The race for U.S. leadership in AI is hitting a tangible wall made of steel, copper, and imported circuit breakers. Trillions in planned spending on data centers are running up against chronic shortages of transformers, switchgear, and batteries, the unglamorous gear that actually delivers power to the racks. 

AI Takeover Complete: Data Center Construction Surpasses Office Construction For The First Time https://t.co/g5WxE9glY3

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 27, 2026

Domestic production has not scaled anywhere near fast enough, leaving developers with little choice but to lean on overseas suppliers, predominantly from China. The result is lengthening lead times that threaten to push back or cancel projects already baked into corporate budgets and national strategy.

Bloomberg reports electrical equipment, though a small slice of total project costs, is the component that can bring everything to a halt. Their leading example is the massive facility under construction in Abilene, TX, expected to draw as much as 1.2 gigawatts once it serves OpenAI.

For comparison, that’s more energy than a Westinghouse AP1000 reactor can provide… 

We previously pointed out exactly this vulnerability back in August 2025 when Wood Mackenzie sounded the alarm on transformer shortages. The consultancy projected demand would exceed supply by 30 percent that year alone, with U.S. manufacturers able to cover only a fraction of needs and roughly 80 percent of units imported. We warned then that the AI boom was colliding with a grid already buckling under failed green policies and surging electricity loads, a dynamic that has only intensified since.

In January, we highlighted America’s aging power infrastructure, showing how data-center demand is now a measurable slice of national consumption and exposing decades of underinvestment that no amount of policy rhetoric can paper over. 

The current administration is doing what they can to try and ensure costs are not passed on to household consumers, with the recent agreement made between the White House and some of the biggest hyperscalers. But with news from Constellation that no matter how hard new energy generation is pushed onto the grid, long connection queues will destroy any possibility of the national grid finding balance.
 

Authored by Christopher F. Rufo, Ryan Thrope, Kenneth Schrupp & Haley Strack via City Journal,

California is a cash machine. The state collects some of the country’s highest income, business, and fuel taxes, and now spends more than $300 billion per year. And yet, everywhere you look, California seems to be falling apart.

The roads are crumbling. Mismanaged wildfires have turned neighborhoods into ash. Drug addiction and homelessness have metastasized, turning parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco into no-go zones. And the cost-of-living crisis is pricing middle-class taxpayers out of basic necessities like groceries and gas, even as the state spends billions on welfare programs that never seem to lift anyone out of poverty.

Californians are beginning to ask: Where is all this money going? On paper, it funds hospitals, universities, schools, prisons, infrastructure, and other public services. But beneath the surface, something else is happening that California Governor Gavin Newsom does not want you to see: massive, systematic, brazen fraud.

We conducted interviews with public officials, fraud experts, and political figures, and reviewed hundreds of pages of government reports, state audits, criminal indictments, and other public records on California fraud. From unemployment insurance and Medicaid to failed homeless initiatives and welfare programs, seemingly every state program has been compromised by criminals. The best estimates suggest that, on the governor’s watch, fraudsters, scammers, and organized crime rings have stolen at least $180 billion from taxpayers.

Welcome to Gavin Newsom’s empire of fraud.

Fourteen months after Newsom began his first term as governor of California, the Covid-19 pandemic swept the world. Roughly 2.7 million Californians eventually lost their jobs. The state’s economy went into freefall as its leaders imposed some of the country’s most restrictive public-health measures. In response to the crisis, Newsom sought to dump pallets of cash across the state—as quickly as possible.

One way to inject money was through California’s massive unemployment insurance program (UI). Unemployment insurance is administered by the state’s Employment Development Department (EDD), which can process billions of dollars in payments monthly. Before the state turned on the cash machine, however, experts had warned that the system was ripe for fraud.

Haywood Talcove, one of America’s leading fraud specialists and CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions for Government, was one such expert. “I was begging [federal officials] not to let the money go out like that, because it was going to be the biggest fraud in the history of our country,” he said. “Obviously, I wasn’t successful.”

For many reasons, California was particularly susceptible to the large-scale fraud schemes Haywood Talcove saw on the horizon. Not only did the state have some of the most generous welfare programs in the country; its bureaucrats had also failed to implement some basic fraud controls during Newsom’s tenure.

“They literally suspended all of the rules for the [unemployment insurance] program,” Talcove said. “[That made] it possible for anyone to get that benefit even if they weren’t entitled to it. It was very intentional. They knew what they were doing. But it caught up to them because it just got so out of control.”

The scams began almost immediately, with criminals from around the world reportedly siphoning cash from the program. In one case, a Romanian-led fraud ring orchestrated a $5 million unemployment-insurance scheme. Members allegedly “recruited potential [EDD-benefit] applicants through Facebook” and met them at “parks throughout Southern California to complete the application process,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California. “Applicants paid . . . a partial fee up front for assisting with fraudulent applications and another fee after applicants received EDD payments,” the office said. Many of the fraudsters wired the stolen funds to Romania.

Around September 2020, Fontrell Antonio Baines, a rapper from Memphis known as Nuke Bizzle, released a music video on YouTube entitled “EDD.” In the song, Baines bragged about ripping off California’s UI program. “Go to the bank with a stack of these,” Baines rapped, holding up EDD envelopes. Another rapper can be heard saying: “You gotta sell cocaine, I just file a claim.” All told, Baines obtained more than $700,000 in stolen funds using preloaded EDD debit cards. He pleaded guilty to federal charges.

Nor were these isolated incidents. A member of the SFV Peckerwoods, a California-based neo-Nazi gang, allegedly ran an unemployment scam during the pandemic. So did Michael Thompson, a one-time leader of the Aryan Brotherhood, who was eventually convicted. California’s prison population apparently got in on the action, too: the EDD allegedly paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent claims in prisoners’ names, including those of at least 133 inmates on death row.

Remarkably, EDD not only failed regularly to cross-reference its unemployment payouts with a list of state prisoners, but it also had just two bureaucrats assigned manually to inspect reports of suspected fraud. State officials eventually admitted to having paid out approximately $20 billion in fraudulent claims during the pandemic, and to making an estimated $55 billion in improper payments. Talcove claims those figures don’t even tell the full story. “The state lost $32.6 billion dollars of taxpayer money to fraudulent applications,” he said. “In California, at one point, you had more people applying for unemployment insurance benefits than you had people over the age of 18.”

While Newsom has conceded that “bad actors” took advantage of the UI program, he has also defended his government’s record, saying they took swift action as soon as the alleged prison scheme surfaced. The EDD, for its part, has a webpage documenting its anti-fraud efforts. But any suggestion that California has fraud under wraps is contradicted by findings from its non-partisan state auditor.

Last December, the auditor reported that EDD’s UI program—which remains on the auditor’s “High Risk” list—had a fraud rate of 7.6 percent in 2023 and 7.9 percent in 2024. Applied to the state’s UI spending, those figures suggest more than $1 billion in stolen taxpayer funds since the pandemic. “EDD continues to have high rates of improper UI payments, including fraudulent payments,” the auditor wrote. “These inadequacies have resulted in a substantial risk of serious detriment to the State and its residents.”

While many states dealt with UI scams during the pandemic, California stands in a class of its own. At best, the EDD’s performance amounted to mass government incompetence; at worst, it reflects total indifference to fraud.

“This happens in every single state,” Talcove concluded, “but it happens a lot more in California.”

Newsom came to power vowing to pursue “guaranteed health care” for Californians. Under his leadership, the state extended Medi-Cal coverage to illegal aliens, covered sex-change surgeries for Medi-Cal enrollees, and offered “gender-affirming care services” to enrollees of “all ages.”

Total budgeted Medi-Cal spending—which includes federal, state, and local contributions—has more than doubled on the governor’s watch, rising from $93.5 billion the year before he took office to $196.7 billion in the current annual budget. During the same period, California’s resident population declined by 0.2 percent.

Experts have long warned of Medi-Cal’s vulnerabilities to fraud. The state auditor first designated “Medi-Cal Eligibility” as a “high-risk” issue in 2007 and has applied that label to it ever since. But the state government has made little progress in addressing what the auditor calls “eligibility discrepancies” that present a “substantial risk of serious financial detriment to the State.” California’s attorney general has conceded that “Medi-Cal fraud could reach billions of dollars annually.”

Newsom may have inherited a bad situation, but his actions have made it worse. During the Biden administration, California received federal approval to “increase, and eventually eliminate, asset limits” for some Medi-Cal recipients, a change that, according to Talcove, resulted in flood of improper payments. In addition, Medi-Cal suspended prior authorization requirements for certain health-care services and medications, creating yet another vulnerability for fraudsters to exploit.

In some cases, prosecutors say, that is precisely what happened. In one instance, Paul Richard Randall, Kyrollos Mekail, and Patricia Anderson allegedly “took advantage” of Medi-Cal’s loosened restrictions as part of a scheme that defrauded taxpayers of more than $178 million. The conspirators allegedly used a business called Monte Vista Pharmacy to process fraudulent prescriptions; Randall and others allegedly laundered the proceeds through third parties to fund kickbacks to Anderson and obscure the operation from law enforcement, according to a 2025 Department of Justice press release. Mekail had pleaded guilty to criminal charges in August 2024, and Randall is reportedly expected to do the same this year.

In-Home Supportive Services, a Medi-Cal sub-program, has also presented major fraud concerns. In 2009, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger estimated that IHSS fraud could be as high as 25 percent. That same year, a Sacramento grand jury report on the county’s IHSS program claimed IHSS fraud was “reported to be rampant and out-of-control.”

Yet, even in light of these worries, Newsom has dramatically increased funding for IHSS. Between Newsom’s first budget and his most recent proposal, the state legislative analyst estimates that total IHSS costs will have swollen by around 170 percent, with $33.4 billion proposed for the next fiscal year, including $12.5 billion from the state. According to recent estimates, taxpayers are funding nearly 800,000 IHSS providers, who offer caregiving, cooking, shopping, cleaning, and laundry services to elderly and disabled people. In about 70 percent of cases, providers and recipients are family members. According to co-author Schrupp’s reporting, the IHSS program is responsible for 41 percent of all “job gains” during the Newsom administration.

The IHSS program almost seems designed to facilitate scams. According to sworn testimony summarized in the Sacramento report, IHSS participants have falsely represented recipients’ needs; misrepresented hours worked timecards; and even secured payment after a recipient has died. The system operates largely on trust, with providers “working” in the privacy of the recipient’s home. The state’s IHSS protocols explicitly prohibit random unannounced home visits, which would be the best tool to uncover any potential rackets.

Oversight of the IHSS program is woefully inadequate. A 2021 Riverside County audit of the local IHSS program, for example, found county social workers had failed to process and report “integrity referrals” in a “timely” fashion. When complaints did reach county regulators, many, apparently, were reviewed by people with financial ties to IHSS. The report found that 41 of the 68 county staff at the Department of Public Social Services, which the auditor claimed is responsible for program oversight, were also IHSS providers—that is, they had a vested interest in protecting the system.

Beginning in 2024, federal officials announced multiple prosecutions for IHSS fraud. In one case, prosecutors alleged that Cindy Lynn Fromm claimed to have provided services for more than a year while the recipient was incarcerated. In others, prosecutors said that IHSS caregivers falsified timesheets and claimed to have provided services while beneficiaries were in hospitals, care homes, other facilities—or dead.

Experts who have studied the Medicaid system say that it has long been rife with fraud. Malcolm Sparrow, a Harvard professor who has advised the federal government on health-care fraud, suggested to Congress that “fraud and abuse” might represent somewhere between 10 percent and 20 percent of Medicaid spending. (Sparrow noted difficulties in attempting to calculate accurate “loss rates,” due to the fact that government studies “have been sadly lacking in rigor” and have “produced comfortingly low and quite misleading estimates.”) Brian Blase, president of the nonpartisan Paragon Health Institute, estimates a current Medicaid fraud rate of “15 to 20 percent of the entire program.”

Talcove estimates that the Medicaid fraud rate in California is 20 percent, which he calls a “very conservative” figure. Federal officials, however, believe that the current Medi-Cal fraud rate is even higher—and, given the state’s oversight failures and massive Medi-Cal expansion under Newsom, they are almost certainly right. Multiple high-ranking sources at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is currently probing fraud in California, told City Journal on the condition of anonymity that their initial estimate for Medi-Cal’s fraud rate since 2019 is 25 percent.

Based on state experts’ best guesses of annual Medi-Cal expenditures and applying a conservative, 15 percent fraud rate to each fiscal year since 2019, Medi-Cal has lost some $146 billion in taxpayer funds to fraud on Gavin Newsom’s watch.

Meantime, in Sacramento, state legislators have begun sounding the alarm. In February, Leticia Castillo, a Republican in the California State Assembly, proposed a bill that would create a Medi-Cal “fraud assessment task force” to “review current fraud prevention tools” and “evaluate how best practices from the federal government and other states could be applied in California.”

To date, Newsom has not supported the bill publicly.

The other major target for fraudsters is California’s expansive welfare state. As governor, Newsom has sought to project an image of a compassionate California that cares for its most vulnerable residents. The state is famously home to enormous wealth, but also to millions living in poverty, and, as of 2024, to more than 180,000 homeless people.

Responding to these realities, Newsom has unleashed a wave of spending on welfare initiatives. He has overseen much of a $24 billion state spend on homelessness projects, roughly doubled food-stamp benefits during the pandemic, and has maintained high levels of cash assistance. Just like unemployment insurance and Medi-Cal, though, these welfare programs proved easy targets for swindlers. The homelessness spending, for example, was a massive transfer of funds into a complicated web of non-profits and other contractors, with apparently little oversight. Unsurprisingly, fraud cases followed.

Cody Holmes served as chief financial officer of Shangri-La Industries, a Los Angeles–based affordable-housing developer. His company reportedly received nearly $26 million from the state to develop properties under a program aimed at housing the homeless. Prosecutors reportedly allege that Holmes, who pleaded not guilty, embezzled roughly $2.2 million to pay for “exotic cars” and monthly rent for a “6,500-square-foot mansion.” A City Journal review of political donations revealed Holmes was a frequent contributor to Democratic politicians and causes in California.

In a separate case, Steven Taylor was charged for having allegedly used “fake bank statements and false cash representations” to secure loans to fund his real-estate business. Taylor then allegedly used those illegitimately obtained loans to purchase an $11.2 million home, which he sold for $27.3 million to a publicly funded homeless-housing developer.

Earlier this year, Alexander Soofer, who served as the CEO of Abundant Blessings, a Los Angeles-based homelessness charity, was charged for having allegedly pocketed at least $10 million in homelessness funding to bankroll a “luxury lifestyle that included lavish vacations and designer clothes.”

None of these cases should come as a surprise. A 2024 report from the Inspector General Office for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development found that California’s housing agency was not “adequately prepared to prevent, detect, and respond to fraud due to the lack of focus it placed on fraud risks and establishing a robust fraud risk management framework.” In addition, a 2024 report from California’s state auditor highlighted the government’s limited data on homelessness programs. For three of the five initiatives the auditor examined, it was “unable to fully assess” their success because of a lack of outcome data.

For many California watchers, the 2024 audit came years too late. In 2020, Representative Kevin Kiley, then serving in the California State Assembly, requested a similar report, he told City Journal, but state legislative Democrats rejected the proposal after Newsom intervened. “I brought the proposal to the state’s joint legislative audit committee, and it fell one vote short of approval after the administration came and testified against doing the audit,” Kiley said. “They likely knew what the audit would show and didn’t want taxpayers to get that window into how their money is, quite frankly, being squandered.”

Officials have also raised concerns about fraud in California’s SNAP benefits, officially known as CalFresh and more commonly called food stamps. As of last year, the state auditor had designated CalFresh as a “high risk” program. Annual state spending on food stamps has risen from roughly $8 billion in 2015 to nearly $16 billion under Newsom.

That expansion coincided with several fraud cases. In 2023, 15 people associated with a Romanian criminal ring were arrested for allegedly stealing CalFresh and other welfare funding, at least one of whom later pleaded guilty. The following year, seven people were charged for allegedly making “fraudulent cash withdrawals” as part of a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar theft of welfare benefits. In March, more than 50 people were charged as part of “a yearslong crackdown on organized theft rings” that included “many with ties to Romania.” The defendants allegedly stole millions in public funds by exploiting California’s Electronic Benefit Transfer system, which distributes benefits for programs like CalFresh.

Notwithstanding this steady drumbeat of fraud cases, at least one California Democratic lawmaker is pushing to lower penalties for those who steal from state welfare programs. In April 2025, State Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas sponsored a bill that would raise the threshold for felony welfare fraud from $950 to $25,000. The measure would also make it more difficult to charge perjury based on misstatements to county welfare departments. Republican State Assemblyman Carl DeMaio has said that if the bill becomes law, it will effectively “legalize welfare fraud” in California.

Federal prosecutors, however, are stepping up enforcement. Last year, Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, announced the creation of a federal task force to combat fraud and corruption in the state’s homelessness programs. The task force has already brought charges in several multimillion-dollar homelessness-fraud cases—and Essayli has vowed that more are coming. “California has spent $24 billion in the last five years on homelessness, and no one can account for where that money has really gone,” Essayli said in January. Gavin Newsom, he added, is the “king of fraud.”

We reached out to Newsom’s office for comment on this story. A spokesperson, whose signature featured “she/her” pronouns, called Kiley’s claims “ridiculous,” accused the Trump administration of “mak[ing] up numbers,” and suggested, remarkably, that California had “no missing homelessness funds.”

The culture of fraud in California is so pervasive that it has allegedly reached the governor’s own office. Between 2022 and December 2024, Newsom’s chief of staff was Dana Williamson. In November 2025, she was charged with fraud for allegedly “siphoning campaign and COVID-19 recovery funds into her and an associate’s pockets.” Two other “well-connected aides in state politics were also charged” and struck plea deals that reportedly confirmed the scheme’s existence.

Newsom’s office said they were made aware of an investigation into Williamson in late 2024 and immediately moved to place her on leave. When she officially left the governor’s office a month later, though, Newsom’s send-off message applauded her “insight, tenacity, and big heart,” while making no mention of the investigation against her. And even with the charges against her, Williamson walked away from government with a $50,000 payout for unused vacation time.

Williamson, who has pleaded not guilty, is not the only state official to be charged with fraud during the Newsom administration. In January, Phyllis Hope Stitt, a former EDD employee responsible for determining UI claimant eligibility during the pandemic, pleaded guilty to defrauding the program of more than $750,000. That same month, former Madera County benefits eligibility worker Leticia Mariscal was charged for allegedly embezzling $40,000 in food stamp benefits.

The pattern that emerges in California is not one of isolated breakdowns in oversight but of a vast system that almost seems to invite fraud. From widespread failures in unemployment insurance to alleged schemes targeting Medi-Cal to mounting concerns over homelessness spending, each case points to significant lapses by state officials charged with stewarding public funds. According to California Assemblyman David Tangipa, “Sacramento is pervaded by a culture of corruption.” And he points the finger right to the top: Newsom, he says, has helped “create[] an environment where corruption thrives.”

Still, California’s fraud crisis is not a lost cause, nor is it beyond correction. On March 16, President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. The effort, led by Vice President J.D. Vance, will “coordinate government-wide efforts to combat widespread fraud, waste, and abuse in Federal benefit programs.” A fact sheet released by the White House highlighted California as a state where “insufficient safeguards and weak oversight increase the risk of large-scale fraud.”

The Minnesota fraud scandal, brought to national attention by City Journal, offers a revealing case study of what can happen when a seemingly hidden problem—one long in plain sight—finally comes into view. The extent of fraud in Minnesota had been an open secret for years. But once the scandal drew national attention, investigations snowballed, ultimately derailing the political career of Tim Walz. It may seem unlikely today, but a similar outcome is possible for Newsom in California.

Newsom is not untouchable, and the scale of fraud in California appears far larger than in Minnesota. Despite his claim to have taken “decisive action” against one form of fraud, the broader problem is real and ongoing, and taxpayers, in California and across the country, have reason to be furious. Newsom will no doubt rely on charisma and partisan appeal to downplay the extent of these abuses. But listen closely, and you can still hear the California cash machine, steadily dispensing untold billions to criminals, scammers, and organized crime rings—funds taken from taxpayers and diverted from those most in need.

Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and the author of America’s Cultural Revolution. Ryan Thorpe is a technical writer at the Manhattan Institute. Kenneth Schrupp and Haley Strack are investigative reporters at City Journal.

Lawyers in the Mile High State are now being strong-armed by Democrats into signing a radical anti-immigration-enforcement pledge just to do their jobs.

Starting March 30, 2026, every private attorney logging into Colorado’s official Courts E-Filing system (CCE) must certify – under penalty of perjury – that they will never use or share non-public personal information from court records to assist federal immigration authorities. Refuse? You’re shut out of the system entirely. No filing lawsuits, no checking case files, no representing clients in state court. Period.

The certification reads in part: “I certify under penalty of perjury that I will not use personal identifying information obtained from the database… for the purpose of investigating for, participating in, cooperating with, or assisting in federal immigration enforcement, including enforcement of civil immigration laws and 8 U.S.C. sec. 1325 or 1326, unless required by federal or state law or to comply with a court-issued subpoena, warrant, or order.”

Colorado is now requiring lawyers in the State, as a condition of logging into its court e-filing system, to promise not to cooperate with federal authorities in enforcing federal immigration law.

Please understand:
– I do not practice immigration law.
– I do not practice… pic.twitter.com/khYDf5TkQd

— Ian Speir (@IanSpeir) April 2, 2026

It’s not optional for immigration lawyers only. It hits every practicing attorney in Colorado – divorce attorneys, personal injury lawyers, estate planners, the works. Government employees get a free pass. Everyone else? Sign or sit on the sidelines.

The order comes straight from Senate Bill 25-276, the “Protect Civil Rights Immigration Status” act rammed through by Democrats and signed by Gov. Jared Polis on May 23, 2025. The bill expanded Colorado’s already aggressive sanctuary-style rules by slapping the Judicial Branch with the same restrictions as other state agencies – all in the name of blocking “federal civil immigration enforcement.”

The Colorado Judicial Branch openly admits the move is designed to keep state resources from helping ICE. On its official website, officials wrote: “This legislation seeks to prevent the use of state resources for federal civil immigration enforcement.” They even acknowledged the backlash, saying, “We recognize that some people may be frustrated by the requirements of this new legislation. However, the judiciary is required to comply with the laws as enacted by the legislature.”

Why isn’t this OBSTRUCTION of JUSTICE ⁉️ @TheJusticeDept https://t.co/BwJxmFwIJR

— Sidney Powell 🇺🇸 Attorney, Author, Gladiator (@SidneyPowell1) April 3, 2026

A brief version of the same popup appeared last September before being yanked for “further discussion.” Now it’s back for good.

Critics say the policy doesn’t just create a massive headache for lawyers trying to meet filing deadlines – it raises serious questions about compelled speech, access to the courts, and whether the state can force officers of the court to swear off cooperating with federal law on pain of professional paralysis.

I’ll be damned. I practice law here in Colorado as well. Just logged in. Here’s the text of their “announcement.” This is indefensible. pic.twitter.com/XPPIFHLasT

— Matt Barber (@ThatMattBarber) April 2, 2026

Colorado has positioned itself as one of the nation’s most defiant sanctuary states, repeatedly slapping limits on local cooperation with ICE. The new certification is just the latest example of Democrats putting ideology over basic functionality of the justice system.

This is blatantly illegal. https://t.co/R5auplUKRy

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) April 2, 2026

A federal judge this week tossed a Trump administration lawsuit challenging some of these same policies, ruling the feds can’t force states to play along. But for thousands of Colorado lawyers just trying to file a motion or check a docket, the message from the state is crystal clear: Help enforce immigration laws? Not on our watch — and not in our courts.

Submitted by Cameron Rowe, Co-Founder and CEO of Sentradel, 

Most people don’t think about what the “cloud” actually is. It’s a physical building full of servers storing everything from your medical records to your social media. Every Google search, every ChatGPT query, every hospital pulling up your health history routes through a data center. Right now, those buildings have about as much aerial protection as your local Costco.

In March 2026, Iranian Shahed drones struck three AWS data centers in the UAE and Bahrain. Multiple availability zones went down simultaneously, taking core services like EC2, S3, and Lambda offline, cascading outages to banks, payment platforms, and ride-hailing apps across the region. It was the first confirmed kinetic attack on a hyperscale data center run by a U.S. company. Shortly after, Iranian state media published a list of “Enemy Technology Infrastructure,” including Microsoft, Google, and Oracle facilities, painting targets on every major cloud provider in contested regions.

Yes, the cloud is distributed. Workloads can fail over. But data still lives somewhere physical, and partial corruption or destruction can be devastating in ways a temporary outage doesn’t capture. Medical records, financial transactions, and AI training datasets are worth hundreds of millions. When those are gone, they’re gone.

Global data center capex is approaching $1 trillion in 2026. The top four hyperscalers are collectively spending nearly $600 billion on infrastructure this year. That’s the physical backbone of modern life, sitting behind chain-link fences, with no ability to stop a drone costing between $30,000 and $80,000.

These facilities were never built to survive military threats. Security was designed around physical intrusion and cyberattacks, not one-way attack drones that cost a fraction of what they destroy.

Decentralization helps at the margins, but hundreds of billions of dollars poured into existing mega facilities can’t be shifted overnight. The real answer is layered detection and intercept: radar, RF sensors, EO/IR tracking, and kinetic or electronic defeat systems working together around these sites.

Autonomous counter-drone system

Watch: Autonomous counter-drone system

The military may eventually provide coverage for the most critical nodes, but they’ll prioritize their own assets first. And human life should come before server racks. That’s exactly why data centers need to be more proactive about protecting their own infrastructure rather than waiting for someone else to do it. Sentradel is already marketing counter-drone solutions to data center operators; it’s likely to become more important over the next year as these kamikaze drones continue to improve rapidly in AI, speed, and payload. 

Preliminary February net trailer orders fell by about 10,000 units from January’s 23,300, a 43% month-over-month decline, according to TheTrucker.com.

“Sequentially, a drop in net orders was expected, as the industry transitions from the strongest to the weakest order months of the annual cycle,” said Jennifer McNealy, director CV market research & publications at ACT Research.

“Trailer makers now will begin to take fewer orders and start to work down the backlog that grew during the peak of order season at the end of the previous year, which in this year’s cycle started and ended later than usual, as fleet decision-making hesitance into late 2025 delayed the cycle a bit and caused a high-side surprise in January.”

The report notes that February bookings totaled 13,200 units—26% lower than February 2025. After seasonal adjustment, orders come to 12,300 units. Final figures will be released later this month, with preliminary estimates typically within ±5% accuracy.

“We now question when we will see 20k-plus-unit order intake months again, and how quickly trailer OEMs will build down the still-thin backlog, particularly given concerns about the level of activity in the key freight-generating economic sectors that drive transportation demand,” McNealy said.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The FBI identified data security risks from foreign-developed mobile apps used in the United States, the agency warned in a March 31 public service announcement.

“As of early 2026, many of the most downloaded and top-grossing apps in the United States are developed and maintained by foreign companies, particularly those based in China,” the FBI said, without naming any apps.

“The apps that maintain digital infrastructure in China are subject to China’s extensive national security laws, enabling the Chinese government to potentially access mobile app users’ data.”

In the Google Play store, the most popular apps include short-form video platform TikTok, video editor CapCut, artificial intelligence video generator PixVerse, and communication app Telegram X. China-based ByteDance maintains ownership of TikTok and CapCut. PixVerse is owned by a Singaporean company, and the developer of Telegram X is based in the United Arab Emirates.

On Apple’s App Store, the top free apps include CapCut, TikTok, and Chinese shopping apps Temu and Shein.

In its alert, the FBI warned users to be aware of the types of data the foreign apps request access to when they are downloaded.

“When access is permitted by the user, the app can persistently collect data and users’ private information throughout the device, not just within the app or while the app is active,” the bureau said.

The privacy policy of an app, which can typically be accessed on the company website, reveals where the harvested data, including system prompts and personal info, are stored. Some of the apps store data in servers located in China. Some apps do not allow users to run them unless they consent to data sharing, the FBI said.

Certain apps offer options to invite friends or other contacts to use the apps. Once an app is downloaded, the default permissions may allow the developer to collect and store information about users’ names, email IDs, physical addresses, user IDs, and stored contacts’ phone numbers.

“Some apps may also contain malware that could collect data beyond what is authorized by the user. This could include malicious code and hard-to-remove malware designed to exploit known vulnerabilities in various operating systems and insert a backdoor for escalated privileges,” the agency said.

“Downloading apps from unfamiliar websites or third-party app stores runs a higher risk of embedding malware. Official apps stores scan for malicious content, lowering the risk of malware or malicious code on devices.”

The FBI advised people to disable unnecessary data sharing on apps, stick to downloading verified apps from official app stores, perform regular device software updates, and change passwords regularly.

U.S. authorities have taken action against Chinese apps that pose privacy risks to citizens.

In February, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Shein, stating: “Not only is Shein harming consumers with toxic synthetic materials, but it’s also exposing Americans’ data to Communist China. This must come to an end.”

The same month, Paxton sued Temu over suspected ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order for the United States to acquire TikTok from Chinese parent company ByteDance. In January, a deal was finalized that set up a U.S. majority-owned joint venture to oversee TikTok’s American operations.

AI, VPN Risks

In 2025, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis banned the Chinese artificial intelligence model DeepSeek from the state’s Department of Financial Services. New York and Texas also banned DeepSeek from state government devices and networks last year.

“Texas will not allow the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate our state’s critical infrastructure through data-harvesting AI and social media apps,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said at the time. “Texas will continue to protect and defend our state from hostile foreign actors.”

In a June 2025 report, the Tech Transparency Project, a research initiative that seeks to hold big tech companies accountable, warned that Apple and Google app stores were allowing virtual private networks (VPNs) owned by Chinese companies on their platforms, thus presenting security risks.

“Chinese-owned VPNs raise serious privacy and security concerns for Americans because Chinese companies can be forced to share user data with the Chinese government under the country’s national security laws,” the report warned. “VPNs have access to particularly sensitive user data since they see all of a person’s web activity.”

Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers introduced the Securing Federal Devices from Chinese Applications Act to block apps controlled by the CCP from U.S. government devices, according to a Jan. 16 statement from the office of Rep. Jefferson Shreve (R-Ind.).

“If an app is controlled by the CCP, it does not belong on a U.S. government device,” Shreve said. “This bill shuts the door on CCP spyware and makes clear the federal government will not aid China’s surveillance state.”

Left-wing Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s approval rating has slid to a new record low as the Democrat darling, seen as Soros-friendly and as having aspirations to become the Democratic Party’s 2028 nominee, increasingly looks dimmer by the month.

Moore and Alex Soros. 

Moore’s approval rating tumbled to 48% for the first time since he took office two years ago, as the Democratic Party is likely freaking out that even in one of the bluest states in America, ruled by the kings and queens of the progressive party in a one-party fashion, their rising star (now sinking star) is seeing mounting voter backlash as the state descends into multiple crises, from a fisical mess to power bills to crime and even a massive exodus of residents. 

High taxes breaking the pocketbooks of working poor, horrible leadership, dishonesty, terrible fiscal management by the state, and the power bill crisis are the top reasons for the growing resentment captured in the new UMBC poll, which surveyed 804 Marylanders in mid-March, 731 of whom indicated they were registered voters.

In October 2024 and February 2025 polls, Moore’s approval ratings stood around 52%. In another October 2024 poll, he had a rating of around 54%. 

Last Thursday, Moore was greeted with a stadium full of boos at Camden Yards on Opening Day for Orioles baseball. At the time, we noted that this was one of the clearest indicators of growing backlash against a governor operating under the failed Democratic Party framework, which is sending the state into financial ruin, and risks creating an ‘Illinois 2.0.’

Gov. Wes Moore was booed by the crowd ahead of the Orioles home opener on Thursday. https://t.co/KdJaF2jx68 pic.twitter.com/pA0p6G2z8m

— FOX Baltimore (@FOXBaltimore) March 26, 2026

“I am not surprised he was booed, given his poor job performance.  He raised our taxes to record levels, blew through a $5 billion budget surplus, increased state spending to record levels, assaulted local control over zoning matters, and made our streets less safe by ending cooperation with ICE and allowing violent illegal immigrants to roam our streets,” said Republican council candidate, State Delegate Nino Mangione.

He added, “Wes Moore is, without question, the worst governor in the history of Maryland.  I am not surprised he was booed. The boos were well deserved.” 

Local outlet Fox Baltimore noted, “The governor’s approval numbers mark a double-digit decline in public polling since the first-term Democrat took office almost four years ago. Previous surveys show approval ratings in the mid-50s and low 60s.” 

Maryland is a one-party-ruled state of Democratic kings and queens, where Republicans are nonexistent in any sizeable political power, which has resulted in absolutely no balance and no accountability. The financial implosion in the state, sparking a mass exodus of residents and multiple other crises, is the direction Democrats have proudly chosen, driven by a failed woke framework under the governor.

Republican State Delegate Robin Grammer Jr. said, “Moore’s approval rating is tanking because he is destroying Maryland’s middle class, chasing retirees from our state and making the American Dream impossible for our youth.” 

We have spoken with the heads of local financial institutions and wealth advisors who have been strategizing with their high-net-worth clients about leaving the state since Moore took office. The decline of Maryland is a byproduct of one-party rule by the Democratic Party’s DEI leadership… but betting markets remain convinced…

…no matter how bad it gets?

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

A new piece from the Cato Institute lays out how bad things have gotten at the post office, arguing that the United States Postal Service is facing a severe and worsening financial crisis. According to the article, USPS has been losing billions of dollars annually for well over a decade and is now at a point where it cannot realistically fix its problems without major structural changes. I could have told you this after the horror show I lived through at the post office back in September of 2025.

The USPS now is the predictable outcome of trying to run a massive logistics operation through a government bureaucracy that moves slowly, resists change, and answers more to politics than to performance. The piece makes clear that USPS was built for a world that no longer exists, yet it continues operating as if nothing has changed because, as usual, government institutions are the last to notice reality.

The problems outlined are extensive and, frankly, not surprising. Mail volumes have collapsed as Americans switched to faster, cheaper digital alternatives, yet USPS continues to behave like it’s still 1995. What mail remains is increasingly dominated by low-value marketing material, while the agency struggles to compete in package delivery against companies that actually specialize in logistics.

Even Amazon, a company that started as an online bookstore (what could be less efficient to ship than godd*mn books — bricks?), has figured out how to build a better delivery network. 

Meanwhile, visits to post offices have fallen off a cliff, but the system has barely shrunk its footprint. Labor costs remain enormous, productivity lags, and the workforce is structured in ways that prioritize stability over efficiency.

The result is exactly what you would expect when there is no real pressure to perform: bitchy apathetic staff, declining output, rising inefficiency, and billions in annual losses that just keep piling up. In the private sector, that kind of performance would trigger a full-scale overhaul or bankruptcy.

In government, it triggers a Congressional hearing and maybe a strongly worded memo, in addition to switching the Postmaster General and paying the new guy even more than the last guy got paid.

This is why privatization is not some radical idea but a logical response to a system that clearly is not working. A privatized USPS would finally be allowed to operate like a business instead of a political artifact. It could close unprofitable locations without needing a congressional debate, adjust delivery schedules based on actual demand, and invest in technology that improves service instead of maintaining outdated systems because “that’s how it’s always been done.”

Most importantly, it would have to make money (or at least stop losing it) which is a constraint that tends to focus the mind in ways government management never quite experiences. When survival depends on efficiency, organizations tend to discover it very quickly.

The contrast with private carriers like FedEx and UPS could not be clearer. These companies operate in a world where excuses don’t pay the bills. They optimize routes, invest in automation, analyze data, and constantly refine their operations because if they don’t, their competitors will. They have built systems that deliver packages faster, track them more precisely, and adapt to changing demand almost in real time. None of this happened because a committee approved it after years of debate. It happened because the profit motive demands results.

Meanwhile, USPS is stuck navigating layers of regulation and political oversight, where even obvious changes can take years to implement, if they happen at all.

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There is also the small matter of accountability. Private companies cannot run losses indefinitely and expect someone else to quietly cover the gap. They either fix the problem or they go under. USPS, on the other hand, operates with the understanding that there will always be some form of backstop, explicit or not. That safety net removes urgency and allows inefficiencies to persist far longer than they would anywhere else. It is the classic government model: spend more, deliver less, and call it a “challenge” instead of a failure. Privatization would replace that dynamic with one where performance actually matters, where bad decisions have consequences, and where efficiency is not optional.

Of course, defenders of the status quo often argue that privatization would undermine public service, but that assumes the current system is delivering high-quality service to begin with. Other countries have already shown that it is possible to maintain universal delivery while still operating under private or semi-private models. Targeted subsidies can ensure rural access without requiring the entire system to function inefficiently. The difference is that those systems are designed around outcomes, not inertia.

At some point, it becomes difficult to ignore the obvious. Government agencies are notoriously bad at adapting, innovating, or even cutting costs, because they are not structured to do any of those things well. The USPS is not an exception; it is a textbook example. Continuing down the current path means more losses, more inefficiency, and more attempts to patch over structural problems with temporary fixes. Privatization, by contrast, offers a way to align incentives with reality, bringing the postal system into the same competitive, performance-driven environment that has already transformed the rest of the logistics industry. And if that means admitting that the government is not particularly good at running a nationwide delivery business, that is less a controversial statement than an overdue acknowledgment of what the evidence has been showing for years.

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author.

This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and do own things. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. If I’m long I could quickly be short and vice versa. I won’t update my positions. All positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice and at any point I can be long, short or neutral on any position. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. If you see numbers and calculations of any sort, assume they are wrong and double check them. I failed Algebra in 8th grade and topped off my high school math accolades by getting a D- in remedial Calculus my senior year, before becoming an English major in college so I could bullshit my way through things easier.

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Bodycam footage shows Tiger Woods telling local authorities on Jupiter Island that he spoke with President Trump shortly after he flipped his Land Rover SUV and was arrested for DUI.

“You got it. Thank you, bye… I was just talking to the President,” Woods told a local police officer seen in the bodycam footage. The officer was asking Woods to remain on the scene. Bodycam video was obtained by the New York Post.

Tiger Woods flexes his call with Trump to law enforcement after DUI:

“You got it. Thank you, bye… I was just talking to the President.” pic.twitter.com/El9GDw6SWJ

— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) April 3, 2026

Last Friday, Woods crashed his Land Rover into another vehicle, resulting in his $100,000-plus SUV turning onto its driver’s side.

Unfortunately for Woods, he failed a on-scene sobriety test administered by police after what they say he showed “signs of impairment” and appeared “lethargic.” Woods blew “triple-zeroes” on a breathalyzer but failed to submit a urine test.

Woods told officers he was “hoping to” play in the upcoming Masters Tournament, but in a statement posted on X on Tuesday, he told the golfing world that he would pause tournament play for the foreseeable future and “seek treatment.”

“I know and understand the seriousness of the situation I find myself in today. I am stepping away for a period of time to seek treatment and focus on my health. This is necessary in order for me to prioritize my well-being and work toward lasting recovery,” Woods stated (or perhaps his layer stated).

A new Polymarket bet, “Will Trump pardon Tiger Woods by June 30?” showed about a 6% chance as of Friday around lunchtime that the pro golfer would be pardoned by Trump.

Woods admitted he took “a few pills” before the crash. Officers also found hydrocodone pills at the crash scene.

This incident marks the second DUI in the Jupiter Island area over the last decade.

Will Trump pardon Tiger Woods? Polymarket is already taking bets…

Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

In a move sparking fresh skepticism among Americans demanding full accountability, the new acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has declared the Jeffrey Epstein files chapter closed. This came just hours after President Trump reassigned Pam Bondi, with Blanche – Trump’s former personal attorney – stepping in as acting AG and signaling it’s time to move on from the scandal.

“The DOJ has now released ALL the files with respect to the Epstein saga,” Blanche stated on Fox News. He added, “I think that to the extent the Epstein files was a part of the past year of this Justice Department, it should not be a part of anything going forward.”

Jesse Watters pressed Blanche directly on whether he thought Bondi mishandled the Epstein files. Blanche responded, “First of all, I have never heard President Trump say that the Attorney General was, that anything that happened to her had anything to do with the Epstein files. So look, the Epstein files has been a saga that’s lasted for the entire for the past year.” He further defended the process, noting that Bondi and he “appeared in front of Congress voluntarily a couple weeks ago to answer any questions they had” and made documents available for review.

🚨 IT’S OFFICIAL: The Epstein Files are DONE, acting AG Todd Blanche announces

“The DOJ has now released ALL the files with respect to the Epstein saga.”pic.twitter.com/dT9dLvoASd

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 3, 2026

When Watters asked, “Who was Epstein spying for?” Blanche replied, “I don’t know that he was spying for anybody. Nobody’s ever said that.” He claimed there is “no evidence in the Epstein files” suggesting Epstein worked for a foreign country.

Todd Blanche wastes no time covering up for the Epstein child trafficking network and says he has no idea which country Jeffrey Epstein was working for or spying for.

He says there is no evidence in the Epstein files that proves Epstein was a spy.

JESSE WATTERS: Who was Epstein… pic.twitter.com/EtyHPLakVN

— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) April 3, 2026

On the question of releasing names of men who abused girls, Blanche previously pushed back, asking “What does that mean? I don’t understand what that means.” He also stated plainly, “It’s not a crime to party with Mr. Epstein.”

Reporter: Will we learn the identities of the men in the Epstein files?
Todd Blanche, Trump’s Attorney General: “What does that mean?”

🤬It means: Who raped children, who enabled it, and who’s still being shielded?
Stop pretending the question is unclear. The cover-up is the… pic.twitter.com/i6nGtX9P74

— Truthseeker (@Xx17965797N) April 3, 2026

Blanche doubled down on the administration’s position: “When Trump said let’s release the Epstein files… we did it.”

The timing aligns with Trump’s decision to move Bondi to the private sector amid reported frustrations over her pace on key matters, including the Epstein files. Critics had highlighted her earlier claims of possessing a client list and distributing repetitive binders, followed by a DOJ memo stating no such list existed.

Yet the assertion that “all files” are out faces immediate pushback. The DOJ reviewed roughly six million potentially responsive documents but released only about 3.5 million publicly, leaving millions still unreleased, redacted, or withheld.

This latest development deepens concerns over an Epstein cover up. FBI officers have raised alarms, with suspicions of document shredding after his death.

Separately, a foreign hacker who cracked into the FBI’s Epstein files in 2023 was reportedly disgusted at the scale of child sexual abuse material uncovered, underscoring how much sensitive content may still remain hidden.

Epstein survivor reactions and ongoing victim calls for transparency continue to highlight the stakes.

Annie Farmer, a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, reacts to President Trump firing Pam Bondi as U.S. attorney general. Trump said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will be acting attorney general. pic.twitter.com/MrysNjbVOA

— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 2, 2026

Blanche has remained guarded on specifics. His responses often circled back to congressional access rather than new public disclosures, while emphasizing a pivot to other fraud cases nationwide.

The Epstein operation represented far more than one man’s crimes — it exposed a network that reached the highest levels of power, protected for years by institutional gatekeepers. Declaring the files “done” while millions of pages stay locked away does little to rebuild trust in a system long accused of shielding the elite.

Americans who supported Trump’s mandate expect genuine sunlight on these matters, not a premature shutdown dressed as completion. The deep state’s habits of concealment die hard, and the demand for full disclosure — for the victims and the public’s right to know — will not fade quietly.

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