A few weeks ago, the voters in Iceland rejected a referendum to join the European Union.  Iceland remains a NATO ally, but not an EU member, this dynamic becomes more important when considering the Arctic defense strategy of President Trump and Secretary Rubio.

From the State Dept: Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Reykjavík, Iceland; Athens, Greece; and Lisbon, Portugal from October 5-8, 2026.

Secretary Rubio will meet with Icelandic officials in Reykjavík to discuss economic and security collaboration.  In Greece, Secretary Rubio will lead the United States delegation for the Sixth U.S.-Greece Strategic Dialogue, deepening our partnership on key Administration priorities, including defense cooperation and regional and energy security.  Secretary Rubio will then travel to Lisbon to meet with Portuguese officials to advance defense, economic, and technology cooperation. (read more)

Rubio delivered remarks just before departure.  RAF Fairford, Russian Plague, Brazil Election, Saudi and Houthis, and more. WATCH:

I would also emphasize a little-known aspect to the Portuguese relationship.  Portugal has one of the most effective intelligence operations in the world, in part due to their diplomatic corps who have groomed very strong relationships with allies and not-s0-friendly nations.  Portugal maintains a very well-run, albeit very quiet intelligence system.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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Media are now reporting the U.S. has removed all Air Force’s bombers, including B-1s, B-2s, and B-52s, on Sunday from RAF Fairford base in the U.K.

The bombers were redeployed back to their home bases in the United States, AP reported, initially citing a Pentagon official who was not authorized to discuss sensitive military movements and spoke on condition of anonymity.  However, multiple news outlets are now reporting on official statements from the Pentagon.

SKY NEWS – […] “While operational security precluded us from confirming the movement of our assets and forces in real-time, we can acknowledge now that all US bombers that were deployed to RAF Fairford have redeployed to their home stations in the United States.

“The Airmen that operate America’s bomber force, including B-1s, B-2s, and B-52s, remain ready to deliver precision global strike capabilities – including through operations that launch and recover from the continental United States – anywhere, anytime.” (source)

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The polls closed at 5:00pm ET, and first results are beginning to come in. Incumbent President and Socialist, Lula da Silva, is up against challenger Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was imprisoned by da Silva loyalists in government.

In an era when USAID (CIA) funding for Latin-American socialists and communists has been curtailed by the Trump administration, the hope is that supporters for Bolsonaro (above left) can defeat the communist supporters for da Silva (above right).  The race will likely be close.

The president in Brazil is directly elected by the people, and the winning candidate needs more than 50% of the vote to avoid a second round runoff.

The Guardian has a live update ongoing – SEE HERE.

17:45pm ET  (25% reporting) 

Flávio Bolsonaro 50.63%, Liberal party (PL) | 21,383,323 votes
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 41.44%, Workers’ party (PT) | 19,903,245 votes

19:11pm ET (90% reporting)

Flávio Bolsonaro 48.19%, Liberal party (PL) | 50,654,815 votes
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 43.88%, Workers’ party (PT) | 46,474,271 votes

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Margaret Brennan asks Energy Secretary Chris Wright to tell her about U.S. troop and military deployments to the Middle East, and whether President Trump is going to “escalate” military operations in the region.  Yeah, she asked about that; as if the Energy Secretary would even talk about it on television if he knew.

Unfortunately, this remains the outlook of U.S. media. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that President Trump was “well aware of the risks to energy flows” before launching the Iran war, but he said the president said, “the world cannot sustain a nuclear-armed Iran, and I’m not going to do it.”  WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning, and welcome to Face the Nation. We begin with one of the Trump administration officials tasked with working to lower those high gas and oil prices, Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Good morning to you.

SECRETARY OF ENERGY CHRIS WRIGHT: Good morning, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, it’s good to have you here. You said this past week that Americans can expect lower gasoline prices and diesel prices by election day. The Wall Street Journal editorial board has a piece outlining that the campaign to squeeze around financially is working, but they can still knock out significant Gulf energy infrastructure. They could be planning an October surprise before the U.S. midterms. We are still seeing Iranian attacks on ships now. I mean, how can you be so confident prices are headed down?

SEC. WRIGHT: Well, because we’ve got increasing supplies coming out of the Strait of Hormuz and they’ve continued to rise over the last months, over the last recent weeks. We’ve got U.S. gasoline production today at record high. We have demand for gasoline, as we come out of the summer driving scene, starting to go down. Similar stories with diesel. Diesel’s mostly been infected by the Russia-Ukraine war and also by China’s decision not to export diesel or gasoline into the marketplace. And of course, we’re living with two refineries that were recently closed, large refineries in California that Gavin Newsom forced the closure of. And frankly, 15 years of Democrat policies that have been energy subtraction, trying to close coal plants, close refineries, and shrink our capacity. Which means when you get in crisis, we’re just less resilient than we should be.

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I don’t want to focus too much on this, because there are multiple angles still at work.  However, against the backdrop of the non-coincidental coincidences that followed the August 2025 Alaska Summit, the Lukoil story looks strategically interesting.

The New York Times is looking at Lukoil from the perspective of President Trump organizing financial gains for people close to his administration, specifically Witkoff and Kusher.  {GO DEEP}

That aspect is nonsense, total nonsense; however, if you pull back and look at the background story without the Trump derangement overlay, there’s a potential here for something very good to come out of it.

As the story is told, Russian President Vladimir Putin has inquired about the potential for the U.S. to remove sanctions against Lukoil, a quasi-private energy company based out of Russia.  Before, getting too weedy about it, remind yourself of the statements that surfaced during the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, August, 2025.

You might remember that both the U.S and Russia spoke of strategic partnerships surrounding the energy sector.  Obviously, this makes sense when we consider the “west” is actually fractured on the topic of energy.  There are two competing interests that overlap in the financial side of the issue, the ‘trillions at stake’ aspect.

On one side you have the “climate change” team, those who are fully invested (literally) in the financial mechanisms of the climate change, green new deal, build back better talking points.  The Green Energy team in the west.  The Paris Climate Treaty and carbon-trading proponents et al.

On the other side you have the pragmatic energy team in the west.  These are the Trump-minded and aligned western perspectives that look at oil, natural gas (LNG), clean coal and nuclear technology.  These are the “all the above” aligned voices in the more pragmatic view of low-cost energy production and development.

In the middle, between both sides of the fracture, are the banking and finance systems.  This is the BIG MONEY play, with the Climate Change team supported by banking ideology inside the city of London, while the Carbon Use team is constantly having to assemble finance and insurance from outside the banking control mechanisms.

The Climate Change team have support based on ideology within the finance system.  However, the Carbon Use team have the advantage of low-price outputs, global dependency and actual profits as leverage.  This is a fight essentially inside the larger energy sector, and we are all very familiar with it because it has been happening for decades.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is currently the main tool deployed by the Climate Change team on behalf of the London finance system.  Carney’s main opponent is U.S. President Donald Trump.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

(more…)

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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(more…)

The French interior ministry said police had made more than 1,949 arrests through Thursday, while 305 police officers had been injured, as youth migrants run amok in multiple regions. {source}

French “students”, young Black Bloc (Antifa) members and hoards of migrants have set fires and erected blockades outside schools in several cities, as violence and mayhem continues all over the country.  Several school principals and teachers have been injured, harassed or assaulted at high schools, according to media reports, regional education authorities, prefectures and teacher union representatives.

PARIS, Oct 1 (Reuters) – France’s intelligence agencies briefed a government crisis meeting on Thursday that a wave ​of student protests, sometimes violent, that has swept across the country was initiated by hard-left politicians, a person close to the prime minister ‌said.

The protests against teacher shortages and dilapidated school buildings erupted in the Paris region last month but have turned increasingly violent as they spread nationwide, with dozens injured and with police making hundreds of arrests.

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