in funding.

Some critics, including Democrats, have cast the mass layoffs as a way for the administration to reduce the size of the federal government.

“We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history,” Johnson said.

With negotiations between Democrats and Republicans at a stalemate, the shutdown is expected to endure for the foreseeable future.

Not only have routine government operations been impacted or paused, but the Smithsonian museums and other cultural institutions have closed their doors.

American air travel has also been impacted, with the shutdown exacerbating an existing shortage of air traffic controllers, leading to delays at airports nationwide.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that the shutdown had already begun to affect the U.S. economy but did not elaborate.

The House of Representatives is currently out of legislative session, and Johnson has thus far not called lawmakers back to Washington after the lower chamber passed the GOP-backed continuing resolution to reopen the government. The Senate will return to work Tuesday after being closed for a federal holiday on Monday.

The Senate GOP needs 60 votes on its continuing resolution, which extended government funding at the existing level before the shutdown, to reopen the government. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has pinned blame on Democrats, who have insisted on a permanent extension to certain COVID-19 era health care subsidies that are expiring this year.

Democrats say millions of Americans who rely on the Affordable Care Act for health insurance will see subsidies expiring in December, leading to rising costs. Republicans have said the issue should be discussed after the government reopens.

With open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act set to begin on Nov. 1, some Americans may see their monthly health insurance premiums “more than double” with next year’s enrollment if Congress does not extend the subsidies expiring on Dec. 31, according to estimates from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

One of the Democrats who has voted for the Senate GOP-backed continuing resolutions is Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who on Sunday criticized his party for sending the wrong signal on the shutdown.

“Now, I fully support—let’s have a conversation to extending those tax credits,” Fetterman said. “I think a lot of Republicans might even agree with that, too. … That’s a priority for us, and they might agree. But, you know, let’s have our government open and have that conversation so people can get paid.”

This is not the first government shutdown tied to health care policy.

When Republicans tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2013, it resulted in a 16-day government shutdown.

However, the longest shutdown in U.S. history ended in 2019 after 35 days, when Republicans were requesting funds from Congress to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border during Trump’s first term. The president eventually backed off amid mounting pressure from delays at the nation’s airports and missed paydays for federal workers.