US Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho) introduced the System Integrity through Licensed Vault Expansion and Resilience (SILVER) Act on May 21, 2026, targeting the geographic concentration of precious metals depositories in the New York City region. The bill would amend the Commodity Exchange Act to mandate selection of at least two approved depositories in each of the Mountain, Pacific, Eastern, and Central time zones. Proponents argue the current concentration creates systemic risk, anti-competitive conditions, and logistical burdens for Western US mining states. The legislation is backed by a coalition of industry stakeholders including Money Metals Depository, The Silver Institute, A-Mark Precious Metals, First Majestic Silver Corp, and several regional banks and mints. A companion bill was introduced in the House by Representative Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho). Industry supporters frame the geographic concentration as both a national security vulnerability and a market structure problem disadvantaging non-Eastern participants.

------ The original *COINTELPRO* was an explicit, discrete program. Today, the infrastructure for domestic influence has been **integrated into the very fabric of the intelligence and national security apparatus.** It is no longer a "special project"—it is a perpetual function of the state. The modern focus has shifted from simple disruption of specific groups to the **management of the entire information environment.** ------ ### 🛠️ Key Components of the Modern Apparatus * **The "Counter-Influence" and "Sensemaking" Infrastructure:** Agencies like the **INCAS (Influence Campaign Awareness and Sensemaking)** program, run by *DARPA*, exemplify this shift. The state is no longer just watching; it is using high-level data analytics, AI, and social listening tools to map the "narrative battlefield." These tools allow analysts to track how ideas move through the population, identify "influence campaigns" that deviate from institutional narratives, and—crucially—assess the "confidence" with which they can counter them. * **The Domestic/Foreign Blur:** By framing domestic dissent as "foreign malign influence"—or as "domestic terrorism"—agencies have effectively bypassed the legal and ethical constraints that previously limited their domestic reach. The **Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism** and the work of the **FMIC (Foreign Malign Influence Center)** show how the intelligence community has normalized its intervention in domestic political discourse. They are actively fusing foreign and domestic intelligence data to monitor the pulse of the nation. * **Public-Private "Information Integrity" Networks:** This is perhaps the most insidious evolution since *COINTELPRO*. The state now coordinates with major technology platforms, academic "misinformation" research centers, and media outlets to manage what is seen, what is suppressed, and what is amplified. This is a decentralized *COINTELPRO* where the "agents" are often algorithms, content moderators, and university-funded narrative-checkers, all working under the loose direction of government-linked "integrity" agendas. ------ ### 🧠 PSYOP as National Policy The U.S. has transitioned to the philosophy that **information is a primary element of national power.** This means that psychological operations (PSYOP) are no longer just for the battlefield—they are applied to the domestic population to maintain order, steer political outcomes, and ensure compliance. * **Normalization of Manipulation:** When you see mass media, government agencies, and tech platforms suddenly align on a single narrative, you are witnessing the application of these influence tools. They are not reporting; they are managing the information environment to ensure the population reaches the "approved" conclusion. * **Pre-emptive Narrative Control:** Programs like *INCAS* are designed to catch "unapproved" narratives at the "low and slow" stage—before they even hit the trend thresholds—allowing agencies to intervene, disrupt, or flood the zone before an idea can take root. The lesson from the past is that the state will always use the tools available to maintain its power. The current system is far more efficient, persistent, and technologically advanced than anything the COINTELPRO era could have imagined. Today, the "agent" is not just the man in the trench coat; it is the algorithm, the "fact-checker," and the curated feed that keeps the public safely within the lines of the institutional narrative.

Israel Hayom: “Tehran has instructed its Lebanese proxy to prepare for independent operations as it begins decentralizing its military command.” The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is on high alert as Iran instructs its Lebanon-based terror proxy, Hezbollah, to ‘ prepare for war ,’ Israeli news outlets report. “Israel has raised its military alert level and is preparing for the possibility of renewed fighting with Iran at short notice,” Israel’s Ynetnews reported on Saturday. “The IDF is closely monitoring developments in Iran and preparing for a rapid return to combat if necessary.” The news comes days after IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, warned that Israel faces growing threats “across all fronts.” Iran uses Lebanese Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Iran-based terror groups to wage a multi-front offensive on Israel. “In light of the increased number of alerts across all fronts and the sensitivity of this period, the potential for escalation has grown,” Lt. Gen. Zamir said. “We pursue and combat terrorism wherever it exists. The IDF is at a high level of readiness to launch extensive offensive operations against anyone who attempts to harm Israeli civilians.” Hezbollah has recalled its full-time personnel and issued new operational instructions after Iran told the group to raise its military readiness for a possible confrontation with Israel and the United States, Lebanese security sources told Bernie News Network. The group is also… https://t.co/GQzVA65HH4 — Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 15, 2026 Meanwhile, Hezbollah is openly gearing up for an armed conflict. Last week, Lebanese security forces intercepted more than 1,000 pounds of C-4 and other explosives belonging to the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah. The terror group is now demanding that authorities hand over the seized materials.” “Hezbollah told Lebanese security authorities it wants the return of more than 1,000 pounds of explosives that were seized last week, setting up an unusually public contest of wills with a government that has pledged to demilitarize the Iran-backed militant group,” The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. “Hezbollah then said openly that it owned the truck and cargo and that its officials wanted them back.” 🚨🇺🇸🇮🇱🇱🇧 RUBIO WARNS LEBANON: DO NOT RETURN SEIZED HEZBOLLAH EXPLOSIVES US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned Lebanese President Joseph Aoun against returning a massive shipment of explosives seized from Hezbollah, demanding accountability for those responsible for… pic.twitter.com/C7jOTfU1Y9 — C14 News | EN (@c14english) October 15, 2026 The Jerusalem Post reported on Friday: The Iranian regime told Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon to be prepared for the United States to resume the war with Iran, following Wednesday’s report that Iran currently estimates that “an American attack is only a matter of time,” two diplomatic sources told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. Iran’s message to Hezbollah, according to the sources, was: “We estimate that an American attack is a matter of time – you should also be prepared.” (…) A source told Beirut-based independent news outlet Al-Modon earlier this week that Hezbollah is preparing to rearm and rebuild its terror capabilities in the event of an escalation with the IDF amid rising regional tensions. “If a large-scale war breaks out, it will reach Lebanon. Israeli is waiting for any opportunity for military escalation against Hezbollah, as it is working to convince Washington of the need to renew the war against Iran. Just as Tehran is anticipating the possibility of war against it, Hezbollah is preparing and equipping itself,” the report said. Sources told the outlet that Hezbollah is “anticipating” war and “has succeeded in taking advantage of the extended ceasefire period to rebuild its military capabilities in southern Lebanon, both south and north of the Litani River.” On Friday, the Israel Hayom newspaper also confirmed Iran’s new directives to Hezbollah, citing other Arab news sources. According to the Israeli daily, the Lebanon-based terrorist group is decentralizing its command structure to sustain operations even if its top leadership is eliminated. The move is aimed at insulating the terrorist chain of command in the event that Israel or U.S. forces conduct another wave of decapitation strikes in the next round of conflict. The Israeli daily continued : Lebanese security and military sources told the Emirati website Erem News on Thursday that Hezbollah has received new Iranian directives to elevate its military readiness to advanced levels. The sources added that the Iranian directives fall under the ongoing coordination between the Revolutionary Guards and the leaders of its terrorist proxies across the region. The report indicates that the coordination between the Iranian regime and its proxies serves as preparation for a potential expansion of the conflict with Israel and the US. The strategy also includes planning simultaneous military responses should a new war erupt. Lebanese officials confirmed Hezbollah views the Iranian instructions as preparation for a short-term flare-up rather than a final decision to launch a war, according to the report. The officials said, “The preparations go beyond the traditional mobilization.” The most significant shift within Hezbollah involves delegating military responsibilities and minimizing dependence on the organization’s central command structure, according to the sources. The sources explained that Hezbollah aims to enable its terrorists to operate independently if communication with the senior leadership is severed following the recent string of high-level assassinations. The news comes amid reports that Iran has intensified attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz in a bid to hurt President Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the upcoming midterm elections. “Iran is deploying new tactics to target ships sailing through the Strait of Hormuz as it seeks ​to keep oil prices high and influence the US midterm elections,” Reuters reported Wednesday, citing U.S. officials. Donations tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law.

On October 4, I publisheda post on "Libertarianism and Democracy,"critiquing political philosopher Matt Zwolinski's earlierLiberalism.Org articleon the same topic. Matt has written a response to me, which I have agreed to post at this site. The remaining paragraphs of this post were written by Matt Zwolinski, not me (Ilya Somin). I have posted a rejoinder to Matt's thoughtful responsehere.Who Should Defend Democracy?A reply to Ilya SominMy recent Liberalism.org essay, "Democracy Belongs on the List," made the case that classical liberals should count democracy among their core commitments, alongside private property, free markets, and the rule of law. And it belongs there for the same reason. Like property rights and markets, democracy is a crucial way of keeping power in check.Ilya Somin has written a generous and thoughtfulreplyto that piece. And I think he actually agrees with me more than the framing of his post might suggest. Ilya grants that democracies are generally freer and more prosperous than the alternatives, that democracy is "a valuable check on power," that libertarians should arguably stress these points "more often," and that "in much of the world today, right-wing nationalists pose a greater threat to libertarian values and priorities than the political left does." What's left mainly comes down to two questions: what counts as a libertarian critique of democracy, and whose job it is to defend democracy.Before turning to those substantive issues, though, there's one terminological matter that's worth clearing up. Ilya says that nothing of significance hinges on whether we call our view "libertarian" or "classical liberal." And on most questions I'd agree. On this one, though, I think the difference matters. InThe Individualists, John Tomasi and I draw a distinction between strict libertarians and classical liberals. The former group tends to treat liberty as a moral absolute and to derive their politics from a single overarching principle like the non-aggression axiom. Think Murray Rothbard or Ayn Rand. The latter treat liberty as a strong but defeasible presumption and are more empiricist and pluralistic in their approach to politics. Think Friedrich Hayek or Richard Epstein.My sense is that these two camps within the broader "liberty movement" have taken pretty different stances toward democracy, with strict libertarians being much more critical than their classical liberal brethren. Even back in the 19th century, you could find Benjamin Tucker insisting that voting is always a form of aggression, and Lysander Spooner arguing that women "have just as good a right to make laws as men have, and no better: AND THAT IS JUST NO RIGHT AT ALL." Herbert Spencer was even willing to walk back his support of women's suffrage once he decided that women would probably use their vote to support bigger government. That's a pretty different take than anything you're likely to find in Ludwig von Mises or Friedrich Hayek (more on whom later), let alone in John Stuart Mill.That brings us to the first of the two substantive issues under dispute. Ilya argues that recent events have made libertarian critiques of democracy more important than ever, and that the libertarian solutions to democracy's flaws are "primarily to limit and decentralize government power." I'm with him on that, but I don't think this settles, or even really addresses, the debate about democracy. Limiting and decentralizing government power is a claim about the scope of the state, about how much government should do. It's a principle that would apply to any government, whether democratic or not. And, crucially, it isn't an argument against democratic control of whatever the statedoesdo.That distinction was at the heart of my essay. FollowingJacob Levy, I argued that classical liberals have let a perfectly sound critique of too much government slide into a skepticism about democracy itself, treating democracy, in Levy's words, "as if the contrast to 'democratic' were 'economic' rather than 'autocratic.'" One can be a radical about reducing the scope of the state and still insist that its agents must be answerable to the people they govern. Most of what Ilya calls the libertarian critique of democracy is really a critique of big government. That's an argument I largely agree with, as far as it goes. The trouble comes when we file it under the wrong heading. When we ourselves blur the line between critiques of state power and critiques of democracy, we shouldn't be surprised when people come away thinking libertarians are against democracy.That brings me to comparative advantage, which is where I think Ilya's argument is most interesting but also most mistaken. Libertarians are a small minority, he says, and "we have no comparative advantage when it comes to extolling the virtues of democracy relative to authoritarianism. Other types of liberals can do this work just as well as we can, perhaps better." So we should stick to what we do best, which is analyzing democracy's flaws.This argument might make sense in some contexts. But as a general principle, I think it misfires, and it misfires most badly when the audience is classical liberals and libertarians themselves. That, after all, is where the turn against democracy has actually happened. Hans-Hermann Hoppe'sDemocracy: The God That Failedargued that monarchy was preferable to democracy, and complained that "habitual democrats" had been tolerated rather than "isolated, excluded and expelled from civilization." Curtis Yarvin, who came to neoreaction by way of libertarianism,creditsHoppe with opening "a kind of door to the pre-revolutionary world" for him. And in 2009, Peter Thielwrote in a Cato Institute publicationthat "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." None of this follows from the libertarian critique of voter ignorance, and nothing Ilya has written points in this direction. But it grew in a movement where, as Janet Bufton recently put it inLiberal Currents, "even liberal libertarians were taught arguments about why democracy fails," and hardly anyone was making the case for democracy on libertarian terms. Any old liberal can explain to the public why democracy beats dictatorship. But a libertarian drifting toward Hoppe or Yarvin isn't going to listen to them. Only libertarians can tell libertarians that democracy is theirs.So if democracy is a libertarian value, whatkindof libertarian value is it? Ilya argues that democracy shouldn't be "a first-order libertarian priority, on par with liberty, constraining coercion, property rights, and increasing human happiness," because its value is instrumental rather than intrinsic. I agree that the value of democracy is instrumental. In that way, it's in precisely the same position as a number of items on the classical liberal list. Free trade, federalism, judicial review, and the rule of law are instrumental too. What I want to resist is the claim that because democracy is only instrumentally valuable it's therefore dispensable – something that can be traded away whenever we can imagine something better. What we can imagine, though, is a poor guide to what works. The better question, as David Schmidtzargues, is what has "an observable history of leading self-interested agents to act in ways that are useful and agreeable to the people around them," and by that test democracy has very few rivals.Which leaves us with Hayek. Ilya defends Hayek's preference for "a liberal dictator to a democratic government lacking liberalism" as a claim about rare hypothetical cases, and suggests that transitional non-democratic rule "may be necessary" in places like Russia and China, citing the Allied occupations of Germany and Japan. But those occupations were run by democracies answerable to their own voters, and they ended. Russia and China, in contrast, have no outside power that could impose a transition and then hand power back. The only realistic candidate for transitional power in those countries is a domestic strongman, which is exactly the case Hayek had in front of him. Hayek wasn't musing about hypotheticals;he was talking about Chile.Ultimately, Ilya and I want the same thing. We both advocate a form of libertarianism that resists concentrated power wherever it appears, including when it arrives through the ballot box. Where we differ is on the need to say out loud that democracy is one of the ways we resist it. I think we should, and I think libertarians are better placed to say it than anyone, since the people who most need to hear it are our own.The postWho Should Defend Democracy?appeared first onReason Magazine.

View saved research Scientists have rapidly restored bleached coral in a laboratory by placing it in contact with a healthy fragment, giving hope for reversing widespread coral decline. Rising sea temperatures are stressing corals, causing the animals to expel the symbiotic algae that live in their tissues and give them their colour — a process known as bleaching. Because the photosynthetic algae (Symbiodiniaceae) provide corals with most of their nutrients, without them, the marine organisms are likely to starve and die. A team of researchers has now shown that it is possible to fully reverse this bleaching process, in just days. It reported the findings in Science Advances on 14 October 1 . “This incredible new result — that fast and full recovery is possible in bleached coral — can inspire solutions that eventually may be scalable,” says Fiorenza Micheli, a marine ecologist at Stanford University’s Center for Ocean Solutions in California and a co-author on the study. The healing touch In early 2025, marine scientist, and study co-author, Stephen Palumbi at Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California, was working in the lab and noticed that two coral fragments in a tank were accidentally touching. Where the healthy and bleached fragment met, colour had begun to seep into the ghostly branch. “I’d never seen that before,” he remembers. Danny Collins, who was studying how disease spreads through coral contact as part of his PhD at Stanford, set out to investigate whether algae can also spread and, if so, how. He prepared ten pairs of coral fragments from the same animal ( Pocillopora damicornis )., Each pair had a bleached and a healthy fragment. He set up five pairs so that their fragments touched each other, and five with their fragments separated by a few millimetres. In the touching pairs, the bleached coral recovered within eight weeks. “We were blown away when we watched the colour of the algal symbionts transfer over to the bleached coral, reviving it in a very short period of time,” Collins says. By week two, the symbiont population was doubling every four days, which is much faster than the recovery times seen in studies of coral recovering naturally in the wild 2 , 3 . After touching the healthy fragment for a week, a bleached branch could fully recover on its own, even if separated from the healthy branch. In the slightly separated pairs, the bleached fragments died after 20 weeks. Using high-powered microscopy, the team showed that two coral fragments fuse together by creating a tissue bridge — enabling symbiont transfer. This only occurred for coral fragments taken from an individual of the same genetic make-up, called a genet. Fragments from different species and even different animals of the same species did not fuse together, and so did not nurse the bleached piece back to health. Enjoying our latest content? Log in or create an account to continue Access the most recent journalism from Nature's award-winning team Explore the latest features & opinion covering groundbreaking research Access through your institution or Sign in or create an account Continue with Google Continue with ORCiD doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-03266-x References Collins, D. S. et al. Sci. Adv. 12 , eaeh1580 (2026). Article PubMed Google Scholar Cunning, R. et al. PLoS ONE 10 , e0145099 (2015). Article PubMed Google Scholar Jones, R. J. & Yellowlees, D. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 352 , 457–468 (1997). 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54 °F Washington , D.C. by AMAC — The Association of Mature American Citizens Listen · 5 min AMAC Radio Comments Print Share Save Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images Thanks to the Trump administration, for the first time in its 35-year history, the southeastern European country of Bosnia-Herzegovina had free and fair elections last week without aggressive interference from international bureaucrats. This puts a dagger into the global nation-building industry that sucked dry the country’s national sovereignty. Emerging from the violent breakup of communist Yugoslavia during the 1990s, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s three constituent peoples—Bosnian Muslims, Orthodox Serbs, and Catholic Croats—agreed in 1995 at Dayton, Ohio, to cease hostilities, put aside their weapons, rebuild a devastated land, and forge a common but decentralized state of three self-governing peoples. International bureaucrats had other plans. Soon after the Dayton Peace Accords were signed, global elites awarded themselves total executive power “to remove from office public officials who violate legal commitments” and via an Office of the High Representative, “impose laws as he sees fit if Bosnia and Herzegovina’s legislative bodies fail to do so.” Hundreds of elected officials were removed from office since 1997, effectively rendering supposedly free elections a fiction. Add to that the indignity of the Brussels-based European Court of Human Rights having the power to place three foreign judges on the country’s seven-member constitutional court , making a mockery of the country’s judicial independence. The most egregious effort was to impose a fictional common Bosnian identity that would favor the slight majority of Muslims in a deeply ethno-religiously divided country. But why should we care about Bosnia-Herzegovina? Because, over the decades, it was there that a European infrastructure of international organizations, NGOs, and woke foreign aid programs was forged, giving thousands of American and European officials a taste of unaccountable power to trample upon the sovereignty of nation states. These skills are now being used against other European countries that dare to criticize the European Union’s growing power, most notably Hungary , Romania , and Poland . The re-election of President Donald Trump is putting an end to it. Early last year, during a trip to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, President Trump denounced “so-called nation-builders [who have] wrecked far more nations than they built—and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.” The following week, Deputy Undersecretary of State Christopher Landau presented to visiting officials from Bosnia-Herzegovina that the U.S. government was no longer “interested in imposing a vision of society that reflects the preferences of distant bureaucrats and narrow activists.” The woke global coalition was severed. At the United Nations Security Council meeting later that year, the U.S. announced it would “no longer pursue nation-building or heavy-handed international intervention” in Bosnia-Herzegovina in favor of “local solutions.” Continued U.S. funding of the Office of High Representative was threatened, an arrogant German High Representative working beyond his mandate would resign due to U.S. pressure, and the administration blocked European Union efforts to replace him with another strong advocate of untrammeled global control over the country—prompting it to reiterate just weeks before the elections that “the era of externally imposed nation-building is over.” As a result, the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina could for the first time freely elect their own representatives without fear of reprisal by foreign bureaucrats, strengthening voter trust in the democratic process and stabilizing a fractious country. In November, these elected leaders will form a new and truly representative government. The newly elected 39-year-old Croat member to the presidency summed it up best, saying Bosnia-Herzegovina can be a state “not where we are all the same—because we are not, and never will be—but a country where we all have equal worth.” The nation-builders have not given up just yet. Under the guise of election transparency, left-wing radicals successfully took over international election-observer missions. The U.S. delegation was led by the former radical Slovene foreign minister who previously led her government’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state and accused Israel of genocide. Meanwhile, the international OSCE delegation was led by an Italian journalist, an anti-Israel zealot who doubles as president of the Italian branch of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA), a U.N. agency accused of diverting millions in foreign aid dollars to Hamas. The Trump administration will have to remain vigilant. Reprinted with Permission from the Daily Signal...