“The City Screwed This Up”: Judge Temporarily Blocks Mamdani’s Pied-A-Terre Tax Scheme
A New York judge temporarily halted Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist experiment to impose a new tax on luxury second homes, ordering far-left City Hall officials to remove a controversial list doxing more than 900,000 homeowners from the public domain
The publicly accessible database exposed names, addresses, and property values, effectively creating an easily accessible targeting list for radical activists, including Luigi-worshipping far-left activists, amid City Hall’s escalating war on property owners.
Bloomberg reports that Justice Wayne Ozzi temporarily restrained City Hall from proceeding with the new pied-à-terre tax and required the city to remove the online list of properties that would be targeted by the tax and halt further action based on roughly 17,000 notices mailed to property owners.
A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 31.
“The city screwed this up… got it wrong… stop the train and make them do it over,” Randy Mastro, a former deputy mayor, told the court. Mastro is the one who brought the suit on behalf of three New York homeowners.
“We are very gratified by the judge’s decision, which has vindicated the rights of hundreds of thousands of New York City homeowners who were subjected to a process they never should have been a part of in the first place,” Mastro said after the ruling.
On Monday, Mamdani noted Mastro’s role in suits challenging his socialist housing policies.
“You know, there are few things more certain in New York City than death, taxes and Randy Mastro filing a lawsuit against this administration,” the mayor said at a press conference.
“There are a few things more certain here today than death, taxes and Randy Mastro filing a lawsuit against this administration,” NYC Mayor Mamdani says when asked about the new lawsuit filed by Mastro on behalf of NYC homeowners over the rollout of the pied-à-terre tax pic.twitter.com/BTnvLPvgly
He continued, “So we look forward to vigorously defending our city’s position in court as we have done so with the previous lawsuits that he has filed and I’m sure with the lawsuits that he will continue to file in the months and years to come.”
Last month, Mastro also filed a separate complaint on behalf of a group of NYC landlords who sued to void a rent freeze approved in June, arguing that Mamdani improperly influenced the Rent Guidelines Board’s vote and ignored evidence of soaring operating costs for landlords. This plays into the broader socialist endgame: bankrupt landlords and create conditions for City Hall to seize distressed apartment buildings.
Mamdani has said the new pied-à-terre tax will help fund safer streets, safer schools, and “the city that New Yorkers deserve.”
Yet we know socialists do not live in economic reality, and the fact that they had to dox homeowners suggests an alternative motive: they want to seize the means of production. Putting such a list out in the public domain for their radical left foot soldiers to access suggests that wealthy homeowners will be targeted. This is dangerous, especially given the rhetoric pushed by Mamdani’s friend Hasan Piker, who recently said, “Kill capitalists.”
It seems as though only one thing motivates Congress to act – the threat of elections.
That’s why both the House and Senate have moved to pass a continuing resolution to keep funding the government until December. Originally funding was going to run out on Oct. 1, the date that was decided during the last shutdown crisis.
But with virtually every member of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate up for election in November, almost no one in Congress wanted to call attention to their own inaction by letting a new shutdown occur.
It’s the political version of Pavlov’s dogs. You know, the famous experiment by the Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov who trained canines to salivate at the sound of a bell because they associated the bell with the expectation of food being served.
The same thing happens with members of Congress when they hear that an election is scheduled within the next three months. Suddenly they want to be productive.
A representative can ignore constituents for 22 months and then suddenly rediscover them during the last two. And senators can become unresponsive to their voters for most of their six-year term, enjoying junkets and the other fruits of power while being under no obligation to get anything done.
Makes you almost sympathize with the Democratic Socialists of America, who have made abolition of the Senate one of their top priorities. Six-year terms have their virtues, but they also make senators especially prone to forgetting who they work for.
But maybe we could salvage the Senate if we could adapt Pavlov’s experiment in a way that would hopefully train senators to do their job on the regular instead of just once in a blue moon.
Call this my modest proposal. Like Jonathan Swift’s famous satirical essay proposing that poor Irish parents sell their infants as food, it isn’t intended as a serious legislative recommendation. It’s meant to expose an absurdity – in this case, a Congress that suddenly remembers how to govern only when voters are about to fire it.
Sadly, the proposal has little likelihood of being put into effect by those senators whom it would put on notice. Yet if its argument is accurate, then we can at least all agree that senators – and yes, all members of Congress – are little more than trained monkeys. If only we could train them well, perhaps they would do their job more consistently.
No doubt you are wondering how we could possibly accomplish such a remarkable goal. It’s a relatively simple mechanism, akin to the bell that Pavlov taught dogs to associate with food.
Namely, the Senate can institute a rule that once a month, the citizen constituents of each state will be able to vote electronically on whether they wish to retain or dismiss their senator.
Now, before you worry about constitutional entanglements and the risk of meddling in the results of such digital ballots, understand that the votes will not be binding. Instead they will simply keep senators on their toes, just as the threat of real elections does today. The results will be widely publicized, and any senator who consistently fails to win majority support from his state’s voters will be publicly humiliated.
But if it were taken seriously, it could have a much wider impact. Political parties could guarantee additional campaign support to senators who consistently earned the confidence of their state’s voters. And the opposite would be true as well. Suppose a senator has only a 30% retention rate from the citizens of his or her state. Donors would flee. Challengers would emerge. Even the most complacent senators might begin to reconsider their inaction.
The genius of elections is not that they remove bad politicians. It’s that the possibility of removal changes behavior long before Election Day. Congress doesn’t need more elections. It simply needs to remember every month that one is coming. Perhaps Pavlov’s bell could do the trick.
And then, instead of Congress passing a continuing resolution to fund the government for a month or two, we could return to regular order and watch appropriations bills passed for an entire year. What a revolutionary concept!
Frank Miele, retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont., is a columnist for RealClearPolitics. His book “The Media Matrix: What If Everything You Know Is Fake” is available from his Amazon author page. Visit him at HeartlandDiaryUSA.com or follow him on Facebook @HeartlandDiaryUSA and on X/Gettr @HeartlandDiary.
Outrage is boiling in North Texas after the McKinney City Council voted 7-0 to greenlight a major new Islamic center complex, brushing aside hours of public testimony that included a direct warning from an Iranian Christian who fled Sharia law.
Citizens packed City Hall for a marathon session that stretched past midnight. More than 150 people signed up to speak. The approved site plan covers roughly 5.5 acres at Virginia Parkway and Crutcher Crossing. It includes a 15,000-square-foot sanctuary, a 10,000-square-foot classroom building, and a 7,000-square-foot gym for the McKinney Islamic Association, which says its existing facility has been outgrown.
City staff insisted the revised plan met every zoning requirement with no variances, leaving the council little legal room to deny it. Council members framed the vote as purely procedural. Residents who showed up in force saw something far larger at stake.
? NOW: Outrage is ERUPTING after McKinney, Texas council votes to APPROVE a large Islamic Center
Countless citizens stormed the meeting to oppose it, including an Iranian Christian migrant who SURVIVED Sharia Law
One of the most powerful moments came from an Iranian Christian migrant who identified himself as a Sharia law survivor. “I’m a Sharia law survivor from Iran, an I’m here to tell you, this is a dangerous ideology you’re allowing in the country,” he told the council.
Other residents voiced similar fears. “They forced their way into countries and forced their religion,” one said. Another warned the project “may become a base where young men and women will be taught and trained to overthrow this great nation, a threat for which my forefathers fought with their own blood to build for the liberty of its citizens.”
Attention also focused on the association’s imam, Sheikh Mohammed Ajabali (also referred to as Mohamed AlGebaly), who holds a leadership role with the Islamic Tribunal of the Dallas area.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office has examined the tribunal, stating that the group has sought to replace actual courts of law, impose Sharia on disputes among Texas Muslims, and falsely represent its decisions as final judgments with the approval of the Texas judicial system.
State Rep. Keresa Richardson urged the council to pause action pending that investigation. U.S. Rep. Keith Self, who represents the area, told the room: “Child marriage, honor killings, don’t tell me that can’t happen here. There is no state cavalry coming to save you.” He added that the freedom to choose one’s faith “does not exist in political Islam.”
Supporters of the project stressed religious liberty, the association’s long presence in McKinney, and compliance with city rules. Association president Yasser Wardany said the group had redesigned the plan multiple times in response to earlier feedback and remained “committed to being a good neighbor.” Some council members pushed back against the intensity of the opposition, calling elements of it election-year rhetoric. The vote still went through unanimously.
This fits a clear and accelerating pattern across North Texas that has already drawn intense scrutiny from state leaders and local residents.
Earlier this year, Congressman Keith Self laid out how Sharia-adherent Muslim-only enclaves have already taken root. He pointed to the East Plano Islamic Center operating for more than a decade as a parallel society immediately adjacent to law enforcement facilities, with a similar pattern emerging in Irving.
“Sharia is alive, well, and operating in Plano, Texas,” Self said. “This is not a hypothetical or future threat. It is here, now and operational.” He described the placement next to police training facilities as intentional intimidation.
State authorities have also moved against unauthorized institutions. Governor Greg Abbott directed the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to issue an immediate cease-and-desist order against the so-called Texas American Muslim University in Richardson.
The operation had been marketing itself as the first U.S. university offering STEM degrees embedded with mandatory Islamic Studies courses while lacking any state authorization to grant degrees or even use the title “university.” Abbott made clear that illegal educational institutions would not be tolerated.
Public facilities have been pulled into the same orbit. A taxpayer-funded waterpark in Grand Prairie, built with tens of millions in public sales-tax money, advertised a “Muslim only” Eid event complete with burkini requirements, lowered-gaze rules, and other Islamic etiquette restrictions. Organizers later softened the public language after backlash, but the exclusionary character of the original promotion was unmistakable.
The same controversy intersects with the far larger “EPIC City” project, later rebranded The Meadow. The 400-acre master-planned development northeast of Dallas is designed to include more than 1,000 homes, a mosque, faith-based schools, commercial space, and related facilities.
Developers scored a legal win when a judge ordered a state agency to comply with prior agreements even as investigations by the Texas Workforce Commission, Attorney General Paxton, and federal partners continued.
NEW: ‘Muslim City’ in Texas gets legal win after a judge ordered that the state must comply with developers.
The East Plano Islamic Community (EPIC), which has now been rebranded to The Meadow, will feature 1,000 homes, a mosque, schools, and more.
Governor Abbott has repeatedly stated that Sharia law, Sharia cities, and “no-go zones” have no place in Texas. Residents and elected officials continue to warn that the project risks creating a parallel community structure.
McKinney’s approval lands against this backdrop. Local officials repeatedly insisted their hands were tied by zoning compliance and First Amendment considerations.
Residents who lived under actual Sharia systems, along with those watching the steady expansion of parallel institutions next to police facilities, private tribunals under investigation, unauthorized universities, and large-scale residential projects, see a different picture: incremental infrastructure for an ideology that does not accept equal standing under a single constitutional order.
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.
Former Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) organizer Jake Altman argues that over the past 10-15 years, the organization has transformed from a relatively pragmatic working-class social-democratic group into a much more radical movement driven by younger activists and open to more extreme ideas.
He describes internal pressure against dissenters, increasing openness to communism, and a demographic shift toward younger and more affluent, less experienced, and more radical members during an interview with The Free Press.
“When I joined in 2013, it was much more social democratic. It was very old, very white. In 2015 in Boston, it was a few older men and I who were the core of the old DSA chapter,” Altman explained. “It is night and day between DSA in even 2015 and now. It went from this, like you say, pretty moderate social-political group to a cultural juggernaut that it is today.”
“By 2014, a group called the Left Caucus was formed that advanced a lot of extreme views.”
“There were debates at the time about how much Leninism do we want to let into DSA. And these people, they eroded any resistance and any core of anti-communism that remained within DSA. Anti-communism became forbidden, right? This is a big evil thing, to be an anti-communist.”
“And you can’t hold this view without running all the old people who experienced the 20th century out of the organization. And I think that had to have been part of the calculus, that they didn’t want any internal resistance,” he said. “And so there were instances where people were – I think efforts were made to silence people who dissented.”
“I can speak from personal experience that if you dissent, there will be efforts to silence you. They use mob tactics, basically,” he said. “So if you speak out, they will coordinate and a bunch of people will jump on you and denounce you, smear you behind your back, do whatever it takes to try to discredit you if you speak out against them.”
“There was a local union in Ann Arbor who said it’s too far to vandalize and intimidate public officials, vandalize their homes and intimidate them. That is too far,” Altman said
“Immediately they received a swarm of people online responding to that statement, essentially saying, ‘You’re supporting genocide. Shame on you.’ Trying to turn their members against them and stir up animosity towards them with the effort of silencing them.”
“DSA itself makes a distinction – an important distinction – between paper members, who are people who give the organization their credit card and never come to a meeting, and cadre, who are hardcore activist members who show up to all the meetings and do all the work,” he said. “The cadre are incredibly radical. The paper members might be, you know, think AOC and Bernie Sanders are great and let’s get Medicare for All.”
US Fires On Ship Attempting To Break Iran Blockade, Amid Several Regional Maritime Attacks
Despite what are clearly ongoing attacks on international vessels in regional waters, suddenly mediators are feeling optimism again, and decided to float another apparent round of pre-US market open headlines suggesting peace could return.
Though there’s as yet no evidence of this, the Pakistani Defense Minister has signaled that the US and Iran are close to some agreement and that the situation is moving towards peace. Oil prices promptly plummeted ahead of market open. Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Raza Naqvi, has also just arrived in Tehran for talks with Iranian officials amid going mediation efforts, according to Iran’s Mehr news agency.
This came ironically just as reports of more serious shipping incidents, at least one of them deadly, emerged in regional waters, but perhaps the brief ‘peace is near’ headline redux had its intended effect on markets.
And significantly, the US is clearly still enforcing its military blockade of Iranian ports – and so no, the warring sides do not seem ‘close’ to a return to deal-making, instead the ground reality is quite the opposite:
US forces reportedly fired on a Panama-flagged ship that attempted to run the American blockade of Iranian ports early Tuesday, according to WSJ citing a US official.
“A U.S. military helicopter fired at the rudder of the ship after its crew ignored warnings from American personnel working to enforce the naval blockade of Iran’s ports, the official said,” The Wall Street Journal details:
“There were no immediate reports of any casualties in the incident, which took place before dawn on Tuesday. The U.S. official said the ship appeared to be attempting to transfer its crew to another civilian vessel after the attack,” the report adds.
There’s been a major deadly attack on a commercial ship in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb Strait region off Yemen on Tuesday, amid the ongoing escalation against Saudi shipping by the Houthis.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government has announced that at least three people have been killed in a Houthi attack on an unidentified commercial ship in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, however there’s been no immediate confirmation forthcoming from the Houthis themselves.
The small vessel has been identified as the Tanzania-flagged Tihamah, and reports say this marks the first deaths from Houthi maritime attacks since the start of the Iran war in February.
According to emerging details in Reuters via maritime monitors:
UK Maritime Trade Operations said it had been informed that a cargo vessel off the coast of al-Mokha, Yemen, had been hit by an unknown projectile, resulting in casualties.
British maritime security company Ambrey said the ship was reportedly targeted and damaged by the Houthis, killing three crew members, while at anchor 3.3 nautical miles northeast of Perim Island, Yemen.
Two Pakistanis and one Indonesian person were killed as the ship sailed from Salalah in Oman via Djibouti, the Yemeni sources said. After the attack, the crew lost control of the ship and were approached by Yemeni coast guard, they added.
And yet the stricken vessel does not appear to be Saudi-owned or operated, which could signal that the Houthis are expanding their siege of the waterway to include all foreign vessels and not just Saudi and Israeli-linked ones.
Further east, UKMTO also received a report of an incident involving a container ship and military forces in the Gulf of Oman.
If this alleged incident which is closer to the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz is confirmed, it would likely be a directly Iranian-linked incident. WSJ details that “maritime security firm Vanguard reported that a Panama-flagged containership called Vela Nova was struck by a missile fired from a helicopter while transiting westbound through the Gulf of Oman about 71 nautical miles from the coast of Pakistan.”
“The missile struck the vessel, causing a fire that was subsequently extinguished,” said Vanguard, noting that all 17 crewmembers are accounted for.
Since joining the regional conflict on Iran’s side, the Houthis – which have long been seen as proxies of Tehran, have attacked dozens of vessels after declaring their “siege for siege” operations against Saudi Arabia.
Overnight Developments
Iran’s new supreme leader, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, is putting his own stamp on the country’s national-security policy amid a confrontation with the U.S. that could last months or even years. In a sweeping overhaul of the government’s top echelon on Sunday and Monday, Iran named seasoned hard-liners to run the country’s security policies and institutions of repression. WSJ
Persian Gulf energy producers are concluding that Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz will become permanent, disrupting their oil and gas exports and global energy supplies indefinitely. The problem is they worry the alternative—going back to war—would be worse. WSJ
There was a maritime incident reported in Bab al-Mandab, with Fars reporting that a Saudi ship was reportedly targeted by the Yemeni army. In other news,
Yemeni sources said a second missile targeted a ship while the coast guard was rescuing its crew in Bab al-Mandab.
The UKMTO has received a report of an incident involving a tanker and military forces in the Gulf of Oman.
Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi said the world should hold the US accountable for the Hormuz block, while Hormuz security requires end to US aggression, according to Fars News Agency.
Yemen military source said government forces launched a concentrated attack on militia positions in Harib, Shabwa, according to Al Arabiya.
Explosions reported in Yemen’s Marib, according to SNN.
Lebanon and Israel are expected to hold the next round of talks in early September, according to Al-Arabiya.
Israeli forces conducted new strikes in southern Lebanon, according to SNN.
Fauci Privately Flagged Miscarriage Risk Before Telling Pregnant Women There Were ‘No Red Flags’
Newly disclosed text messages show Dr. Anthony Fauci privately entertained the possibility that the COVID-19 vaccine could trigger first-trimester miscarriages, months before he told the public there was no risk.
The messages come from atrove that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) released, containing more than 34,000 texts and 522 voicemails the Senate Homeland Security Committee pulled from Fauci’s government-issued phone. Among the trove is a January 2021 text chain between Fauci, Dr. Vivek Murthy and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who went on to serve as the Biden administration’s surgeon general and CDC director, in which the three officials worked through how the vaccine’s risks might interact with pregnancy.
On Jan. 25, Murthy opened the thread with a question. “For pregnant women considering getting the vaccine, are you aware of any data or theoretical reason why vaccinating early vs late in pregnancy would be preferred? And any sense of when there will be more robust data on vaccine risk in pregnant women?”
Walensky noted that more than 15,000 pregnant women had already enrolled in the CDC’s V-safe vaccine safety monitoring system. Fauci wrote there “are no data or theoretical reason to believe that vaccinating early versus later in pregnancy would be preferred.” He also flagged a caveat that would later look prescient. “Yet, some people (even female health care professionals) feel concerned about injecting a ‘genetic’ vaccine very early in pregnancy,” he wrote.
Nearly two hours passed before Fauci circled back with something he had not mentioned the first time. “I asked around a bit more and another issue came up that you need to be aware of,” he wrote. “Since many people have significant cytokines storm and fever after the 2nd dose, this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.”
NEW: Dr. Fauci was concerned in January 2021 that the second dose of the COVID shot “theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.” @SenRandPaul and I released the texts between Anthony Fauci, Rochelle Walensky, and Vivek Murthy below.
Walensky’s response left little doubt the group treated the concern as legitimate. Fauci’s point about the first trimester was “definitely a good point, [especially] after dose two,” she wrote back.
None of that made it into Fauci’s public messaging. On Feb. 3, 2021, during a Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) question-and-answer livestream, he told viewers the FDA had “found thus far, and we have to be careful, but thus far no red flags about that, about pregnant women.” Months later, while serving as the Biden White House’s chief medical adviser, he went further, telling the public that tens of thousands of pregnant women tracked by the CDC after vaccination showed “no indication whatsoever” of increased adverse issues compared with unvaccinated pregnant women. “It’s pretty clear that pregnant women should get vaccinated,” he said.
Fauci on August 30, 2021: “it’s really one of those things that’s kind of not a close call. It really is pretty clear that pregnant women should get vaccinated.”
The texts also show the three officials weighing vaccine risk against the risk of the virus itself while worrying about how competing health authorities were muddying their message. On Jan. 26, 2021, Murthy told Fauci and Walensky he was “surprised to see WHO put out a strong [statement] saying they do not recommend moderna [sic] in pregnant women,” calling it “a strong statement to make and potentially quite damaging to public confidence among pregnant women.” Public confidence kept surfacing as the metric that mattered most to the group, even as the underlying science remained unsettled in their own private assessment.
Paul and Johnson said the phone the committee obtained lists only three contacts, and cautioned it is “too early to determine whether any data has been deleted.” Paul referred Fauci for prosecution earlier this month over his refusal to testify before the Homeland Security Committee. Asked Monday whether he had discussed potential prosecution of Fauci with Attorney General Todd Blanche or DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, President Trumptold reporters, “I have not spoken to them about that, no.”
Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a July 29 hearing covering the pandemic and federally funded gain-of-function research. After the hearing, Paul and Johnson said they had obtained a forensic copy of Fauci’s phone along with emails showing health officials had requested deletion of some records.
Johnsonsaid Monday on Fox News’ America Reports that the committee has invited Fauci for a transcribed interview. “He’s been quoted as saying he’s not afraid of congressional oversight. He’ll talk to any oversight committee; he’s got nothing to hide,” Johnson said, noting that Fauci’s attorneys have been in contact. He called Fauci “the only guy that can answer some of these questions” and warned, “If they don’t set that up voluntarily, I will subpoena him.”
China’s Unitree Robotics IPO 5,526 Times Oversubscribed By Retail Investors
Unitree Robotics’ initial public offering was heavily oversubscribed (5,526 times) by retail investors as China’s first publicly traded humanoid robotics company prepares to enter the public markets. The IPO will help usher in physical AI to the equity market.
The Hangzhou-based humanoid robot maker raised about 6.1 billion yuan, or $904 million, after selling 40.4 million shares at 150.8 yuan each, according to Bloomberg.
The offering values Unitree at roughly 61 billion yuan, or $9 billion, ahead of its expected STAR Market debut this month. The IPO will make the firm China’s first publicly traded humanoid robot manufacturer.
Top investors soaked up about 20% of the offering, including AI startup DeepSeek, a Tencent-affiliated investment vehicle, and investment arms linked to CNPC, China Southern Power Grid, and China Telecom. DeepSeek was allocated a 2.31% stake.
China Dominates The Humanoid Robot Race. Can Trump Close The Gap?
It should surprise no one that new data from Smart Analytics Global, cited by Bloomberg, shows that Chinese humanoid robot makers accounted for a staggering 97% of global shipments in the first half of 2026.
The figures come as the Trump administration increasingly recognizes that humanoids will be critical to the emerging physical AI era, creating an urgent need to build out America’s robot supply chain, including motors, actuators, sensors, batteries, and AI models.
via Barclays.
Smart Analytics Global said global humanoid shipments tripled to 19,100 units in the first half from 5,100 a year earlier. The research firm expects deliveries to reach roughly 60,000 this year and climb to 500,000 by 2030.
The estimates are similar to those from major institutional research desks, including UBS, whose most bullish forecast projects nearly 400,000 global deliveries by the end of the decade.
via UBS.
Our latest notes dissecting the humanoid robot value chain and examining how to profit from the key companies that manufacture critical components, such as motors and actuators, find that many of these companies are based in Asia, more specifically in China.
China’s dominance on humanoids reflects years of policy support and government funding aimed at accelerating robotics, drones, electric vehicles, and much more. The country’s progress was on display at the World AI Conference in Shanghai last month, where dozens of companies demonstrated rapid advances in dexterity, speed, and autonomous capabilities.
The US recently banned imports of new Chinese humanoid and quadruped robots, as well as certain components, citing national security concerns and cybersecurity risks to AI infrastructure.
The Trump administration has yet to release a standalone executive order specifically aimed at supercharging the domestic humanoid robotics industry, but we expect that could be coming.
I’ve been putting together a new course for Trust Insights, AI for Writing (and Writers), which will be coming out August 25th, and during the process of creating that course, I realized I’ve never walked through setting up a discount agentic AI system.
For a while now, many of us who work in “corporate” have had access to what feels like unlimited amounts of AI (though that free ride is coming to an end at enterprise shops thanks to absurdly large bills). For the average person who doesn’t have the backing of a corporation, how could we tap into the power of agentic systems without tapping out our wallets?
“have you done a video or post with recommendations for a cheap second computer set up someone can use to build their separate AI machine?“
So this week, let’s get scrappy.
Warnings, Disclaimers, Disclosures
If you work at a company, please check with IT before installing software willy-nilly. As a former IT professional, we thank you.
Second, in this issue I’ll be talking about Chinese-made AI models like Qwen and DeepSeek. There is a HUGE difference between a Chinese model hosted by a company in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and a Chinese-made model hosted by a company outside the PRC.
It is manifestly unsafe to use any AI models hosted in the PRC for any kind of confidential information, period. Totally fine to use those models for things that are completely public, like research requests.
However, it is completely safe to use Chinese-made AI models on your own hardware, or in an infrastructure that’s trustworthy. There are many, many great inference providers that have things like Zero Data Retention (ZDR) hosting which are even safer to use than Big Tech models because the providers warrant that they don’t keep your data at all. (Most Big Tech providers have a “we hold onto your data for 30 days to prevent abuse” clause in their Terms of Service)
There is a lot of fear mongering about open weights models (including the Chinese ones) happening right now because Big Tech providers’ profits are on the line if these models continue to offer parity of capabilities at a fraction of the cost. Don’t believe the hype; open weights models are so safe that companies like HuggingFace have used them to do their own cybersecurity defenses.
Third, where I have commercial relationships, I’ll disclose them. I have an Amazon affiliate link in this week’s article, and obviously I work for my company, Trust Insights. I do not have a financial interest in the other companies mentioned as of the time of writing. (but I’m happy to, call me)
Part 1: The Model
We’ll begin our tour with what model to use. In general, you want models that are a blend of cost efficient with effective performance. One of my favorite sites for this is Artificial Analysis; there’s a nice little grid on their models page that shows cost versus intelligence. What we’re looking for in this grid is models that are at the top left corner – the vertical (y) axis is brains, where higher is better, and the horizontal (x) axis is cost, where to the left is lower.
The current winner here is DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731, which has a crazy low cost and lots of brains, on par with OpenAI’s newest model, GPT-5.6 Luna. On the far right is Claude Opus 5, which has about 15% more brains but 40x the cost. The worst quadrant to be in is the lower right – high cost, low brains.
For the purposes of building the cheapest agentic system, DeepSeek is going to be your daily driver model.
DeepSeek V4 Flash outcompetes all but the most recent releases of OpenAI’s models over the years; it is almost 50% smarter than last summer’s flagship model, GPT-5, and is only 17% less capable than OpenAI’s current flagship model.
DeepSeek V4 Flash is about on parity with Claude Opus 4.7 – which came out in April 2026, a scant FOUR MONTHS AGO.
Now, times change, tech changes, and what you should be doing is checking in on these kinds of charts over time to see which model is closest to that top left corner. This month, it’s DeepSeek V4 Flash. Next month, it might be completely different. It’s our responsibility to keep up with the charts and use the cheapest, best brains we can get a hold of.
Now that we know what model we’re aiming to use, we have to figure out where to use it.
Part 2: The Host
Just like web hosting companies host websites, model hosting companies – called inference providers – host models. There are so, so many of these out there, and they compete mainly on two things, speed and price. Some providers charge a premium but generate results (tokens per second) at ridiculous speeds, like Cerebras. Others offer a wide variety of models at slower speeds but are cheap (like DeepInfra).
Choosing a provider is straightforward: because you’ve decided the model already, it’s a question of pricing and availability. In Google AI Mode, modify this prompt to suit your needs:
Help me create a list of inference providers that match these criteria. First and most important, they MUST offer this exact model: {model}. This is immutable and non-negotiable; a provider that does not offer this model does not make the list. Second, identify the pricing for this model in three categories: cost per input tokens, cost per output tokens, cost per cached tokens. If a provider does not offer pricing for this model for cached tokens, disqualify them. Third, the provider MUST be a zero data retention (ZDR) inference provider. If ZDR pricing is additional, compute it as part of the token costs. ZDR capability is mandatory; if a provider does not offer ZDR, disqualify them. Fourth, if available, obtain the tokens per second for this model for each provider. Return your results as an ordered list in ascending order by lowest cost per tokens for each provider for our chosen model.
You might want to add specific additional needs like SOC 2 compliance, GDPR compliance, etc. To the prompt based on your needs, so customize it any way you like.
With any model you choose, be sure you capture the full model name; DeepSeek v4 Flash for example has an antecedent that lacks the 0731 suffix. Our exact model that we want is DeepSeek v4 Flash 0731.
When I stick this into Google, DeepInfra, Fireworks AI, and OpenCode Zen show up as good options. Which one you choose will be based on how much you prioritize speed versus cost. If you told me to pick one and only one, I’ve been a customer of DeepInfra for a couple of years now and have no complaints at all, BUT there is also a case to be made for OpenCode Zen. More on that in a minute.
What I like, for Leslie’s specific use case, is that pay as you go providers mean that you’re not paying if you’re not using the AI AND there’s a strong economic incentive for you to use AI as little as possible and be as efficient in its use as possible. One of the problems with token plans (which include things like Claude Pro/Max, etc.) is that if you haven’t hit your weekly/monthly limits, you’re wasting money – and thus you’re more likely to use AI frivolously. With pay as you go, you only pay for what you use.
Part 3: The Hardware
For a second computer setup that’s cheap, we have to think about how computers work. The graphical user interface we’re all used to on Windows or Mac or even desktop Linux, as well as on our phones and tablets, is an INCREDIBLY inefficient waste of compute resources. It takes enormous amounts of memory and processing power to draw and maintain the interface compared to pure text-based interfaces.
Now, the crusty old GenX computer nerd in me says that everyone should know how to use a text-based interface (often called a command line or command prompt or terminal), but that’s not realistic. However, there is one user that LOVES text-based interfaces.
Yup, you guessed it. That’s AI. AI is far, far more efficient at typing than it is using a mouse, so for our second computer as Leslie asked about, we’re going to aim for a super cheap box that can run a terminal, store things, and run an AI harness. At a price point of roughly USD 500, you won’t be running AI models directly on this hardware (hence why we searched for hosting providers in Part 2), but you’ll have a decent machine with good storage.
On the shopping venue of your choice, look for what are called gaming mini-PCs. These typically will have AMD Ryzen chips, a small hard drive (typically 256 GB or 512 GB SSD), and between 16 GB and 32 GB of RAM. The cardinal rule of computing is that you want as much RAM/memory as money can buy; a slightly slower processor with more RAM is better than a fast processor with not enough RAM. RAM is like highway lanes; a Bugatti stuck in traffic on a single lane dirt road will not go as fast as a Prius on an 8 lane highway with no traffic jam.
Google AI Mode is handy here as well. Modify this prompt to suit your needs, especially if there are some companies you would prefer not to do business with:
Help me create a list of vendors that offer gaming mini PCs for sale that ship to my location: {locale}. My criteria are that the machine cost less than {amount} inclusive of shipping and that it have a minimum of 16 GB of RAM and 500 GB of disk space, ideally with an SSD. 32 GB of RAM is preferred, and more disk space is always preferred. The system MUST be able to run Ubuntu Linux 26.06 in headless mode. The CPU can be any make or model that offers a base clock speed of 3 GHz; AMD, Intel, or other vendors are fine as long as they are fully supported on Ubuntu. Ethernet and Wifi are mandatory. USB-C, Bluetooth, and HDMI are preferred. eGPU support is preferred. The following vendors and resellers are preferred: {preferred list}. The following vendors and resellers are forbidden: {banned list} The use case for this device will be to run OpenCode and Ubuntu Linux, plus apps like PostgreSQL, Docker, SQLite, Apache2, and similar server-like systems for a single person. Arrange your results in ascending order by price as an ordered list.
Why these specs? You want the extra RAM and disk space so you can run multiple local applications together on the same box. For example, if you want to run Hermes Agent, chances are you’ll want it in something like a Docker container, and the RAM/disk space will REALLY help with that. Likewise, if you want to roll your own local apps, you’ll probably be running a server that has a database, maybe even a local webserver, and more memory and disk space will really help there.
And technically, though it’s a miserable experience, a mini PC like this CAN do local inference with small models. Using something like llama.cpp, koboldcpp, or Unsloth Studio, you COULD theoretically serve up a small model like Gemma 4 E4B and get a modest little AI server running that can do basic things like summarization.
Once you get your hardware, you’ll want to erase the operating system on it and install a version of Linux. Linux is the best choice for this kind of computer because it can run using very few system resources. I’d suggest Ubuntu Linux in LTS flavor – LTS stands for Long Term Support, and the Ubuntu Foundation warrants that a version of Ubuntu will be supported for 10 years from the launch date. The current version is 26.04 LTS, Resolute Raccoon.
One thing that’s nice about Ubuntu Linux is that you can start it up with a GUI for configuration and all the comforts of modern computing, and then once everything is all square, you can shut down the GUI to free up resources, running it in text-based interface alone.
Part 4: The Harness
AI models by themselves are smart but are prone to things like hallucinations. Model hosts can add some guardrails and some tuning, but the real magic happens when you put a good model in a great harness. Think of the model like the engine of a car. An engine isn’t much good by itself, and a car without an engine is a lawn ornament, doubly so if it’s on cinderblocks.
But a good engine in a great car? That’s where, quite literally, the rubber meets the road. And as with cars, sometimes you can do with a good engine but not a great one if the rest of the car is nice. Unless you’re driving NASCAR or Formula 1, a Prius doesn’t need a V8 engine.
Harnesses are the interfaces to AI. When you use ChatGPT on the web, OpenAI has put a harness around its models, and what you experience as ChatGPT is their tuned harness. The same is true for Gemini, for Claude, etc. – and different harnesses do different things. Claude Code, for example, has hundreds of words of specific language built into its system prompts to behave a certain way, plus a slew of deterministic rules that silently reject bad outputs from the Claude models before you ever see them as a user.
For our purposes, because we’re trying to build a scrappy AI setup, we want a harness that’s free and supports multiple providers. For that, there’s no better harness than OpenCode. OpenCode is Free Open Source Software, and it comes in 2 flavors, a command line version and a GUI version. What’s really nice about it is that the GUI version is built on top of the command line version, so you don’t have to do anything differently and you can configure it in GUI mode, then use it later in command line mode with no changes at all.
OpenCode also supports all the modern skills and plugins that other AI systems use, so if you see a cool skill that someone’s showing off in Claude Code, for example, you can install that same skill in OpenCode.
OpenCode also offers 2 paid coding plans to go with it, OpenCode Zen which is pay as you go, and OpenCode Go, which is a subscription plan. There are some free models in OpenCode Zen but those DO collect your data and are not zero data retention. Remember in the world of AI that if you’re not paying, you and your data are the product being sold to someone else.
If you want the convenience of not having to manage your AI hosting separate from your AI harness, OpenCode Zen is a great choice. If you want the lowest possible costs, then use OpenCode with DeepInfra.
Part 5: Wrapping Up, the Process in a Nutshell
So in a nutshell, here is the order of operations to get up and running – and you can put this list (or this entire newsletter, really) into your favorite chat-based AI tool to walk you through this process.
Choose a model.
Choose a hosting provider.
Choose a hardware box of some kind.
Install Linux on that box.
Install OpenCode on that box.
Connect OpenCode to your hosting provider.
With those six big steps, you’re ready to go! I would suggest also installing and configuring tmux on your new box, because that gives you the ability to remote control it very easily, and if you want to get FANCY, install Tailscale on it as well, to create a VPN of your computers together so you can access your new AI box from anywhere in the world. That’s probably best for another time, though your AI of choice can walk you through that pretty easily.
The key to remember here is that this machine is a self-contained little server. Once you have OpenCode installed on it and connected to your model of choice, one of the first tasks you can do is put it to work securing itself. Using your favorite deep research tools, ask for a best practices guide to securing your little computer and optimizing it for AI usage, especially with the most popular command line tools that will help AI save tokens and usage. Because you’re using a provider like DeepInfra, every request you make costs you a tiny bit of money, and the more you can reduce that, the more you save.
If you deploy this system as written, you’ll spend about USD 500 on the hardware, and probably USD 5 to 10 per month in AI inference costs for moderate usage, which I define as a major coding project per week, something where your AI is working with sustained effort for about 2 hours a day. Models like DeepSeek V4 and similarly capable models are incredibly capable and dirt cheap to use.
It’s worth pointing out that if you have a working computer today, you could skip the hardware purchase and install OpenCode on your computer as is, eliminating the hardware cost. For folks on limited incomes, this is a great way to get access to high end AI without high end subscriptions, like job seekers without stable income.
Enjoy running your own little AI operations center!
Russia’s Only Anti-War Party Banned From Parliamentary Elections Over ‘Foreign Funding’
It’s been no secret that Russian authorities have increasingly cracked down on public speech which opposes the war in Ukraine, or as the Kremlin calls it – the special military operation. Any speech deemed ‘unpatriotic’ has also come under a legal microscope of late.
Currently, Yabloko (Apple) is the only officially registered Russian political party which openly oppose the war, calling “for peace and freedom”. But the party has just suffered a huge setback, having been banned by the nation’s top court from running candidates in upcoming parliamentary elections.
Russia’s Supreme Court on Monday “upheld a suit brought by a pro-Kremlin nationalist party, stripping voters opposed to the four-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine of their last option on the ballot,” France24 reports.
“The claims seeking to annul the registration of the federal list of candidates for the State Duma of the ninth convocation, nominated by the Yabloko political party, were granted,” the ruling by judge Vyacheslav Kirillov indicated.
Some one hundred mostly young supporters of Yabloko demonstrated outside the courthouse chanting “Shame! Shame!” following the ruling. Yabloko leader Nikolay Rybakov has affirmed that the party is planning to appeal the decision.
The rationale for the ban is that the anti-war party is accused of receiving foreign funds; however, it has countered by saying rival political parties have also received such funding:
According to data from Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring), the Yabloko party had received funding from abroad, a Central Election Commission (CEC) representative said. The representative spoke during a court hearing on a lawsuit the Rodina party filed seeking to remove Yabloko from the State Duma election.
On Aug. 7, Rosfinmonitoring gave the commission a document stating that individuals on Yabloko’s federal candidate list had received foreign funding, the CEC representative said.
Several dozen of the party’s counterparties had also received this funding, according to Rosfinmonitoring.
Anti-Kremlin regional outlet Meduza has published the following from Yabloko party concerning its legal hot water situation:
Yabloko has attributed the foreign funding data to the sale of foreign shares, which the law requires candidates to sell off ahead of elections, the Telegram channel Varlamov News reports. Yabloko lawyer Gadzhi Aliev said the funds did not come to the party itself from foreign individuals, but from Russian citizens who had received money from foreign sources.
Russia has long been fearful over foreign entities making inroads into Russian society, a concern which stretches to well before the war started.
The future of Russia’s only registered party opposing the war in Ukraine hangs in the balance. Moscow’s Supreme Court is hearing a bid to remove Yabloko from September’s parliamentary elections, drawing hundreds of the party’s supporters to the courthouse. pic.twitter.com/yJGoHod0nv
It also worries that US and European intelligence could seek to manipulate parliamentary elections. In America, Democrats had starting long ago charged Moscow with interfering in US elections, which produced years of ‘Russiagate’ hanging over President Trump – yet with nothing close to a smoking gun.
Regarding the brutal war in Eastern Europe, common Russian families have continued to struggle and suffer quietly because of the conflict as more and more young men are killed in the fighting. On the other side of it, Ukrainian families are also suffering immensely – and tragically there seems no end in sight as peace talks have proven illusive.
‘How Can We Help You Kill More Russians?’ German Reporter To Zelensky At Belgrade Meeting
It has never been a secret that much of the Western mainstream media “journalist and pundit class” are in reality warmongers and armchair interventionists and chickenhawks – or also activists and advocates operating under the guise of “objective reporting”.
One German journalist was surprisingly open with his lust for blood at a press conference in Belgrade on Saturday. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung correspondent Michael Martens posed a surprisingly blunt question to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic looking on at the other podium. The journalist wanted to know how Europeans could concretely assist in “killing more Russians”. Watch:
🇩🇪🇷🇺 German journalist who asked Zelensky how Europeans can “help kill more Russians” turns out to be the grandson of a high-ranking Nazi
Michael Martens’s grandfather was a senior Wehrmacht command officer
“Can you tell us Europeans what can we concretely do to help you to kill more Russians?” Martens asked.
He quickly checked himself, adding that he means “more Russian soldiers, of course.” President Vucic is seen with a look of shock on his face as the question is being asked, raising his eyebrows in apparent disbelief.
Zelensky had responded to the question with the usual calls for more money, and more weapons, and to hit Moscow harder with Western sanctions.
Vucic’s answer was very diplomatic but also somewhat of a rebuke to the question, expressing his desire to see all killing come to and end:
“We did not discuss military cooperation today,” the Serbian president said. “What happens when the war ends is another matter. And speaking about killing, I hope all killing will end.”
The clip has gone viral in Europe, and has been highlighted in Russian and Ukrainian media – but has been curiously absent from Western mainstream press.
The Serbian leader’s look says it all…
“Tell us, Europeans, what can we concretely do to help you kill more Russians?”
That was the question a German journalist asked Zelensky at a press conference in Belgrade
Amid the controversy, the outlet that Martens writes for, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, issued a statement expressing “regret” while still seeming to defend the exchange, only saying that its reporter’s statement was “worded ambiguously”.
Sadly, none of this is completely surprising – and the longer the Ukraine war drags on, the more bloodthirsty that “journalists” and pundits and some politicians are likely to become. Or rather, the masks are off and such sentiment is much more out in the open.
