Robert Skipwith

Under pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran. The target would be Pickax Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program. No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike. Netanyahu has been pushing hard for one. “Bibi calls Trump about it every day,” says an informed observer. Netanyahu is cornered and desperate. After last week’s election results, he can’t form a government unless Trump intervenes directly in Israeli politics and brokers a deal with other parties that gives Netanyahu 61 seats in the Knesset. Otherwise, he is out as prime minister and on his way to ignominy, investigations and possibly jail. Netanyahu must stay close to Trump. He needs this war. To that end, he’s applied maximum pressure to his closest allies in the administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper. Both oppose a negotiated settlement to the war they’ve so grievously mismanaged; both are pushing to restart major combat operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe are also following Netanyahu’s lead, as are leaders of the Democratic Party. In a recent meeting on the subject, former president Barack Obama said he opposes the current Iran peace deal being drafted in Doha. The rest of America’s longtime allies in the Middle East are terrified by the prospect of more war. On September 27th, Netanyahu flew secretly to Abu Dhabi to enlist the UAE in his lobbying effort for a final attack on Iran. The Emiratis refused. After eight months of conflict, Gulf economies are teetering. So are global energy and fertilizer markets. They won’t recover soon. Globally, there are a total of about 850 supertankers used to transport oil from producers to the rest of the world. In October alone, 11 of them were badly damaged in Hormuz. At this pace, a global depression is imminent. A nuclear strike would radically accelerate the destruction. Fallout from a ground explosion at Pickax Mountain would contaminate the Persian Gulf, poisoning the water supply for 100 million people. And those are just some of the immediate consequences for the region. The rest of the world is every bit as exposed. No country other than the United States has ever used a nuclear weapon in war. Some would like to. An American nuclear attack on Iran would set a new precedent. The Russians have already told at least two other governments that an American nuclear strike on Iran would free them to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Pakistan and India would be tempted to do the same against each other, as would North Korea against Seoul. After the first nuclear strike, World War Three is inevitable. That war would be short and final. We’ve been sleepwalking toward this moment for months. Since February, the administration has quietly rewritten America’s nuclear doctrine to make first use of so-called “battlefield nukes” easier and therefore more likely. No one in Washington in either party seems bothered by this. Now we’re on the brink of it. Close observers say Trump is likely to decide by next weekend whether or not to use nuclear weapons. That would be November 7, six days from now. To his credit, he’s hesitating. At the moment, Trump is listening to his vice president, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made. They’re right, though it won’t be simple. The Iranians are famously frustrating to negotiate with under any circumstances, and elements of that government have become more radical since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family were killed in February. After decades of isolation, even relatively moderate Iranian leaders seem confused by how decisions are made in the West. (There is a widespread belief in Tehran, for example, that the United States government controls Israel.) But overall, people who have spoken to decision-makers in Iran say there is consensus there that more war is bad for everyone and a deal is worth making. One group that hasn’t been consulted so far is the global population — the hundreds of millions of people who will be killed along with their children if Trump is pushed by Netanyahu into launching a nuclear strike next week. Now would be the time for them to speak up.

Less than a month ago, OpenAI was looking to raise “at least” $30 billion at a valuation of $1.4 trillion. Today it raised $11 billion at $1.25 trillion valuation and faced “tepid” interest.

Anthropic's Claude bypassed a paywall to access Georgia voter data without authorization axios.com/2026/10/25/anthrop…

A wild story: the CEO of a US energy company whose plans were discussed during the Witkoff-Kushner-Putin negotiations resigns. Why? He learned that his company's main investor is a sanctioned Russian company, not the UAE nytimes.com/2026/10/23/us/po…

BREAKING: Iran announces it struck 4 oil tankers simultaneously, which were conducting ship-to-ship oil transfers in the northern Persian Gulf last night, with all 4 burning. Iran says 3 more vessels hit naval mines in the western part of the Strait of Hormuz the same night. It is the first strike of the entire war on ship-to-ship transfers, which are how cargoes are moved without transiting under Iran's terms.

IHere's what Pres.Trump has done for Vladimir Putin since 2017: 🇺🇸➡️🇷🇺 First term 1Stood next to Putin in Helsinki and took his word over U.S. intelligence 2Lobbied to bring Russia back into the G7 3Withheld military aid from Ukraine to squeeze Zelensky (impeachment #1) 4Pulled out of Syria, handing Russia a freer hand 5Openly questioned NATO's mutual-defense pledge 6Lifted sanctions on Deripaska-linked companies, including Rusal 7Walked away from the INF nuclear treaty 8Walked away from the Open Skies treaty, leaving our European allies with less visibility 🇺🇸➡️🇷🇺 Second term
9. Called Russia's G7 expulsion a "mistake"
10. Declared Moscow "holds all the cards"
11. Opened talks with Russia with zero preconditions
12. Berated Zelensky in the Oval Office, then paused aid and intel to Ukraine
13. Halted offensive cyber operations against Russia
14. Had the U.S. vote WITH Russia against a UN resolution condemning the invasion
15. Said "Crimea will stay with Russia"
16. Rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska
17. Pressed Ukraine, not Russia, to give up territory 18. Starshield 19. Diesel 20. Revoke Graham sanctions That's not "America First." You could never make that list of things a President has done for Zelensky, or for NATO. Ask yourself why.

The Anthropic Iceberg

Woah woah woah. The lead is buried in paragraph four.

Ukraine is moving Russian data to the cloud.

Leopold Aschenbrenner's biggest positions are getting hit again Here's what his top holdings done since October highs: • SanDisk $SNDK: down 19% • Bloom Energy $BE: down 6% • Nebius $NBIS: down 11% • CoreWeave $CRWV: down 13% • Micron $MU: down 14% • SharonAI $SHAZ: down 30% SanDisk and Micron are 55% of the fund, per Q2 13F In July, a drawdown like this triggered a forced sale of his book to Citadel

1991 Me meeting 2026 Me: “When did Magic Johnson die?” “Die? That motherfucker owns the Dodgers and the Commanders.” “Magic owns the Dodgers?” “And the Commanders.” “Who?” “They used to be the Redskins.” “Magic outlived the Redskins?” “Yeah, they’re dead. He’s fine.”