All of the datapoints on this event look sketchy.  I’m not saying there was intentional foul play at work, but the appearance of foul play in combination with the obtuse descriptions therein, cannot be avoided.  It just looks sketchy.

Exxon’s key refinery in Joliet, Illinois, produces gasoline and diesel fuel.  The facility handles 275,000 barrels of crude per day, producing about 11 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel every day. {SOURCE}

The refinery operation has been offline for a week following a power disruption “found on ComEd’s primary and secondary power lines feeding into the Joliet refinery.”  The company made the statement on Thursday, adding that power to the refinery was fully restored.  However, with the power turned off floodwater overwhelmed a pumping station leading to flooding around the refinery which has compounded the outage.

The timing of this; the type of problem, together with the location (40 miles southwest of Chicago, Ill, near the intersection of Interstate 55 and the DesPlaines River) are aligned datapoints in a review of the consequence.  Given the nature of geopolitics right now and the intention to politically weaponize the price of gasoline and diesel, everything just looks too coincidental.

NEW YORK, Sept 17 (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil said floodwater overwhelmed a pump at its 275,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Joliet, Illinois, according to a filing on Thursday.  A containment boom had been deployed as part of the cleanup effort, the filing shows.

Exxon took the Joliet refinery offline on Sunday after a power outage triggered the facility’s safety flare.

The source of the outage was found on ComEd’s primary and secondary power lines feeding into the Joliet refinery, the company said in a statement on Thursday, adding that power to the refinery was fully restored.

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That’s ultimately the question at the heart of the matter.  What will come first, the AI false flag event that will trigger support for government regulation that includes liability protection; or the lawsuits against the AI developers for stealing intellectual property?

How you place your bet will likely determine your investment decision.

On one hand you have the AI frontier groups, developers who have stolen corporate secrets, extracted proprietary intellectual property, engaged in widespread copyright violations and built their AI models with mass unauthorized data collection.  On the other hand, you have massive corporations, individuals and groups who have seen their intellectual property rights infringed by data harvesting to run the models.

The AI developers are requesting “regulation” which includes liability protection for outcomes as a result of users running their models.  The investors into those AI developers also want regulation and liability immunity to protect their investments. This is the group now positioning for government regulation and selling the voices who control that decision (politicians) based on a pitch that includes government control over AI information.  This is the group that will trigger the false flag to generate public support for AI safety.

The ordinary individuals & businesses who have seen their intellectual property stolen by the AI groups, the individuals who have watched their copyright protections violated, the corporations who benefit from increased AI efficiency but also see the downside from publicly exposed trade secrets now being widely available, would be the plaintiff group in a series of predictable lawsuits against the AI developers.

This is the core of the matter.  Control/Immunity or Risk/Lawsuits.  Mike Steger outlines the last two weeks:

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Two years ago, I said we would reach an inflection point where the interests of Silicon Valley would conflict with the interests of MAGA.  We are on the cusp of that moment.  Will the Silicon Valley/Leftist-Govt win through regulatory control under the guise of ‘trust and safety’.  Or will the larger population see through the scheme and align with liberty, freedom and the free-market approach.

Place your bets.

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As the story is told, a 40-year-old British intelligence officer named Major Paul Wilks was killed in an “automobile accident” while traveling in Ukraine. The British media frame the incident as a car crash “away from the front lines” of the conflict.

One has to wonder how many British intelligence military officers are just innocuously traveling around Ukraine.  Who knows, maybe it’s just a great place for a holiday. However, common sense would seem to indicate that Major Wilks was probably not on vacation.

Sky News – […] Remembered as a “man of great intellect”, Major Wilks was deployed on multiple tours, including to Afghanistan, and was recognised with two Operational Service Medals. And he was awarded the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal in May.

He was commissioned from Sandhurst in 2012 and joined the Intelligence Corps, where he remained throughout his career. (source)

In related news:

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned on Thursday that Russia is planning hybrid strikes with drones or rockets on European countries supporting Ukraine, among them Poland.

Russia will pretend the attacks are “accidental” in order to “paralyze or at least weaken the motivation of NATO countries” to rush to the defense of the member state coming under attack, Tusk said in a speech to the Polish parliament.

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Palantir CEO Alex Karp is a little quirky but, on this issue, I tend to agree with him.

According to Karp in the interview below the request by OpenAI and Anthropic AI labs for government regulation is related to a legal issue within their business model.  Right now, massive multinational corporations are working with AI groups under contract. As part of those contracts the leaders of the corporations are discovering their individual business plans, what they call their intellectual property (IP) has been uploaded into the dataset of the AI models themselves.

These corporations have spent billions of dollars on their detailed business plans, marketing plans, logistics and revenue systems that are now part of the AI dataset.  These CEOs are not happy and talking about lawsuits against the AI developers for stealing their corporate intellectual property.  However, at the same time the CEOs are furious at the loss of proprietary information, they are simultaneously bound to the AI developers for forward revenue.  This is creating a problem.

Example: By some analyst’s estimations, Amazon’s forward revenue projection is approximately 51% dependent on further technological capability through the use of AI.  However, Jeff Bezos likely does not appreciate his business model, which includes a massive dataset that he makes money from, being taken and uploaded to the AI database.  Bezos could sue Anthropic for ip theft.

All of the AI labs are exposed to this litigation if it was to unfold.  Additionally, all of the investors into the AI frontier labs would be at risk if the AI developer were sued by these corporations.  Both the AI developers and their investors would/are demanding protection from these lawsuits.

Here’s where it gets complicated.

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Maduro’s bagman, Alex Saab, has reached a plea deal with the Dept of Justice paving the way for a cooperating key witness to provide evidence against the former Venezuela dictator.

Former Venezuela President Nicholas Maduro’s case just got a lot more complicated for his defense lawyers. Saab will cooperate with U.S. federal investigations, potentially aiding cases against four unnamed co-defendants, with prosecutors recommending a reduced sentence.

Alex Saab, left, and Nicholas Maduro, right

MIAMI (AP) — A close ally of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro long described by U.S. officials as the ousted leader’s frontman pleaded guilty Tuesday to a single count of money laundering tied to an alleged bribery conspiracy to win lucrative government contracts in the South American country.

As part of the plea deal, Alex Saab agreed to cooperate in continuing federal investigations, paving the way for his eventual cooperation against his former protector. He also agreed to forfeit $195 million in criminal proceeds from the corruption scheme.

Saab, 54, was deported in May by Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez to the U.S., which has been targeting the Colombian-born businessman for more than a decade.

The money laundering offense carries a maximum 20-year penalty but prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence at the low end of the recommended range and seek additional reductions should his cooperation prove substantial.

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Everyone knew exactly what the Lawfare approach entailed.  Lower court judges delayed rulings, then rejected the arguments citing insufficient time for the states to comply with U.S Postal Service rule changes for mail-in ballots.  By the time the Supreme Court could weigh in, the clock had generally expired.  The 2026 midterm election mail-in ballot fraud will proceed as before without impediment.

The Trump administration argued the measures were to prevent fraud, but lawfare and state officials claimed that introducing a new ballot-matching system mid-election would create chaos. The Supreme Court ruling [SEE HERE] comes as many states are beginning to send out ballots for the upcoming midterm elections, making last-minute changes particularly risky.

WASHINGTON DC – The Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to force states to take part in a new system to control the delivery of mail-in ballots in the looming midterm elections.

In a ruling Monday, the justices left in place a lower-court ruling that blocked the Postal Service from implementing the new requirements in the coming weeks due to the potential that millions of voters could be disenfranchised by not having their ballots delivered.

The Trump administration said the new measures were needed to combat fraud, but many election officials say the federal government was inviting chaos by trying to deploy a new ballot-matching system just as officials in many states began sending out ballots to voters in advance of the midterms. (read more)

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American entrepreneur and businessman; founder and CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, is on stage discussing “The Doomer Hoax” and how superintelligence is already here – the future of AI, when President Trump calls Haung to discuss his Truth Social posts from moments before. The conversation is excellent.  WATCH (prompted):

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According to his attorney, former CIA Director John Brennan has been subpoenaed to appear Oct. 15 in Fort Pierce, Florida, as part of a Justice Department investigation into alleged conspiracies against Donald Trump.

Brennan’s involvement in the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy is well documented. Brennan constructed the fraudulent Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that sought to fabricate intelligence analysis (Ciaramella) and frame Russia for interfering in the 2016 election. The overall effort was to impede the Trump administration through a series of fraudulent and malicious investigations.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former CIA Director John Brennan has been subpoenaed to testify next month before a Florida grand jury as part of a Justice Department investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired against President Donald Trump, one of his lawyers said Monday.

Ken Wainstein, an attorney for Brennan, disclosed in a court filing that prosecutors last Thursday presented him with a subpoena for Brennan to appear Oct. 15 before a grand jury in Fort Pierce, Florida.

He said he was told that the subpoena relates to a “far-reaching” criminal probe examining a loosely defined theory that the government officials who have investigated Trump over the last decade, including over Russia election interference in 2016 and his more recent retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, conspired to deprive Trump of his civil rights. The subpoena to Brennan is among a flurry that have been issued in recent weeks.

[…] The member of the investigative team with whom Wainstein spoke was Kurt Olsen. (more)

You might note from the current reporting of the subpoena that after Brennan/Wainstein initially sought to challenge the 2025 subpoena, they inadvertently revealed information that CTH noted could lead to a withdrawal of the demand while the Florida investigators reviewed testimony from some of the names contained within the Brennan defense letter.  That is exactly what appears to have happened.

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Here’s the fact bomb that silences Canadians almost immediately when delivered.

In December 2024 then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, told President-elect Donald Trump that Canada could not comply with a renewed trade agreement based on reciprocity because: (1) Canada had deindustrialized; their manufacturing was now “light” manufacturing and assembling of component goods made by others. (2) Canada had legislated energy policy based on climate change, and high carbon emitting industrial production was no longer an option [coking coal burning etc.]. (3) The NATO military spending goal was too high for Canada to reach [they were 19th and it wasn’t a priority because the USA was the crutch]. (4) Internal provincial rules, restrictions and cross-border trade regulations did not align with a Canadian federal trade policy effort, and (5) the political power of the ‘dairy cartel’ inside Canada tied the hands of Canadian trade representatives.

That was the gist of it. That’s why Canada cannot now or ever find a path to a U.S. reciprocal or balanced trade agreement.  #1 and #2 is specifically why Canadian govt officials repeatedly use the word “intertwined.”  They say intertwined because they can no longer function separately. Canada is economically dependent on proximal and economic subsidies from the United States.

That outline by Trudeau led Trump to say that Canada should then become a 51st state….. And, well, you know the rest. Someone in Canada should ask Trudeau about it. The former Prime Minister has no reason to deny it, and too many people were witness. Then, perhaps, Canadians will understand.

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Today the CIA released an unprecedented 71 Presidential Daily Briefs given to the Executive Branch before and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  You can review the material [HERE – CIA LINK]

I would remind readers, in 2010 George W Bush’s campaign manager, aide and senior staff, Karl Rove, revealed [“Courage and Consequence“] that then CIA Director George Tenet had been trying for several weeks to get a personal meeting with President Bush to outline an intelligence concern about an international terror threat.

According to Rove, White House National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, had been blocking Tenet from meeting with President Bush.  Director Tenet sent several requests using alternate channels to reach Bush.  Eventually, in the late spring or early summer 2001, Tenet overcame the Rice block and was given time to brief President Bush.

CIA Director George Tenet then told President Bush the CIA had intercepted telephone “chatter” pointing to an al-Qaeda terrorist threat that somehow involved airlines.  However, the details and the specifics of the threat were unknown.  The only thing Tenet knew with certainty was that some type of plot was underway and airlines were involved.

George W Bush responded to Tenet by saying it appeared the CIA director was just trying to “cover his ass” in case something happened.  Bush was angered at the vagueness of the warning and told Tenet to consider his ass covered, but essentially the information was useless without specifics.

The rest, as they say, is history.  The matter did not surface again until after the 9/11/01 plot was carried out.

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