In this week’s LinkSwarm, I briefly touched on how Ukraine is absolutely hammering Russia’s logistics behind the front lines. So here are a couple of videos that go into more detail. First up: Task & Purpose.
“Right now, Ukraine is hammering away at Russia’s logistics in a big way.”
“Over the past several months, Ukrainian forces have been expanding what are being called middle strikes. Drone attacks against Russian logistics, air defenses, command posts, and support areas dozens of miles behind the front line. These attacks have been reported as typically happening between about 30 and 180 km behind the line of contact, which means roughly 19 to 112 miles.”
“They’ve branded this new campaign as ‘The Logistics Lockdown,’ and Kiev says it is allocating another five billion Hryvnias, or about $13 million, to expand their middle strike capabilities against Russian logistics, warehouses, equipment, command posts, and supply routes.”
“These middle strike drones are being used to hit the stuff that keeps the front line alive.”
“Ukrainian units are using systems like the Chaklun-B, B2, and Decrotia drones to hit Russian targets far from the trenches.”
“If a drone can reliably reach 80, 100 or 150 km behind the front, Russia has to reconsider where it places things that used to feel far enough in the rear. Fuel depots, ammo dumps, repair facilities, all those things that we’ve already mentioned may now have to be pulled back, dispersed, hardened, or used for shorter periods of time before relocating.”
“The farther you pull back, the more that you complicate logistics.”
“This is becoming a significant problem for Russia, especially in occupied southern and eastern Ukraine, where these routes connect Russia with occupied Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea. The Institute for the Study of War says that these Ukrainian strikes are hampering Russia’s ability to move personnel and material along key arteries like the M14 Highway from Rostov to Crimea.”
“More recently, Ukraine’s 412th Nemesis Brigade used a so-called new secret strike drone against the R-280 highway, also called by Russian occupation authorities, the Novorossiya route.” Novorossiya is in Russia’s extremely far east, so I think this is probably a joke. “This route runs through occupied Mariupol, Melitopol, and Simferopol, linking occupied southern Ukraine with Crimea and serving as a key logistics corridor for Russian military equipment and supplies. They claimed that these new strike drones destroyed dozens of trucks and fuel tankers and forced Russia to limit heavy equipment movement along the highway.”
“There are also reports about a drone called Hornet. Defense Express reported that Ukrainian forces have used Hornet strike drones against Russian logistics routes at depths of roughly 50 to 150 km. and they describe the system as a fixed-wing UAV associated with visual navigation and target detection or target capture algorithms.”
“If they’re using onboard terminal guidance through AI chips with cameras, then you really can’t jam them through the typical GPS spoofing or GNSS spoofing. So, these might be kind of a secretish weapon that they’re now using AI to guide to the target.”
“But whether the drone is Hornet, Decrotia—” I don’t which drone this is; the drone they’re showing on the screen is usually referred to as Shark; if you know what a “Decrotia” drone is, or how to properly spell it, feel free t0 share in the comments. “—Chaklun-B, B2, or something still being kept out of public view, it doesn’t really matter.”
Skipping over the section on fiber-optic drones, well-covered and I would be flabbergasted if they’re using them for such long strikes.
“Ukraine is showing what happens when cheap and medium-range drones start focusing on boring logistics trucks and support sites far from the front.”
“Logistics wins wars. So Ukraine is trying to and they’re succeeding in making Russian logistics slower, farther away, more expensive, and just more stressful. And if Russia wants to keep attacking and hold on to the ground that it has taken, it still has to solve the same basic problem that every army has always had to solve ever. Getting the right stuff to the right people at the right time.”
From Task & Purpose to the guy who used to present the Task & Purpose videos, here’s Cappy Army on the same topic.
“Ukrainian forces launched a new logistics lockdown campaign that’s systematically crippling Russian supply lines. Ukraine’s focused on destroying Russian supply trucks and disrupting logistics in a new approach that’s now causing severe problems for the Kremlin. As we’ll see today, I want to examine why this approach has experts licking their finger and saying the strategic winds are now blowing in Ukraine’s favor.”
“The reason why Russia’s supply lines are suddenly collapsing is because of a key concept called Battlefield Air Interdiction, or BAI. It refers to the broader military campaign of using air power or drone strikes to isolate the battlefield. It’s the strategy to destroy transportation arteries. BAI is about denying the enemy the use of crucial logistics lines to sustain immediate frontline operations.”
“Abstract concepts like BAI become reality when you look at the highways leading from Russia into Ukraine. They are just lousy with charred husks of Russian armored vehicles that now sit by the side of logistics roads. Footage has been flooding social media showing Ural heavy recovery trucks destroyed with their tires melted by drone strikes. Open source analysts have counted over 200 strikes just on Russian logistics vehicles.”
He too highlights the importance of attacks on the R-280 highway. “Ukraine has increased the rate of these attacks by five-fold in just a few months.”
“How were they able to do such a feat in mass production? Zelensky announced that they’re already mass-producing attack drones in four European countries, Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands, and there are plans to expand drone production into Norway and Sweden soon.” Plus expanding domestic production.
Medium range is also where soldiers rotate to and from the front-lines to decompress. “Middle- range strikes remove any feeling of safety for Russian troops. Ukraine now fires over 160 of these middle-range strikes per month, hitting logistics and ammo depots. They hit drone control points and command posts. It’s hard to appreciate how massive this change really is when you think about four times the amount of strikes compared to February.”
“The new mid-range drones have a payload of about 220 lb, 10 times more powerful and accurate than artillery shells.” The drones shown on screen are the FP-2 Fire Point, the AN-196 Liutyi, and the Peklo, none of which go all the way up to 220 pounds. But the new drones are now cost effective for going after logistics trucks.
“The middle range is the priority right now. Because Ukraine is hitting everything that’s feeding Russia’s front line, that constant pressure is causing some serious problems for the Russian army.”
“Ukrainian drone operators say that before middle-range strike campaign went into full gear, Russia was holding large portions of their supplies and ammunition in the range of between 60 to 80 km back from the front line. But now they’ve had to push all of their supplies twice the distance away to 120 km away. When you’re talking about having to feed Russian artillery teams to match their rate of fire of about 10 to 15,000 rounds a day during surge fighting, every additional kilometer moved back from the front is a huge cost.”
“The US government just signed off on a $370 million deal authorizing sending JDAM extended range glide bomb kits to Ukraine. It would send 1,500 of these glide bombs to Ukrainian fighter jets to fire at targets up to 75 kilometers away with 500 pound bombs. This is the kind of weapon system you send to support offensive operations.”
Back to the M-14 attacks. “The attacks have forced Kherson Oblast’s occupation head Vladimir Soldo to sign a decree restricting the movement of civilian vehicles to only Russian military vehicles here. As a result, Russia’s having an even harder time resupplying its entire southern grouping of forces. A Russian affiliated mil-blogger complained that restricting civilian trucks makes it more difficult for them because now Ukraine knows every vehicle on the highway is a military target. They don’t have to worry about hitting civilians if there are no civilians.”
“Artillery once accounted for 70% of casualties on the battlefield. It’s drones that now account for at least 70% of battlefield deaths.”
“Everyone was shocked when Ukraine’s 129th heavy mechanized brigade went on the offensive, assaulting the town of Odradne in Kharkiv. Armored vehicles pushed forward under artillery fire. Drone strikes blasted Russian soldiers out of trenches. Ukrainian infantry cleared out fortified fighting positions. When it was all said and done, it recaptured the town and 22km with it.”
“And it wasn’t a one-off. Ukraine’s ground forces recaptured 400km largely from the southern sector of Zaporizhzhia. Further east, soldiers retook the city of Kupyansk just when it looked like it was about to fall to Russia. These are just a few of the mounting signs that the momentum of the war is shifting.”
“The clearest indication of a shift came in April when the war hit a major milestone. Moscow lost more territory than they gained for the first time in two years, a net negative of 116km.”
“Russia’s forces [are] slowly losing the ability to sustain the war at the same intensity and momentum.”
There are signs Ukraine is preparing for a new offensive. “The Ukrainian army has started switching from a system of loose brigades with little coordination to a new command level of army corps. The concept puts about five brigades or 80,000 Ukrainian troops, all their drone units, artillery guys, infantry, intelligence officers under one unified command for the first time. The new roughly 18 to 20 something different corps, each report to one of four regional commands. It’s a clear sign that Ukraine is preparing to regain operational maneuver warfare capability.”
“What it means is Ukraine is finally moving away from the old Soviet era model to a NATO style command. This allows for joint planning between brigades for the first time.”
“The old brigade-centric army was good for holding front lines and plugging gaps. Now they will be able to coordinate assault actions. Ukraine is now offense maxing their army’s organization. Another indicator that Ukraine is preparing for localized counterattacks is that in 2026, Ukraine started building two new mechanized brigades, the 160th and the 50th. They’re converting old light infantry formations into mechanized units that ride into battle.”
Skipping over Clausewitz on the importance of morale. “When the Ukrainian war became longer than World War II and less than 1% of territory had been captured since 2023, this was a major turning point in the minds of many Russian troops.”
“Manpower and recruitment are becoming a problem for the Kremlin. Ukraine has come up with the new way to reduce the manpower advantage. They came up with a campaign to kill or wound 50,000 Russian troops per month. Then they gamified it so soldiers get points for every confirmed kill.” We covered the Gamification of the Russo-Ukrainian War here.
“Now evidence shows that the casualty rate is creeping up and retention and recruitment is creeping down. Russia is now struggling to match this rate with fresh recruits. Most open-source analysts have concluded that they’re losing more than they’re recruiting. Most analysts put the numbers at somewhere around 30,000 troops being recruited per month and roughly 35,000 lost each month.”
“This kind of high casualty rate has a negative impact on troops morale.”
“A 24-year-old Russian soldier was fighting in the Donbas last year and he deserted from his unit and spoke to the New York Times about it, saying they spent a month trying to establish a foothold in a small town outside of Pokrovsk, and his unit would move in and then they would get wiped out by Ukrainian drones. Then his commander ordered them to try something different, to start infiltrating in two-man teams to slip through. They eventually had some success with this, and then he deserted to avoid being sent on more assaults.”
Ukraine is also having manpower issues, “and this has led to widespread use of robotic ground systems. In April, Ukraine seized the battlefield position without humans on the ground for the first time of the war, and an estimated 20,000 missions were conducted by ground robots.”
Ukraine seems to winning the technology war. A “one-two punch of the Kremlin blocking telegram messaging apps for many Russian troops because they were unable to monitor it. But it has kneecapped Russian soldiers communications.”
“Then the second punch was Starlink was turned off for Russia by Elon Musk…After access was cut off, Russian commanders were forced to rely on inaccurate maps. They deployed with no means of communication or the ability to use their drones.”
“European countries have agreed to send $100 billion for Ukraine through 2027 to keep their war economy running. When Viktor Orban was defeated in his election recently in Hungary, it unlocked this because he was cock-blocking/vetoing for the deal for years.”
We’ll see if Ukraine can turn their technological advantage in mid-range strikes into more offensive gains.
Occasionally when wasting time on YouTube searching for content to post here, I come across videos that make an obvious pairing. Today’s topic: Death Rays!
First up: Simon Whistler on the U.S. military’s Songbow Laser Cannon:
“Lasers are not just a sci-fi prop anymore. They are at the heart of a global race to develop the most powerful and precise directed energy weapons. China, Russia, Israel, and the UK are all in on the game. But with Songbow, the US Navy’s new laser cannon, America probably thinks it’s won.”
“Songbow will feature a 400 kilowatt laser. That is a major step up from its older sibling, the 60 kilowatt Helios. This extra energy will allow it to hit bigger, tougher targets faster and from further away. As modern warfare evolves, it’s the weapons surface vessels need to counter serious aerial threats like drone swarms and incoming missiles. And where traditional interceptors can cost millions, a shot from a song bow could be as cheap as a dollar.”
“There’s been mounting concern in recent years about the survivability of the US Navy’s vessels. Countries like China are now armed with large numbers of drones and anti-ship missiles. The modernizing of China’s navy has been steadily underway for decades with the result that it’s now a formidable foe.” Sort of. They have a lot of ships, but they still don’t have a deep water navy, and none of their current aircraft carriers are nuclear powered.
“There’s been debate over whether America’s surface vessels might need to stay beyond the range of these weapons in future conflicts. And of course, China is no longer the only threat.”
“Up until now, there have been two key limitations affecting the US Navy in this arena. First, there’s the finite depth of its magazines. In response to airborne threats, surface ships are limited to how many surface-to-air missiles they can carry. And secondly, there’s the wildly disproportionate cost to kill. An unmanned aerial vehicle, also known as a drone, can be made very little, but it can cost literally a fortune to take it down.”
“Needless to say, these problems are not unique to the US Navy, and the solution to them isn’t either. It’s the same solution being explored by governments the world over: Lasers. Or to give them their full designation, high-powered directed energy weapons.”
“The US Navy has been investing in laser technology for a while now. Its interest goes right back to the days of Ronald Reagan’s strategic defense initiative. Publicly launched in 1983, this was the plan to pioneer a space-based missile defense system which would include a network of lasers to protect America from nuclear attack. The press nicknamed it Star Wars.”
“It was the start of a long flirtation with the possibilities of laser weapons. In the late 1990s, the US and Israel came up with the tactical high energy laser for military use, also known as Nautilus. This used a chemical laser, one that takes its energy from a chemical reaction.” That didn’t work.
“A much better solution seemed to lie in electricity. A beam would instead be generated and amplified through thin glass fibers. As an alternative to chemicals, fiber lasers are smaller, safer, and better suited to mobile applications. They might not have the raw power of chemical lasers, but in theory, they’re much easier to deploy. Think less death ray, and more laser pointer kind of. The main challenge was generating enough power with a fiber laser. So, in the late 2000s and early 2010s, researchers began creating combined beams and array systems using the collective power of several smaller lasers.”
“And this is where the technological leaps are now being made. But whatever has gone before, Songbow has the potential to eclipse its predecessors. It’s been designed in direct response to increasing aerial threats like drones, projectiles, and hypersonic missiles. It follows on from the Navy’s Helios, a high energy laser weapon that’s now been deployed on the Arleigh Burke class destroyer. But where Helios can fire at around 60 kW, Songbow will pack a much stronger punch at around 400 KW. It does this by combining multiple 50 kW fiber laser modules to form one beam.”
“It’s hoped that the power density of a 400 kW class beam will be able to do this to bigger targets at longer ranges. Songbow’s key function will be as a drone and missile defense system, but its pulseed fiber lasers will also assist with remote sensing and target illumination.”
“It’s expected to be installed on naval surface vessels, but could also be deployed on land, making it really rather versatile.”
“The Pentagon is directing billions of dollars into directed energy weapons. The US Navy, Army, Air Force, and Missile Defense Agency are all channeling money into high energy lasers, microwave systems, and battlefield power systems. In April this year, the Department of Defense unveiled a $ 1.5 trillion budget proposal for the fiscal year 2027, described as the most expensive military outlay in modern history. Because as more and more US adversaries and potential adversaries invest in their own capabilities, maintaining dominance is now a spending priority. Jules Hurst III, President Trump’s Under Secretary for War and chief financial officer, has hailed it as a generational investment in the United States military.”
“The US Navy has invested almost $30 million into the [Songbow] project, with funding coming from the US Office of Naval Research. In June 2025, it announced that the contract had been awarded to Coherent Aerospace and Defense in Moretta, California. Not long after, the division was sold to the private investor Advent International. Now renamed Atalon, the company is focused on this growing industry, precision optics and laser systems for aerospace and defense.”
“Beyond all the marketing speak, there are some real advantages to Songbow compared to other solutions. Let’s look at what makes the list of pros. We’ve already talked about that 400 kW beam. Achieving this higher power would mean a drastically increased range and destructive capability. It could even have the ability to eliminate threats that other systems can’t. These might include hypersonic glide vehicles, which move too quickly for traditional interceptors, and hardened cruise missiles, which can’t be beaten by less powerful lasers. It’s estimated that at least 300 kW are needed to burn through the structure of a cruise missile in flight, making a Songbow laser comfortably capable. Now, this is yet to be proved. It’s all aspirational, but it’s what we’ve got to go on.”
“Next up, there’s its cost effectiveness. Wars are cripplingly expensive, as you probably know…The Navy spent an estimated $2 billion in munitions while countering Houthi missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aiden. Most galling of all of this is that the threats they’re countering can be really cheap. In the Russia Ukraine war, drones costing a few hundred dollars have successfully taken out multi-million dollar combat systems. Even the more expensive drone options require a huge spend to neutralize. An Iranian one-way attack drone like the Shahead can cost between $20,000 and $50,000. But the interceptor missiles needed to take it down will set the US back millions. And it’s here that the Songbow and other laser weapons could make all the difference. Directed energy is much much cheaper per shot compared to traditional interceptors. Songbow costs somewhere between $1 and $10 for every shot because it’s only ammo is electricity.”
“This energy source also lends it another advantage. As long as a ship’s power supply lasts, it can keep going. With an unlimited magazine depth, there’s no fear of missile stocks running low. Logistically, it’s a lot easier. In contrast, a Patriot missile battery, for instance, typically contains between six and eight launching stations, each capable of holding 16 PAC3 missiles or four PAC2s. At most, it’s got 128 missiles ready to fire, depending on its configuration.”
“And of course, at sea, space is at a premium. A surface vessel can only carry so many interceptors. Running low on ammunition is also known as ‘going Winchester.’ Ships equipped with the Aegis combat system, the US Navy’s long-standing shield of the fleet, typically carry up to 96 missiles. This might sound like a lot, but it’s a known limitation. When they’re gone, they’re gone.”
“And there’s another thing in Songbow’s favor, too. In the face of threats, laser weapons are fast. Where missiles or bullets take seconds to reach their targets, the Songbow is instantaneous. As soon as it’s fired, it’s arrived. And unlike conventional weapons, you can go again and again. No reloading, no waiting around. This is obviously very handy if you’ve got multiple incoming projectiles and want to move straight onto the next one.”
“Modern warfare is often dictated by quantity rather than quality. Launching a large swarm of drones, decoys, or projectiles is an effective way of completely overwhelming defenses. These are what strategists call saturation attacks. There are just too many targets to handle all at once. There’s not enough time to reload and refocus, and missile stocks simply run out. But in theory, as long as electrical power lasts, directed energy weapons could keep going.”
“We need to be very wary of overhyping this, though. A high energy laser still needs time to disable a target and move on. So, there’s still a limit to what could be achieved in a large enough saturation attack. But with more than one laser weapon, the advantage would be pretty sizable.”
“Directed energy weapons can also stay on target continuously. They can follow a threat and maintain their beam while it’s maneuvering.”
“It’s even rumored that Songbow will be able to defeat hypersonic missiles. These, you see, are a real fly in the ointment for defenders like the US. Hypersonic missiles are able to fly at speeds exceeding Mach 5 and change course unpredictably, making them notoriously tricky to take down. Contrast this with an inbound ballistic missile. In this case, conventional air defense systems can track it and calculate its future flight path. It tends to be fairly predictable. They’ll then launch an interceptor to meet it where it’s likely to end up. Hypersonic missiles, though, don’t play by these rules. They’re faster and they change course mid-flight, making it much harder to calculate their flight path. In theory, Songbow’s winning combination of high power, speed of light engagement, and capacity for continuous firing could see it win the day.” Set aside for a moment that Russia and China’s “hypersonic” missiles are more hype than sonic.
“However cool and futuristic it sounds, Songbow still has its limitations and its critics.”
“One of the main obstacles to any laser weapon is nature herself. Atmospheric conditions like mist, fog, and rain can all absorb and scatter light, diffusing a laser’s beam. And the same goes for things like smoke, salt particles, and if it’s used on land, dust and sand. So, this is not an all-weather solution. And in time, seaborne enemy craft could even be fitted with devices that create smoke or other obscurants to protect themselves. This would be a very easy way to counter a laser. Extreme sea conditions will also pose a problem. Lasers follow a straight line of sight, which isn’t always possible on a constantly shifting terrain like water. Rough seas and swells can easily disrupt a beam, especially over longer distances.” With modern gyro-stabilization, I suspect this is largely a solved problem.
“Even a ship’s vibration can cause difficulties. High energy lasers rely on precision, but the general operation of a ship is pretty unstable. As well as waves and the motion of the ocean, you’ve got the vibrations from engines and onboard machinery. Maintaining a stable lock while taking all of these things into account is going to be really quite hard.”
“And in practical terms, the sky, or rather the horizon line, is the limit here. A laser is clever, but it can’t magically arc over the horizon. It’s a definite physical limitation compared to a combat system like Aegis.”
“Another downside to high-energy laser systems comes in the form of thermal blooming. This is basically when a continuously firing laser beam heats up the air around it, causing it to defocus and become less effective. It’s a bigger issue when the targets are coming head-on in a straight line, known as a down-throat shot. At times like this, the beam has to sustain itself in one direction for a long time. The more powerful a laser weapon, the more troublesome this is. So, it could be a real problem for the 400 kW Songbow.”
“Operationally, all that power is something of a double-edged sword. We talked about the advantages of a weapon that can run from a ship’s electrical supply. Said earlier, as long as a ship’s power supply lasts, it can keep going. High power lasers, you see, need a hefty electrical supply and advanced cooling capabilities. A large amount of the energy they generate is just lost as heat, which needs to be dissipated. If it isn’t, the weapon will ultimately become damaged and will stop working.”
“Managing the temperature of a directed energy weapon is crucial. This means a specialized cooling system, and this is asking a lot of shipboard power systems, especially when they’re already prioritizing output for things like radar and propulsion. As journalist Charles Mitchell has written, quote, ‘The challenge is to cause a warship to act as a stable power plant and a heatsink at the same time as it is operating high demand sensors, combat systems, hotel loads, and other auxiliaries.” End quote. He argues that the laser fight won’t so much be limited by a ship’s fuel tank, but by its electrical and thermal headroom. If a laser is continuously being shot, its effectiveness is going to come down to how quickly its ongoing heat buildup can be carried off. But according to one naval industry report, even the Navy believes the Arleigh Burke class fleet of destroyers has quote reached the limits of its growth capacity. This raises serious questions about how easily older ships like these would be able to take on the Songbow’s enormous electrical and cooling demands. And this seems to be a challenge the US Navy is well aware of.”
“Already next generation surface vessels are in the works with designs for expanded power generation that will accommodate directed energy weapons. In December 2025, Donald Trump announced the Navy’s plan to develop a new class of ‘largest we have ever built’ battleships. It’s hoped that the first, the USS Defiant, will be ready in the early 2030s. According to plans, the Defiant will be nuclear powered to provide the Navy’s fleet with quote a significant increase in combat power by longer endurance, higher speed, and advanced weapon systems required for modern wars.” This is also the reason the Gerald R. Ford class of aircraft carriers is powered by two nuclear reactors.
“Among these same plans, the Trump class battleship seems to include two 300 or 600 kW shipborne lasers and other laser systems for optical dazzling and sensor disruption.”
“Commentators have described directed energy weapons as central to the Trump class ship’s design, but this form of weaponry has always had its hurdles. Hurdles that have plagued the development of laser weapons since the 1980s. Even a Congressional Research Service report acknowledges the old saying, quoting again, “Lasers are X years in the future and always will be.”
“Only last year, one of the Navy’s top fleet commanders, Admiral Daryl Caudle, said the service should be embarrassed by its slow progress with the technology. Because although the theory behind their application carries weight, he believes the US still isn’t ready for prime time. Lasers might promise a lot, but they’re not yet a viable way to take out a missile. And at a symposium in 2024, Rear Admiral Fred Pyle told attendees the Navy had quote a tendency to overpromise and underdeliver.”
Skipping over the failure of the Army’s 300 kW Valkyrie laser system, which seemingly couldn’t hit milestones and was mothballed. “The Army decided the prototype would not be fielded to units. Instead, it’ll be used to inform the new joint laser weapon system. This laser initiative is a collaboration between the US Army and the US Navy. In theory, it’ll allow them to pull their research from past efforts to create a 150 kW system that could potentially be scaled up.”
“Similarly, in 2024, the US Air Force shut down its much vaunted SHIELD program, which had set out to introduce pod-mounted high energy lasers to fighter aircraft.”
“SHIELD had apparently been hit by many of these issues that we’ve already talked about. Technical difficulties, heat generation, harsh environments, all leading to claims that the technology still wasn’t developed enough for real world use. Of course, this doesn’t mean the whole concept of laser weaponry is being scrapped.”
“Despite the troublesome quirks of laser weapons, they’re in motion all over the world. The United States definitely isn’t the only global power taking part in this futuristic race.”
“You might remember our video about the UK’s Dragonfire laser. Like Songbow, Dragonfire has been designed to counter drones, missiles, and projectiles. And also like Songbow, it uses solid state fiber laser technology. The development of Dragonfire has been funded to the tune of million pounds.”
“In 2024, it successfully engaged an airborne target during an exercise. There at the Hebrides range in Scotland, the weapon took drones flying at 650 km/h down. Dragonfire is due to be fitted to a Royal Navy type 45 destroyer in 2027. Because of this, its exact range is still classified, but we do know that according to the official descriptions, the level of precision it offers is the equivalent of hitting a one pound coin that’s about the same size as a euro or a US quarter from a kilometer away. It’s capable of manifesting 50 kW of power.”
“And it’s a similar story with Israel’s Iron Beam, otherwise known as the laser dome, pioneered by the defense technology company Raphael. This is a 100 kilowatt high energy laser system. In Raphael’s glossy marketing, it claims that Iron Beam redefines modern warfare. And I mean, yeah, maybe it does. Reportedly, the Iron Beam is able to overcome the atmospheric challenges faced by other laser weapons. With lasers, the larger the beam, the more atmospheric interference you’re likely to face. The Iron Beam gets around this by shooting hundreds of small coinsized beams instead of one. These all converge on a target until it’s damaged or destroyed. It claims almost zero cost per interception, whatever that is. And significantly, it’s now up and running. In December 2025, the Iron Beam was officially deployed to the IDF after more than a decade in development. And in March 2026, social media footage seemed to show it in action intercepting a Hezbollah drone.”
“Israel may be the first, but it won’t be the last. Also hot on their heels are South Korea, Russia, Ukraine, India, and Japan. All are developing variations on the theme. And last year, China unveiled its own shipbourne weapon, the LY-1, a high energy laser weapon said to be an advanced testing.” China’s weapon systems seem to be long on hype and short on performance.
“Reading about high energy lasers, the term layered defense comes up a lot. At least for the time being, and probably for a long time to come, laser weaponry can’t be a one-stop shop solution. There’s simply too much to it and too many limitations to consider. And so, it will literally become just one weapon in a country’s arsenal. Systems like Songbow will sit alongside more proven interceptors so that if, for instance, sea conditions become rough, there’s still something a crew can do to deal with that pesky incoming drone.”
“Traditional projectiles might be fishily expensive, but they’re probably here to stay in some capacity.”
“As well as working alongside other defensive weapons, Songbow will also sit within the Navy’s laser family. If it’s successfully deployed, it’ll act as the big gun. But there are other smaller siblings there, too. Take ODIN, for example. It stands for Optical Dazzling Interdictor Navy. And at the time we’re writing this, there are seven ODIN systems on Navy ships. They’re there specifically to emit an infrared light that will scramble the optical sensors of a drone. Rather than shooting it down, they can effectively make it lose its way and crash.”
Helios, another laser defense system already deployed on the Arleigh Burke-class USS Prebel, successfully shot down Iranian drones this year.
“The global race to field directed energy systems is well and truly on, leading some to call this the age of laser weapons. It echoes past scrambles around stealth aircraft and precision missiles. Now, the question isn’t so much whether lasers will reach the maritime sphere, but how quickly countries can overcome the many hurdles to making this a success.”
Now the second death ray video. In my Black Friday/Prepper roundups, I’ve been including links for the IMALENT MS18, an insanely powerful flashlight that I don’t have a use case for, but which some people (say, ranchers or security guards for large complexes) might. Well, someone took its big brother, the IMALENT MS32, put a magnifier on it, and turned it into a death ray.
Now, as a death ray it’s inferior to a gun as a self-defense weapon, and about 1/100th as cost effective for lighting a fire than a cheap electric lighter. But it’s still pretty cool. Err, pretty hot, that is…
More of the Democrat election fraud that doesn’t exist, more Democrat welfare state fraud, a commie scumbag gets indicted, Ukraine returns to hammering Russia’s oil infrastructure, a very busy week for Kash Patel, the BBC wants us to sympathize with Muslims who enable child rape, and the best bagels in America are found in…Dallas?
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
“Left’s election fraud denials crumble as DOJ exposes two-decade-long California cheating scheme. FBI Director Kash Patel says prior administrations looked the other way on election cheating but ‘those days are over.'”
Despite evidence to the contrary, liberal voting activists have spent years minimizing cheating concerns and portraying those who want to investigate such problems as “election deniers.”
But the FBI and the departments of Justice and Homeland Security are now systematically exposing electoral fraud – from non-citizen voting to ballot-box-stuffing schemes that are turning the table in epic fashion.
The latest strike came Monday when a longtime voting activist in California reached a deal with federal prosecutors to admit to illegally paying homeless people to sign election petitions and paying people to register to vote. The two-decade scheme allegedly leveraged the Democrat-run state’s lax mail-in voting system, which sends ballot forms to everyone whether they ask for them or not.
The felony charge and plea deal announced Monday against Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong, 64, of Marina Del Ray, Calif., not only signals an investigation into others, it likely will provide legal fodder to the Justice Department’s efforts to force California to turn over its voter registration database to look for other abuses.
That case, and others like it against blue states, are working their way through the federal courts in a major initiative led by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon.
Prosecutors said Armstrong spent two decades collecting ballot registration forms, including in California’s high-profile voter initiatives. On occasion, Brown targeted homeless people on Skid Row in Los Angeles, offering them money to fill out forms, and even sometimes letting them use her own address to put on the forms.
The plea deal mentioned Armstrong was paid by “coordinators” to gather signatures for ballots, and she used some of that money to enlist people to register to vote and sign petitions.
“Because her coordinators only paid for signatures attributable to registered voters, Armstrong endeavored to ensure the people who signed her petitions were registered voters,” the DOJ said in announcing the plea deal.
“Armstrong regularly paid and offered to pay individuals cash, usually in amounts between $2 and $3, to induce them to sign her petitions,” DOJ said, adding in January she “knowingly and willfully paid another person to register to vote. She paid the person for the purpose of causing that person to register to vote in federal elections.”
Democrats have hundreds of ways to cheat in elections, and one by one the Trump Administration is shutting them down and prosecuting the perps.
A vast improvement: “Trump administration had full year of zero border releases.”
While campaigning in 2024, President Donald Trump pledged to fix the nation’s broken immigration system, a system exacerbated by the rogue incompetence of the Biden administration. Now, after 18 months into his second term, Trump has maintained his excellence in border security and upheld his campaign promise regarding illegal immigration, as the Trump administration has achieved a year of zero releases at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Whereas the Biden administration wantonly permitted, if not outright encouraged, border security agencies to release illegal immigrants into the United States, Trump has ensured such ineptitudes would not happen under his watch. After innocent victims such as Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray, and many others were murdered by violent illegal immigrants, the Trump administration utilized every possible avenue to ensure that such atrocities would not recur. The first barrier to accomplishing this was limiting border releases.
It is a remarkable success that shows the country’s border security issues stem from failed leadership and a failed president. Biden’s atrocious border policies made the country more dangerous. Trump’s policies made the country safe again. It’s a success that should not go unrecognized.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin touted the historic feat in a press release.
“Twelve straight months of ZERO releases at the border. Under President Donald Trump’s leadership, we are delivering the most secure border in American history,” Mullin said. “The days of catch and release are over. We are enforcing the nation’s laws and sending illegal aliens back to their home countries.”
Today – 15 individuals have been indicted for over $90 million in an alleged massive healthcare fraud scheme in Minnesota, after a sweeping FBI investigation with @TheJusticeDept
and our Interagency Partners.
These charges involve the two LARGEST Medicaid fraud cases ever charged in this district and first-of-their kind charges involving 7 additional Medicaid programs.
As alleged, the defendants defrauded Minnesota public healthcare resources for tens of millions, targeting programs such as Housing Stabilization Services, Child Care, Medicaid programs, Individualized Home Supports (IHS), and more.
In one case, defendants even developed a scheme worth over $40 million to target the Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention (EIDBI) – an autism healthcare program – paying kickbacks to parents who fraudulently used autism centers to diagnose children with autism regardless of medical necessity, and billing for services not actually provided. This not only defrauded taxpayers, but robbed valuable resources from families truly in need.
President Trump gave this law enforcement team a mandate to investigate and systematically dismantle this exact kind of public fraud in America – which grossly abuses and mismanages money from hardworking American taxpayers – and that’s exactly what we’re doing. Today’s indictment in a massive moment in this effort.
Gavin Newsom is, in many ways, the most corrupt governor in America.
By that, I don’t mean that he spends his time and effort skimming off the top to put money in his own pockets. I have no evidence that he does, although an awful lot of money flows to and through the fingers of his wife. His personal wealth is not staggering by California standards—estimated at a few tens of millions of dollars—and he has it through his relationship with the Getty Oil family. Sort of a nepo-baby once removed.
His corruption is more in the style of Putin—using power to make others rich and indebted to him, and he has pillaged the coffers of the City of San Francisco and the State of California in order to do so. The ultimate goal is ultimate power, and his path to that power has been to leverage the power he has gained at each step up the ladder to enrich a group of allies who will, in turn, fund his rise further.
In 2023 Newsom was given a bill to sign that would have required private insurers to cover hearing aids for children. Many other states require insurers to cover them.
According to NY Post, Newsom vetoed the bill and decided instead to have the state provide the hearing aids. The result was $23 million spent on hearing aids for 300 people. About $76,000 a person. About 20,000 children in CA still need hearing aids.
Well done Gavin.
The scale of Newsom’s corruption is almost beyond comprehension. California, if it were its own country, would have the fourth-largest economy in the world. Its economy is about twice the size of Russia’s, and its state budget is about 50% larger than Russia’s, despite having no war to fund against Ukraine or anybody else besides the taxpayers of California.
That gives a lot of room for corrupt spending, especially when nobody is looking to uncover it.
The other day, I took a look at Newsom’s Baby 2 Baby free diaper program, which is an obvious scam, paying highly inflated prices for cheap Mexican diapers to an NGO run by friends of his wife, who all make nice salaries.
The United States has indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro, a senior Trump administration official confirmed. A federal grand jury in Florida indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro along with five other defendants, according to court filings made public Wednesday.
The charges mark a major escalation in a long-running US legal case tied to the 1996 downing of two civilian aircraft, an incident that killed four people and has remained a flashpoint in US-Cuba relations for decades.
Castro, 94, served as Cuba’s defense minister at the time of the shootdown before becoming president in 2008, following the illness of his brother Fidel Castro. Fidel Castro died in 2016.
Remember that the commie rulers have a secret corporation (GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.) that allows them to rob Cubans blind. “How is it possible for a military company to control 40% of the national economy, accumulate $14.5 billion in bank deposits, not publish financial statements, avoid paying taxes in foreign currency, and not be accountable to the National Assembly?”
Hope you enjoyed your Victory Day parade, Vlad. “Moscow Attacked By Drones: Oil Depot, Microchip Factory & Airport All Hit.” The chip factory is Angstrem, which was reportedly running some very ancient process technology indeed. But I bet a bunch of what they could produce was used by the Russian military.
Gary Grief, the former executive director of the Texas Lottery Commission, has been re-indicted in connection with a rigged jackpot following the dismissal of a prior indictment.
A summons was issued one day after Texas Scorecard originally reported that an initial indictment against Grief had been quietly dismissed by the Travis County District Attorney’s office.
The reissued indictment, a carbon copy of the first, and the new summons come amid ongoing scrutiny of the handling of the high-profile case.
Travis County District Attorney José Garza told Texas Scorecard Thursday he could not currently comment on the matter, but that his office would release more information on the case soon.
Before the latest indictment came to light, Gov. Greg Abbott called the initial dismissal “incomprehensible.”
Snip.
Court records posted to X by Dylan McKim with KXAN-AUSTIN indicate that not only was Grief summoned, but the Texas Lottery Commission itself is named. A separate indictment identifies Ed Rogers and Clay Kidd alongside Grief as “managerial agents” acting on behalf of the agency.
Notably, Ryan Mindell, Grief’s right-hand man at the Texas Lottery Commission in 2023 and his short-lived successor, is not currently summoned in connection with the case. Mindell quit the commission after lawmakers called for his removal during the 2025 legislative session.
The original indictment against Grief was secured in April 2026 on a first-degree felony charge of abuse of official capacity involving more than $300,000, stemming from a rigged $95 million jackpot.
The charge came after a year-long investigation by the Texas Rangers into Grief’s controversial authorization of third-party companies that resold lottery tickets on behalf of customers, effectively enabling the online sale of Texas lottery tickets without legislative approval.
During the 2023 legislative session, Grief misled members of the Senate about resellers operating openly in Texas. The practice was ultimately outlawed during the 2025 legislative session after revelations that couriers facilitated bulk purchases, leading to a $95 million Lotto Texas jackpot win in April 2023 that was reportedly rigged by an international gambling syndicate.
Farmer and former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein prevailed over Representative Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) in a closely watched primary race on Tuesday evening, bringing to an end the most expensive U.S. House primary on record.
Massie, who has represented Kentucky’s fourth district since 2012, is one of several lawmakers to lose a seat this cycle thanks to a retribution campaign Trump has undertaken against legislators who have dared to cross him.
The bad blood between Massie and Trump dates back to the president’s first term. As early as 2020, Trump called the Kentucky Republican a “third-rate grandstander” after Massie voted against the president’s Covid-19 relief package.
While Trump and Massie seemed to make amends, with Trump endorsing Massie for reelection in 2022, the president’s second term has seen the pair butt heads repeatedly over a slew of issues, from the Iran war to tariffs.
Trump on Monday blasted Massie as an “obstructionist and a fool.”
Massie, who also controversially opposed Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” worked with Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California to advance a bill in Congress to compel the Trump administration to release government files on deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Massie’s opposition to U.S. aid to Israel and his vote against a resolution condemning antisemitism made him a target of not only the president but the Republican Jewish Coalition and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as well. Both groups have spent more than $4 million on anti-Massie ads.
You can stray from the party on an issue or two and still survive, but when you make a habit of working with Democrats against stated Republican priorities time after time, expect a reckoning.
Republicans have one thing going for them in the midterms: Fat stacks of cash.
The Republican National Committee ended the month of April with more cash on hand than at any other point in the group’s history, as closely contested midterm elections draw near and the fate of Republicans’s majority in the House and Senate hang in the balance.
The RNC raised $18.6 million in April, bringing its total cash on hand to $123.8 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
“Republicans have the candidates, resources, and momentum needed to win the midterms, but we cannot let up now,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said in a statement. “Democrats will spend whatever it takes to try to stop President Trump’s America First agenda, which is why the RNC is already investing aggressively in our ground game and election integrity operation, including deploying 34 State Directors and Election Integrity Directors across 17 key battleground states to drive turnout and secure victories this November.”
Democrats lie to everyone, including themselves: “Harris Campaign Didn’t Go Negative Enough on Trump, DNC Autopsy Concludes.”
A newly-released Democratic National Committee report looking back at how the party lost the 2024 election concludes that then-Vice President Kamala Harris lost, in part, because she failed to focus sufficient negative attention on President Trump.
“The national campaign did not effectively drive Trump’s negatives, and the White House did not effectively support Vice President Harris over three and half years to improve her standing before the candidate switch,” reads the autopsy, written by Democratic strategist Paul Rivera, who was asked by the DNC to investigate why the party failed to wing big in 2024.
Rivera goes on to suggest that Democrats failed to remind Americans why they disliked Trump in his first term.
“The idea Trump’s negatives were ‘baked in’ is a major failure of analysis and reality, given how his favorability has cratered less than a year into this term,” he adds.
Rivera’s finding that Harris wasn’t sufficiently negative is curious given that Harris and her surrogates incessantly depicted Trump as a threat to democracy who revealed his true colors on January 6.
Harris attacked Trump repeatedly during the campaign, calling her opponent “increasingly unhinged and unstable” and telling CNN that she believed he was a fascist who wanted “unchecked power.”
Party officials interviewed hundreds of Democrats in all 50 states to create the report. Democrats had asked DNC Chairman Ken Martin for months to publicly release the findings, but Martin chose to do so only after being “presented with CNN’s reporting about much of its contents,” according to the outlet, which first obtained the nearly 200-page report.
The report is littered with notes drafted by DNC editors pointing out that many of Rivera’s claims are unsubstantiated and/or contradict publicly available reporting.
Yay think? It wasn’t the fact that, oh, Harris was a cringingly bad candidate, that Biden was an ambulatory corpse whose headless administration was a disaster for ordinary Americans thanks to inflation and letting a flood of illegal aliens enter the country, or that actual voters hate transsexual madness and social justice lunacy? But no, telling the truth would offend the Party’s toxic cadres of intersectional grievance mongers. They’d rather lie to themselves and continue to lose rather than being dragged on BlueSky.
This trucker is in Eden, Ohio, and just parked at a truck stop where he got a bite to eat at an Indian restaurant.
(Sikh Indians now own 20% of all trucking businesses in North America.)
He says foreign truckers are being hit HARD after the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that logistics companies can be held liable for hiring unsafe drivers.
None of ‘em can get loads out of Ohio today. And I was talking to the Iman guy while I was in there at the Punjabi place getting something to eat, and he said that the reason they they can’t get freight out of Ohio today is because the freight workers won’t work with them anymore.
Apparently, what has happened, is yesterday they had the Supreme Court ruling that brokers could be held liable for accidents with carriers with red flags. Apparently, the trickle trickle-down effect happened like THAT.
A leftist might look at this and say it’s racist. An “inequitable” number of carriers with foreign drivers are being excluded??
Well, as it turns out, these truckers just so happen to be the ones that are the least safe.
I was looking up a few of these DoT numbers for these guys, and they do have pretty substantial track record of unsafe behavior – accidents, high out-of-service rates, things like that.
Many foreigners, even illegals, have been able to game the system, getting CDLs issued by Democrat-led states like New York and California even though they are not qualified. CDL schools run by migrants have participated in this fraud for years.
Meanwhile, the number of deaths involving 18 wheelers on U.S. roads has risen 50% in just the last 15 years. Thanks to SCOTUS, that might reverse very quickly in the near future.
As a bonus, Americans will have a chance to get back into a trucking industry that’s excluded them in favor of cheap, unsafe, illegal labor!!
The FBI announced on Wednesday that they were shutting down a scam call center in India which has defrauded hundreds of elderly Americans out of millions of dollars.
Snip.
Former CEO Adam Young, 42, of Miami, FL, and former CSO Harrison Gevirtz, 33, of Las Vegas, NV, admitted to operating a business that provided telecommunications-related services, including telephone numbers, call routing services, call tracking, and call forwarding services, to customers they knew were engaged in tech-support fraud schemes. Young and Gevirtz each pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony, in violation of federal law. They are scheduled to be sentenced on June 16, 2026. The sentences imposed will be determined by a federal district judge after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors …
Indian citizens Sahil Narang, Chirag Sachdeva, Abrar Anjum and Manish Kumar, were convicted of charges related to telemarketing fraud schemes based in the Republic of India that targeted and defrauded Americans of millions of dollars, many of them vulnerable to fraud schemes due to age or infirmity. The investigation also contributed to the conviction of another individual, Jagmeet Singh Virk, in the U.S. District Court for the Norther [sic] District of California. The investigation further revealed that call centers based in India utilized Young and Gervitz’s business to route their ‘tech fraud’ scheme calls and, in some instances, advised those fraudsters on methods intended to reduce complaints and prevent account terminations.
Now if they could just shut down every Indian company pretending to be an American company (a plague among temporary and contract work firms), that would greatly improve the situation for American job seekers.
“Texas Children’s Hospital Agrees to Create Detransition Clinic, Pay $10 Million in ‘Historic’ Settlement. The agreement stems from a years-long investigation into alleged Medicaid fraud tied to sex-change procedures on minors.”
A years-long controversy surrounding gender mutilation procedures at Texas Children’s Hospital have culminated in a sweeping settlement with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that will force the hospital to pay $10 million, fire five doctors, halt “gender-transition” procedures, and create the nation’s first “Detransition Clinic.”
According to Paxton’s office, the settlement resolves allegations that Texas Children’s improperly billed Texas Medicaid for sex-change interventions using false diagnosis codes despite longstanding state policy prohibiting Medicaid coverage for such procedures.
Under the agreement, Texas Children’s will establish a multidisciplinary clinic intended to provide care to patients who previously underwent “gender-transition” procedures. The hospital will fully fund the clinic for at least five years, with services provided free of charge to patients.
The settlement also requires Texas Children’s to terminate and permanently revoke privileges for five physicians accused of performing the procedures. The hospital further agreed not to provide “gender-transition” services moving forward and to adopt new ethics and compliance measures.
We asked the sick leftwing freaks not to mutilate children in the name of their perverse social justice religion, and they just couldn’t help themselves.
[sigh]: “Federal Judge Again Blocks Texas Law Allowing Arrest and Deportation of Illegal Immigrants.”
Just one day before a controversial Texas law on illegal immigration was set to take effect, a federal judge granted a new injunction saying most of the law would not pass constitutional muster before the U.S. Supreme Court.
U.S. District Judge David A. Ezra, who blocked implementation of Texas Senate Bill (SB) 4 in 2024, opined that the law “threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice.”
Approved by lawmakers in 2023, SB 4, filed by Texas Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock), established a criminal offense for illegal entry into the state from a foreign nation, and provided a mechanism for judges to order offenders to return to their nation of origin.
Implementation was delayed until the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a pending lawsuit last month on the grounds that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue, clearing the way for the law to take effect on May 15.
Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Texas Civil Rights Project filed a new challenge on behalf of two unnamed individuals who said they could be arrested and subject to SB 4’s provisions.
Ezra’s injunction applies to four provisions of SB 4: criminal penalties for re-entry without authorization; authorizing magistrates to order deportation; criminalization of failure to comply with a Texas magistrate’s deportation order; and SB 4’s requirement that magistrates continue a prosecution even when a person has a pending immigration case under federal law.
In his opinion released last week, Ezra noted that while federal authorities can elicit help with immigration enforcement actions from state and local law enforcement, SB 4 would clash with precedent set in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in Arizona v. United States.
The offences mainly took place in Dewsbury and Batley, north Kirklees, and involved three girls.
One was just 12 years old when the offences started in 1995. They ended in 2003.
The trials began in 2023 and the perps were convicted and sentenced in 2024 through late 2025. The reason we are only learning their sentences now is because there was a court-ordered ban on reporting (they can do this in England)
Reporting restrictions had been put in place to ‘safeguard the fairness and integrity of the court process.’
Translation: They were to ensure the safety of Labour poll numbers from outraged Britons…
California is the land of expensive, useless bureaucracies, which Democrats allow to do nothing but impose more regulations on Californians.
In 2023, California created a fast-food council to micromanage fast-food restaurants from wages to working conditions. The council, the first of its kind in the United States, exists to justify California’s fast-food minimum wage hike, which jumped to $20 an hour, and the council has the ability to increase over the coming years. By now, you know how this went: Fast-food restaurants shut down, cut jobs, cut worker hours, raised prices, or did some combination of those things.
More notably, though, the council that is required to meet at least twice a year does not really exist. The last subcommittee meeting for the council took place in February 2025. It has now been over a year since the council has done anything, and even then, it could not be bothered to gather all nine members. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) plucked the council’s chairman for a different state appointment after that last subcommittee meeting, and it hasn’t gathered since.
Despite this, the council was still allocated $1.1 million from the state budget.
Fender won a lawsuit (by default) in Germany, and now it’s suing every guitar maker in the world that makes guitars that look even remotely like Stratocasters. “The decision to enforce the EU-based ruling on US builders marks a huge development in the case, and the outcome of such legal battles could very well reshape the guitar industry as we know it.” I rather suspect this strategy isn’t going to work out well for them…
Google is about to ruin the Internet. “Google is changing its search engine to focus on AI recommendations and NOT links to websites, according to its Google I/O presentation. And it’s a wrap. That’s it for the free and open internet. Niche publications and independent voices will likely get completely shut out of organic search as the internet becomes pay-to-win.” Another reason to stick to DuckDuckGo.
And speaking of science fiction first editions, I’m going to be sending a new book catalog out next week. Drop me a line if you want a copy.
Critical Drinker reviews Pragmata, mostly enjoys it. If the terminally online left hadn’t freaked out about this game, I doubt I ever would have heard about it…
Once again, the Babylon Bee is doing straight up reporting from LA: “New Polls Show Dead Heat Between ‘Make Everything Worse’ Candidate And ‘Fix Everything’ Candidate.”
Clownfish TV has a video up covering how Google’s Chrome browser secretly installs a four gigabyte AI on your PC without asking you:
“It’s not just Microsoft is stuffing everything full of AI, whether or not its users want it. It is now Google as well with Chrome. Apparently, they’re stuffing AI into Google Chrome. They did not ask people. And according to Futurism, fury is erupting after Google Chrome sneakily installs a 4 gigabyte AI model on users’ PC.”
“It feels like the browser is not your gateway to the Internet. It’s just another marketing tool. Especially when it comes to Google and Microsoft and these big corporations. They’re going to push their AI wherever they can push it. They’re going to shove it wherever they can shove it because they have to justify the insane amount of money that they’re spending on AI.”
“Chrome did not ask did not ask your permission before shoving its AI up your ass. As of 2026, Google maintains an iron grip on the web browser market, boasting well over three billion Chrome users worldwide.”
“Security researcher Alexander “The Privacy Guy” Hanff noted on a blog post earlier this week, Google’s web browser has been silently installing an AI model on users devices without asking for consent. Oh, this is a lawsuit waiting to happen. He described the 4 gig file named weights.bin in a directory called OptGuideOnDeviceModel. The file contains weights, the learned numerical parameters of an AI model that teach it how to weigh the importance of various data points of Google’s Gemini Nano, which is designed to live on computers, devices, not in the cloud.”
“It’s the fact that they’re installing stuff on your computer without your consent. I mean, look, they’ve always done that. But in this case, 4 gig, that’s crazy.”
“Google has remained unusually silent on the matter. You expect you expect them to address it? Do they have anybody left at Google? Do they have any humans left at Google? Because my understanding is that Google is overrun with AI right now.”
“That is litigation waiting to happen. That is a class action lawsuit. People are going to be pissed. The company didn’t respond to Futurism’s request for comment.”
CO2 impact skipped because I don’t give a rat’s ass.
“Unfortunately, it is going to get harder and harder to opt out from AI if you’re anti-AI because it literally is being shoved into everything.”
“Others argue that Google was likely auto-installing the model to artificially inflate its own AI user stats. Yes, this is what Microsoft was doing with Copilot, too. Now they’re calling it something else because people are rejecting it.”
“Same with YouTube. YouTube is riddled with AI, and they’re doing it to justify the existence of AI.”
“And Satya Nadella at Microsoft said the quiet part out loud. He basically was like, you know, we really need consumers to to love the AI and find a use for it because we’re spending an awful lot of money on it.”
“And I really do think before it’s all said and done that Microsoft and Google are going to harm themselves irreparably by chasing AI and trying to shove it into things when consumers don’t want it. The demand’s not there. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean there’s a market value for it. And we’re also going to find out that uh the abilities of AI are way way way overstated.”
“Hanff found that the download of the file is triggered when the browser’s default AI features are active. On a machine that meets hardware requirements, Chrome treats the user’s hardware as a delivery target and writes the model to stop it from reinstalling itself after deleting it. Hanff advised to disable AI features manually by digging into the browser’s settings. This is the true definition of malware.”
“If you have it on Enhanced Protection, it will install on the model. If you have it on Standard, it will not.” So PC users might want to change that on Chrome.
Going to Hanff’s original post revealed another browser exploit from another AI company: “Two weeks ago I wrote about Anthropic silently registering a Native Messaging bridge in seven Chromium-based browsers on every machine where Claude Desktop was installed [1]. The pattern was: install on user launch of product A, write configuration into the user’s installs of products B, C, D, E, F, G, H without asking. Reach across vendor trust boundaries. No consent dialog. No opt-out UI. Re-installs itself if the user removes it manually, every time Claude Desktop is launched.” Here’s the piece on how Claude does that, and it sounds like an even scarier piece of malware. “Claude Desktop reached into Brave, a browser from a completely separate vendor, and registered a back door for a browser extension I do not have.”
AI companies are spending billions of dollars to build-out vast AI data centers while invading your privacy at the same time, yet studies show these investments aren’t seeing returns on their investments. “Companies reporting high ROI were not the same ones reporting AI-related workforce reductions. In fact, workforce reduction rates were nearly equal for those reporting higher ROI and those with smaller returns or even worsened outcomes from autonomous operations.”
Gloria: The rise of Artificial Intelligence is the next industrial revolution.
[Boos]
Gloria: A- whoa!
[Boos rise louder]
Some guy in the crowd: AI sucks!
Gloria: What happened? Okay. I struck a chord. May I finish? Only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives.
[Thunderous applause]
Gloria: Okay. Alright. Okay.
Her pitch didn’t seem to go over well with Humanities majors.
There are certainly ways AI can help people do certain jobs better. But it runs into big trouble when it tries to replace people entirely, and people hate when you try to secretly install it without their permission.
We touched on this in Friday’s LinkSwarm, but more news of Labour’s council election wipe out has come in, and the scale at which UK voters rejected Keir Starmer’s party is staggering.
Nigel Farage’s Reform went from two council seats to 1,453. Labour, by contrast, lost 1,446 seats. But the conservative also lost council seats, 563 of them, which now puts them behind the Liberal Democrats, something that hasn’t happened since, well, ever.
Indeed, as this Sky News video notes, this is the first time since they started keeping track in the 1970s that the combined Labour/Tory share of these seats fell below 50%, and is now down to 35%.
If Farage can avoid screwing things up, we may be seeing the end of that political duopoly. The useless Tory wets couldn’t simply accomplish Brexit and get the hell out of their own way, and instead named feckless incompetent PM after feckless incompetent PM. Just think, if Labour, having turned back the Corbyn threat, could have simply avoiding become the party of pedophiles and illegal alien Muslim rapists, they might have ruled for a generation. Instead, they’re likely to go the way of the Whigs. And backbench Labour MP Catherine West has threatened to launch a leadership challenge to Starmer if no one in the cabinet does.
If the “conserving conservatism” crowd had gotten their way, the Republican Party might be mired in the same decline plaguing the Tories instead of controlling all three branches of government.
Were there two assassination attempts in Washington D.C. yesterday, or only one?
This Asmongold video suggests two, one an attempt to kill Trump at the White House, and one someone shooting at J. D. Vance’s motorcade.
“A man was shot by law enforcement near the White House, causing the White House to be locked down. Triggered temporary lockdown of the White House security area.”
“It is another person. An armed man opened fire in vicinity of JD Vance’s motorcade near the White House. The man opened fire on Secret Service. The USS returned fire, taking the shooter down. So, it happened again.”
The U.S. Secret Service said on Monday its officers confronted an armed and “suspicious individual” near the White House who later fired at them before fleeing on foot and being shot by law enforcement.
The incident led to a brief lockdown at the White House.
Agents patrolling the outer perimeter of the White House complex identified a person who Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn said was a “suspicious individual that appeared to have a firearm.”
He briefly fled on foot after being approached by Secret Service officers and fired in their direction, Quinn said at a press conference.
Secret Service then fired at the suspect who was hit and subsequently hospitalized, Quinn added.
Vice President JD Vance’s motorcade transited through the area “not long before” the incident, Quinn said. There was no indication that the suspect intended to approach Vance’s motorcade, the Secret Service deputy director said.
A juvenile bystander was hit by the suspect but did not receive any life-threatening injuries and was being treated at a hospital, Quinn added.
RadarOnline reported that on Monday, May 4, the U.S. Secret Service shot at an armed individual close to the intersection of 15th Street and Independence Avenue, near the Washington Monument, shortly after 3:30 p.m. EST. Authorities stated that agents had been tracking a “suspicious” person who appeared to have a gun before the situation escalated into gunfire.
“An armed confrontation ensued, resulting in one adult male being shot multiple times by Secret Service Police officers,” the agency confirmed to the outlet. The alleged suspect— currently believed to be a 45-year-old White man per CNN—was shot in the torso and taken to a local hospital. He’s currently in stable condition.
Officials also revealed that the incident resulted in a juvenile bystander being caught in the crossfire. The young victim was left injured after being grazed during the exchange; they sustained non-life threatening wounds.
“The Secret Service officers sustained no injuries,” a Secret Service spokesperson told RadarOnline, adding that Trump “was not in any danger.” The spokesperson added that, at this stage, there’s “no known nexus” between the shooting and the White House.
From these reports, I’m assuming there was only one would-be assassin shot yesterday, not two. This is a variation on pretty common error in shooting events, where the media report multiple shooters and there turns out to only be one.
A man from Texas was wounded in a shooting involving U.S. Secret Service officers, after he allegedly shot at them near the Washington Monument on Monday afternoon, according to the agency’s deputy director.
The suspect was later identified as Michael Marx, 45, of Texas, D.C. police told WTOP Tuesday.
According to the U.S. Secret Service, the shooting happened at 15th Street and Independence Avenue SW in D.C., near the Sidney R. Yates building where the Forest Service is headquartered.
A child, described only as a juvenile, was also struck by a bullet during the exchange of gunfire, Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn said during a news conference.
Quinn said plainclothes Secret Service officers noticed a person who appeared to have a firearm while patrolling around the outer perimeter of the White House complex around 3:30 p.m.
They alerted uniformed Secret Service officers who attempted to approach the man, later identified as Marx.
“Upon making contact, that individual fled briefly on foot, withdrew a firearm and fired in the direction of our agents and officers. They returned fire and engaged,” Quinn said.
Marx was hospitalized after being shot multiple times; his condition has not been released.
Raymond Eugene Chandler III, of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, was arrested Friday for allegedly leaving a series of menacing voicemails for a member of Congress, in which he threatened to slit the throats of both the lawmaker and his daughter if he did not kill President Donald Trump.
According to Pittsburgh’s Action News 4, Chandler is facing charges of “Influencing, Impeding or Retaliating Against a Federal Official by Threatening a Family Member and by Threatening a Federal Official,” and “Influencing, Impeding or Retaliating against a Federal Official by Threat.”
The court documents were unsealed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Although the documents do not identify the lawmaker, the suspect refers to him as “Senator” in the second voicemail transcribed below. Pennsylvania’s current senators are John Fetterman and Dave McCormick; while McCormick is not a billionaire, his wealth is estimated at nearly $200 million.
On April 18, Chandler allegedly left the following message:
Sir, I have, uh, I’m calling this morning ’cause I want you to imagine a scenario. I want you to imagine a scenario where all the 1,200 billionaires in this country, all their properties are surrounded simultaneously by a thousand people. So imagine your house, your daughter’s house, everyone you know and love who is also rich. Imagine every single one of those homes being surrounded by a thousand people.
Then imagine them all getting a text and then, then suddenly taking out their pocket knives, walking slowly towards your house with 10, you got your 10 guards or whatever against a thousand people, and then they come and they pull you out of your house and they slit your throat and they slit your daughter’s throat and they slit everyone’s throat.
Yeah, Mr. Whackadoodle, I’m pretty sure your fantasy scenario wouldn’t work out that way. A few well-placed shots from the Senator and/or his guards and your Imaginary Social Justice Pocket Knife Brigade is going to scatter like cockroaches when the kitchen light is flipped on.
That you know, sir, that is the future. It’s not a future I want, it’s not a future I’m advocating for, but wealth concentration has gotten so bad in this country. The greed has gotten so bad. People are suffering so much, sir, that that is what is in our future. You will not escape their wrath. We must redistribute the wealth away from people like you.
One week later, Chandler allegedly left a second voicemail calling on the lawmaker to walk into the Oval Office and shoot the president. The message said:
You’re probably getting quite used to my voice. Sir, I’m calling this evening because what I want you to do is I want you to take a firearm. I want you to put it in your hand. I want you to walk into the Oval Office. I want you to put that firearm to the President’s head, and I want you to pull the trigger and I want you to kill him. I am petitioning you, Senator for redress of grievances. My redress of grievances is that this president is awful . . . He’s a liar among all liars. He’s a great deceiver. He’s the antichrist. I want you to walk into the Oval Office with a gun in your hand. I want you to put it to his temple, and I want you to pull the trigger. That is what I want you to do as my agent. That’s what I want you to do as my elected official. That’s what I am petitioning you to do with my free speech. I want you to kill the President. I want you to assassinate the President. That’s what I want you to do. Now, Senator, are you gonna come after me? Are you going to try me because of my voice and what I said?
The documents indicate that multiple additional voicemails were left, with the final message recorded on April 29, two days before Chandler’s arrest.
Something has clearly gone very wrong with the Secret Service, either through infiltration or sheer massive incompetence. Trump needs to appoint somebody to do a radical, top-to-bottom overhaul of this agency, on par with the efforts of other Trump appointees to overhaul their ancient, inefficient and corrupt agencies.
I would suggest hiring someone who’s ex-military and who understands how to set up a defensive perimeter, as this task seems to be beyond the capabilities of our current Secret Service…
Update: Within minutes of posting this, Not The Bee sent out a piece in which would-be assassin Allen notes how incompetent the security is there.
what the hell is the Secret Service doing? Sorry, gonna rant a bit here and drop the formal tone.
Like, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo.
What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing.
No damn security.
Not in transport.
Not in the hotel.
Not in the event.
Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance.
I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.
The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before.
Like, this level of incompetence is insane, and I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again.
Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce [M2 Browning machine gun] in here and no one would have noticed sh*t.
Examples of items include: candles, flashlights and lanterns.
Mobile telephone batteries and mobile telephone chargers.
Radios – portable self-powered (including battery operated) – includes two-way and weather band radios.
Smoke detectors.
Tarps and other plastic sheeting.
In the past Amazon has participated in these sales tax holidays, so here are some items you can buy from them that should qualify:
First aid kit: There are a lot of different makes and models of these. This one has a little bit of everything. A good thing to keep in your car for emergencies.
However, in this Project Farm video, he offers up a couple of Lithium-based batteries that he ranks pretty highly after testing that are also pretty affordable: POWEROWL and PKCELL. No, I’ve never heard of them either.
Right now it looks like POWEROWL comps out cheaper on Amazon, so here are some links for those:
President Donald Trump cracked a joke about wanting to take a psychedelic during a White House event touting the benefits of the drugs.
The president made the remark at a Saturday morning event in the Oval Office, where he signed an executive order to “accelerate medical treatments for serious mental illness,” including the therapeutic benefits of LSD, psilocybin, ecstasy, and other psychedelics.
In attendance was the popular podcaster, Joe Rogan, who has advocated for the treatments but has also recently been fiercely critical of Trump’s war in Iran.
Trump touted the success of the psychedelic drug ibogaine—a Schedule I controlled substance—and cited a study in which he said participants experienced an “80 to 90 percent reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety within one month.”
I’d like to see the actual study. A whole lot of studies show one thing, and then a better, larger study comes down the line in a year or two that contradicts the first. Many studies said “Marijuana is great for treating X!” and now we’re getting other studies that show “Probably not.”
“Can I have some, please?” Trump quipped, prompting the room to erupt in laughter. “I’ll do whatever it takes…I don’t have time to be depressed. If you stay busy enough, maybe that’s what works too, that’s what I do.”
Rogan, who endorsed Trump for president in 2024, said the executive order came about after he sent Trump a text message about psychedelic therapies.
Veteran organizations and psychedelic advocates have long contended that the ibogaine, which is made from a shrub native to West Africa, has great promise for hard-to-treat conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and opioid addiction.
All I know about ibogaine comes from Hunter S. Thompson talking about Edmund Muskie possibly using it in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. I do not think this qualifies me as any kind of expert.
Retired Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, who has written about his struggles with depression and PTSD in the memoir Lone Survivor, told Trump how ibogaine changed his life “for the better.”
“You’re going to save a lot of lives with it,” Luttrell told Trump. “I’d like to say how grateful I am to have had the opportunity to go through the program and receive the Ibogaine.”
“I want to tell everybody how this happened,” Rogan explained. “I sent President Trump some information… the text message that came back: ‘Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let’s do it,’” Rogan claimed. “It was literally that quick.”
Am I worried that Joe Rogan can get policy changed by texting the President? A whole lot less than if it were George Soros or Neville Roy Singham doing it for a Democratic president. Rogan has at least rejected woke madness and is willing to listen to evidence.
In a grander scheme of things, I’m not worried about limited legal use for psychedelic drugs because the Constitution doesn’t designate regulating drug use as an enumerated power of the federal government in the first place. As such, federal drug prohibition is unconstitutional under the Tenth Amendment. Unless it involves interstate commerce, federalism and subsidiarity leave drug regulation up to the states.
Here’s an Asmongold video on the press conference:
At the very least, hopefully we should get some good data on whether psychedelics like ibogaine are actually effective in treating PTSD and other disorders. Maybe they’ll help, and maybe they won’t.
You can’t get good data on what you’re not allowed to study.
I was originally going to post this video as another example of a Ukrainian Bradley eliminating Russian troops and vehicles, since we haven’t had one for a while, and this one is a really clear example of that. But the Bradley clip is from 2024, so I think is of limited use to understanding how mechanized combat engagements (the main thrust of this Cappy Army video) unfold in 2026.
Instead, I want to talk about certain qualities of the video itself. Obviously, the overlays are created in post, either by humans or AI. This is standard practice and accepted by now. But what really caught my eye was the very clarity of that video. I’ve watched a lot of drone-filmed combat footage from Ukraine, and it doesn’t look like this, especially in 2024.
Remember that scene from Bladerunner where Deckard sticks a photo in a machine and has it automatically enlarge and enhance a reflection that shows the replicants he’s hunting?
It’s been ripped off in endless CSI-esque crime dramas. It wasn’t actually possible to do that with photographs in 1981, but here in the brave new world of The Future, it is possible to do that to video, to an extent, with all the additional information captured in the other frames of the video, and models that tell you what things are supposed to look like from other videos.
The Bradley video looks like it started as actual drone combat footage, and then went through several rounds of sharpening and enhancement.
I’m not saying this is a “gotcha” or “J’acuse!” sort of way, I’m simply pointing out the current coefficient of friction on the part of the slope we’re on. This is a perfectly acceptable use of AI, to better inform viewers, and I’m betting that 99.9% of such enhanced images are merely making existing footage look better. But right now, not only is that additional .1% using this technology to fool you, they’re doing active A/B testing to determine exactly the best way to fool you.
