Atmospheric Warfare: Rainmaker Technology's $100M Series B Offensive and the Weather Tech Theater

1. 6-Month Narrative Velocity vs. Exposure Friction

2. Theater of Competition Matrix (90-Day Trajectory)

EL SEGUNDO, CA, Rainmaker Technology Corporation announces a $100 million Series B fundraise to grow its atmospheric research organization.

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EL SEGUNDO, CA, Rainmaker Technology Corporation announces a $100 million Series B fundraise to grow its atmospheric research organization.

Funding will expand the research organization behind the first validated proof of manmade precipitation. EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Sept. 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Rainmaker Technology Corporation announces a $100 million Series B fundraise to grow its atmosph…

# EDIT/UPDATE: # New post and research at [https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rtd51g/update\_i\_pulled\_irs\_filings\_for\_the\_org\_that/](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rtd51g/update_i_pulled_irs_filings_for_the_org_that/) # Website: [https://tboteproject.com](https://tboteproject.com) Support Findings: [https://tboteproject.com/donate/](https://tboteproject.com/donate/) # Repository: [https://tboteproject.com/git/hekate/attestation-findings](https://tboteproject.com/git/hekate/attestation-findings) I've been pulling public records on the wave of "age verification" bills moving through US state legislatures. IRS 990 filings, Senate lobbying disclosures, state ethics databases, campaign finance records, corporate registries, WHOIS lookups, Wayback Machine archives. What started as curiosity about who was pushing these bills turned into documenting a coordinated influence operation that, from a privacy standpoint, is building surveillance infrastructure at the operating system level while the company behind it faces zero new requirements for its own platforms. I want to be clear about what this is and isn't. I am not the author of [the earlier r/linux post by aaronsb](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rmhxk1/i_pulled_the_actual_bill_text_from_5_state_age/) and I'm not affiliated with them. I titled this to draw attention on this subreddit because the privacy implications go well beyond Linux. Every source cited here is a public record. # What the bills actually require you to hand over Most reporting on these bills says something vague like "age checks at device setup." The statutory language is more specific and more invasive than that. California AB-1043, signed October 2025 and effective January 1, 2027, defines "Operating system provider" under Section 1798.500(g) as "a person or entity that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system software on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device." Every OS provider must then: provide an interface at account setup collecting a birth date or age, and expose a real-time API that broadcasts the user's age bracket (under 13, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18+) to any application running on the system. Read that again. Every app on your device gets to query a system-level API that returns your age bracket in real time. This isn't age verification at the point of accessing restricted content. This is a persistent age-broadcasting service baked into the operating system itself, queryable by every installed application. Colorado SB26-051 (passed the Senate 28-7, now in the House) copies the same definitions in the same order, same penalty structure ($2,500 per child for negligent violations, $7,500 for intentional ones), same exemptions. The template is the ICMEC "Digital Age Assurance Act," and it's been introduced or is pending in Illinois (three separate bills), New York, Kansas, South Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, Florida, and at the federal level. New York's S8102A goes further. It requires device manufacturers to perform "commercially reasonable and technically feasible age assurance" at device activation and explicitly bans self-reporting. The AG picks the approved methods. That means biometric age estimation or government ID verification before you can use a device you purchased. Exemptions in all of these bills cover broadband ISPs, telecom services, and physical products. None contain any exemption for open-source software, non-commercial projects, or privacy-preserving verification methods. The status right now: |State|Bill|Status| |:-|:-|:-| |CA|AB-1043|Enacted, effective Jan 1, 2027| |CO|SB26-051|Passed Senate, in House committee| |LA|HB-570|Enacted, effective July 1, 2026| |UT|SB-142|Enacted, first in nation| |TX|SB-2420|Enjoined by federal judge| |NY|S8102A|Pending| |IL|HB-3304, HB-4140, SB-2037|Pending| |Federal|KOSA, ASAA|Pending| # The privacy architecture these bills create What's concerning about these bills is they don't just verify age once. They create persistent identity layer inside the operating system that applications can query at will. The commercial age verification vendors who would provide this infrastructure (Yoti, Veriff, Jumio) charge $0.10 to $2.00 per check, require proprietary SDKs, demand API keys tied to commercial accounts, and operate cloud-only with no self-hosted option. Your age verification data goes to a third-party cloud service. Every time. Compare this to what the EU built. The EU Digital Identity Wallet under eIDAS 2.0 has a reference implementation published under Apache 2.0/EUPL and uses selective disclosure credentials. A user can prove they fall within an age bracket without handing over their date of birth. The EU's Digital Services Act puts age verification obligations on **Very Large Online Platforms** (45M+ monthly users), not on operating systems. FOSS projects that don't act as intermediary services are explicitly outside scope. Micro and small enterprises get additional exemptions. **The EU approach is not without its own problems**. The reference code is *open*, but the operational system is not self-hostable. You cannot run your own trusted identity provider. The wallet apps require Google Play Services or the iOS equivalent, which locks out users of privacy-focused Android distributions like GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, and LineageOS. Device attestation requirements effectively ban rooted or jailbroken devices. The zero-knowledge proof privacy guarantees only hold if you trust that credential issuers and verifiers are not colluding to correlate your activity. ZKP is a cryptographic mechanism, not a trust architecture, and it cannot solve the problem of collusion between parties in the chain. Even with those caveats, the architectural gap between the two approaches is wide. The EU model does not create a persistent age-broadcasting API at the OS level. It does not mandate commercial vendors. It does not force biometric data into a third-party cloud on every check. The US bills assume every operating system is built by a corporation with the infrastructure and revenue to absorb these costs. The EU started from the opposite assumption and built accordingly. |EU approach|US bills| |:-|:-| |Who's regulated|Platforms with 45M+ users| |FOSS exemption|Yes, five separate mechanisms| |Verification method|Open-source wallet, zero-knowledge proofs| |Cost to non-commercial projects|$0| |Privacy architecture|Selective disclosure, privacy by design| |Works offline|Yes| # Who wrote the legislation This is where it gets interesting. Rep. Kim Carver (R-Bossier City), the sponsor of Louisiana's HB-570, publicly confirmed that a Meta lobbyist brought the legislative language directly to her. The bill as drafted required only app stores (Apple, Google) to verify user ages. It did not require social media platforms to do anything. Meta deployed 12 lobbyists across 9 confirmed firms for this single bill, paying at least $324,992 (described as a "very conservative estimate"). The confirmed firms include Pelican State Partners (who also lobby for Roblox, letting Meta frame this as "broad industry support" rather than one company's project), Adams and Reese LLP (the #1 ranked Louisiana government affairs firm), and State Capitol Solutions. Nicole Lopez, Meta's Director of Global Litigation Strategy for Youth, testified at the House Commerce Committee in support. She also testified in South Dakota for a similar bill. She's Meta's national point person for these laws. HB-570 passed unanimously at every stage: House 99-0, Senate 39-0. So why did Meta need 12 lobbyists? Because the votes were never the concern. The lobbyists were there to control the text and block amendments. The key amendment battle came from Senator Jay Morris, who expanded the bill to include app developers alongside app stores after Google's senior director of government affairs publicly questioned why "Mark Zuckerberg is so keen on passing these bills." When Morris introduced his amendment, Meta went silent. The conference committee compromise maintained dual responsibility but kept the primary burden on app stores, which is what Meta wanted from the start. At that same Senate hearing, Morris directly questioned DCA Executive Director Casey Stefanski about who funds her organization. She reportedly deflected, said she "wasn't comfortable answering," then under continued pressure admitted tech companies provide funding but refused to name them. # The advocacy group that doesn't legally exist The Digital Childhood Alliance presents itself as a coalition of 50+ conservative child safety organizations (later inflated to 140+, though only six have ever been publicly named). It has been testifying in favor of these bills across states. Here is what public records show about its legal status: I searched all four regional extracts of the IRS Exempt Organizations Business Master File (eo1 through eo4.csv), which cover every tax-exempt organization registered in the United States. DCA is not there. No EIN exists for this organization. I also searched for incorporation records in Colorado, DC, Delaware, and Virginia, plus OpenCorporates (200M+ companies), ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, GuideStar, and Charity Navigator. No incorporation record exists in any of them. DCA's domain was registered December 18, 2024 through GoDaddy with privacy protection and a four-year registration. The website was live and fully formed one day later: professional design, statistics, testimonials from Heritage Foundation and NCOSE staff, ASAA talking points already loaded. This is not a grassroots launch. This is a staging deployment of a pre-built site. 77 days later, Utah SB-142 became the first ASAA law signed in the country. DCA processes donations through For Good (formerly Network for Good, EIN 68-0480736), which is a Donor Advised Fund. For Good explicitly states in its documentation that it serves "501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations." DCA claims 501(c)(4) status. DCA is classified as a "Project" (ID 258136) in the For Good system, not as a standalone nonprofit. I searched all 59,736 For Good grant recipients across five years, roughly $1.73 billion in disbursements. Zero grants to DCA, DCI, NCOSE, or any related entity. The donation page appears to be cosmetic. Bloomberg reporters exposed Meta as a DCA funder in July 2025. The Deseret News detailed the arrangement in December 2025. No version of the website, across 100+ Wayback Machine snapshots, has ever disclosed funding sources. Every blog post and testimony targets Apple and Google. Meta is never mentioned or criticized. DCA's leadership traces directly to NCOSE (National Center on Sexual Exploitation): Casey Stefanski, Executive Director, spent 10 years at NCOSE as Senior Director of Global Partnerships. Unusually, she never appears on any NCOSE 990 filing as an officer, key employee, or among the five highest-compensated staff. A senior director title at a $5.4M organization for a decade with no 990 appearance suggests either below-threshold compensation, an inflated title, or something else about the arrangement. Dawn Hawkins, DCA's Chair, simultaneously serves as CEO of NCOSE. John Read, DCA's Senior Policy Advisor, spent 30 years at the DOJ Antitrust Division investigating app stores and Big Tech. NCOSE's own 501(c)(4) structure turns out to be complicated. Tracing Schedule R filings across four years reveals that NCOSE created "NCOSE Action" (EIN 86-2458921) as a c4 in 2021, reclassified it from c4 to c3 in 2022, then created an entirely new c4 called "Institute for Public Policy" (EIN 88-1180705) in 2023 with the same address and the same principal officer (Marcel van der Watt). By 2024 the original entity had disappeared from Schedule R entirely. Despite NCOSE's website describing NCOSEAction as "created by NCOSE," and Schedule R listing the Institute as a "controlled organization," all 19 transaction indicators between NCOSE and the Institute are marked "No." No grants, no shared employees, no shared facilities, no reimbursements. Zero reported transactions between a parent and its own controlled c4 while staff move freely between them. Concurrently, NCOSE's lobbying spending tripled from $78,000 to $204,000, coinciding with DCA's launch and the ASAA legislative push. $70M+ in super PACs, deliberately fragmented Meta poured over $70 million into state-level super PACs and structured every one to avoid the FEC's centralized, searchable database: |Entity|Meta's contribution|Type|Notable detail| |:-|:-|:-|:-| |ATEP|$45M|Bipartisan 527 PAC|Co-led by Hilltop Public Solutions| |META California|$20M|State PAC|Chaired by Brian Rice, Meta VP of Public Policy| |California Leads|$5M|State PAC|Union-partnered| |Forge the Future|Downstream from ATEP|State PAC (TX)|Policy priorities mirror ASAA language| |Making Our Tomorrow|Downstream from ATEP|State PAC (IL)|Also chaired by Brian Rice| By registering every PAC at the state level rather than federally, Meta scatters filings across dozens of state ethics commission databases with different formats, different disclosure timelines, and no centralized search. Each filing is technically public. Aggregating them into a coherent picture requires manually querying each state. This is structural opacity by fragmentation. Forge the Future's stated policy priorities include: "Empowering parents with oversight of children's online activities across devices and digital environments." That is functionally identical to the ASAA framing. Of 20 Meta-backed candidates across Texas and North Carolina primaries, 19 won (Washington Post, March 12, 2026). # The firm that bridges both tracks This is the finding that connects two things I'd been tracking separately. Hilltop Public Solutions, a Democratic consulting firm, shows up in three distinct contexts: 1. Co-leads ATEP, Meta's $45M bipartisan super PAC 2. Involved in DCA's messaging coordination, per investigative reporting 3. Connected to Forge the Future, the downstream Texas PAC with ASAA-aligned policy priorities This makes Hilltop the first confirmed entity bridging Meta's political spending operation and the DCA advocacy campaign. The firm helping Meta elect "tech-friendly" state legislators also coordinates messaging for the nominally independent grassroots organization pushing those legislators to pass ASAA. # The dark money network Meta's Colorado lobbying runs through Headwaters Strategies, paid $338,500 since 2019, with monthly payments jumping from roughly $5K/month to $14K-$30K/month starting July 2023 as state-level age verification bills accelerated. Headwaters co-founder Adam Eichberg simultaneously serves as a registered Meta lobbyist in Colorado, as Chair of the Board of the New Venture Fund (the flagship entity of the Arabella Advisors network, $669M revenue), and as founding board member of the Windward Fund (another Arabella entity, $311M revenue). The Arabella network operates four entities from the same building at 1828 L Street NW, Washington DC, with combined annual revenue exceeding $1.3 billion. NVF transfers $121.3M per year to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) with no donor disclosure requirements. I parsed the IRS Form 990 Schedule I filings across all five Arabella entities. That's 4,433 grants totaling approximately $2.0 billion. I searched for every child safety, age verification, and tech policy organization I could identify. Zero matches. The Schedule I grant pathway is definitively ruled out. If Meta money flows through this network, it would have to travel via fiscal sponsorship, consulting fees, or non-grant payments, which are inherently less transparent. The Eichberg connection matters not because it proves a pipeline, but because the person receiving Meta's lobbying payments chairs the governance structure of the largest anonymous-donor-funded advocacy network in US politics. That structural overlap is documented regardless of whether money moves through it. # The company that benefits Meta's own Horizon OS (powering Quest VR headsets) already has Meta Account age verification, a Get Age Category API, Family Center parental controls, Quest Store age ratings, and default minor account protections. I scored Horizon OS at 83% compliance readiness with these mandates. Meta is not opposing these bills. In Colorado, I pulled lobbying records from the Secretary of State's SODA API and found Meta's four registered lobbyists on SB26-051 listed in a "Monitoring" position. Not amending, not opposing. Watching. On every social media regulation bill in Colorado, Meta takes an "Amending" position, actively fighting changes. Across 117 lobbying records on 22 bills: * Bills regulating social media: Meta position is "Amending" (fighting) * The one bill putting the burden on OS providers: Meta position is "Monitoring" (watching) Meta fights bills that regulate Meta. Meta watches bills that regulate everyone else. In California, Meta spent over $1 million on state lobbying in the first three quarters of 2025 and publicly supported AB-1043, breaking ranks with its own trade associations (TechNet and Chamber of Progress both opposed it). Meta supported a bill that creates surveillance infrastructure at the OS level while leaving social media platforms untouched. Meta's LD-2 filings with the Senate explicitly list H.R. 3149/S. 1586, the App Store Accountability Act, as a lobbied bill. The filing narrative includes "protecting children, bullying prevention and online safety; youth safety and federal parental approval; youth restrictions on social media." In the same filing, Meta also lobbies on KOSA and COPPA 2.0, which would regulate Meta directly. Meta supports the bill that burdens its competitors and lobbies to weaken the bills that burden itself. Both positions appear in the same quarterly disclosure. # The privacy questions I've tried to present findings here, not conclusions. But from a privacy standpoint: Why does the company that profits from collecting user data draft legislation requiring every operating system to collect age data and broadcast it to every installed application via a system-level API? Why do these bills mandate commercial age verification vendors (Yoti, Veriff, Jumio) whose business model is collecting biometric data, while the EU's equivalent uses open-source zero-knowledge proofs that reveal nothing beyond "over 18"? Why is there no data minimization requirement in any of these bills for the age verification data itself? AB-1043 creates a persistent age signal API. Who governs what happens to the data flowing through it? Why does Meta fund an advocacy group with no legal existence in the IRS system to push legislation that creates new data collection infrastructure at a layer below Meta's own products, while Meta faces zero new requirements? Why does the company whose lobbyist drafted one of these bills write it to specifically exclude social media platforms from the age verification mandate? If the goal is child safety, why regulate the operating system, which has no direct contact with children, instead of the social media platforms where the documented harm occurs? # What you can do If you're in CO, IL, or NY, these bills are still in committee. Comment on the record. System76's CEO met with the Colorado bill's sponsor on March 9 and the sponsor suggested excluding open-source software. The conversation is happening now. Contact the EFF, FSF, and Software Freedom Conservancy with the specific statutory language and compliance gap numbers. They need to know these definitions cover volunteer-maintained software with no exemption. Read the actual bill text. CA AB-1043 is searchable on leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. CO SB26-051 is on leg.colorado.gov. The definitions are what matter, not the news summaries. If you maintain software that could be classified as an "operating system provider" under these definitions, start thinking about your response now. CA AB-1043 takes effect January 1, 2027. Louisiana HB-570 takes effect July 1, 2026. # Sources (all public records) **Bill text:** CA AB-1043 (Chapter 675, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov), CO SB26-051 (leg.colorado.gov), LA HB-570 Act 481 of 2025 (legis.la.gov), NY S8102A (nysenate.gov), TX SB-2420, UT SB-142 (le.utah.gov) **Federal lobbying:** OpenSecrets Meta profile (opensecrets.org, client ID D000033563), Senate LDA filing UUID b73445ed-15e5-42e7-a1e8-aeb224755267 **Colorado lobbying:** CO Secretary of State SODA API (data.colorado.gov, datasets vp65-spyn, dxfk-9ifj, df5p-p6jt) **Louisiana lobbying:** LA Board of Ethics, F Minus database (fminus.org/clients/pelican-state-partners-llc/, fminus.org/clients/meta-platforms-inc/) **California lobbying:** CalAccess (cal-access.sos.ca.gov), Bloomberg Government **Super PACs:** Forge the Future (texasforgefuturepac.com), Texas Ethics Commission, Illinois State Board of Elections, Politico (Feb 2, 2026), Washington Post (Mar 12, 2026) **DCA records:** WHOIS/RDAP (rdap.org), Wayback Machine CDX API (100+ snapshots), IRS EO BMF (eo1-eo4.csv), OpenCorporates, ProPublica, GuideStar **NCOSE:** IRS Form 990 FY2020-FY2024 including Schedule R; NCOSEAction/Institute for Public Policy (EIN 88-1180705); original NCOSE Action (EIN 86-2458921) via Schedule R history **For Good/Network for Good:** [forgood.org](http://forgood.org), DCA donation page source (targetable\_type=Project, targetable\_id=258136), For Good 990s via ProPublica (EIN 68-0480736, 59,736 recipients searched) **IRS 990 filings:** ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer: NVF (EIN 20-5806345), STF 2024 (sixteenthirtyfund.org), DCI (EIN 39-3684798), Windward, Hopewell, North Fund, NCOSE (EIN 13-2608326), ConnectSafely (EIN 47-3168168) **Campaign finance:** CO TRACER bulk data (tracer.sos.colorado.gov), FollowTheMoney.org, FEC API (Meta PAC C00502906) **Reporting:** Bloomberg (July 2025), Deseret News (Dec 2025), The Center Square, ACT | The App Association, Dome Politics, Pluribus News, [Nola.com](http://Nola.com), Privacy Daily **EU framework:** EUR-Lex (Digital Services Act, eIDAS 2.0 Regulation), EUDIW GitHub repository, T-Scy consortium **Technical:** freedesktop.org, GNOME/KDE documentation, Meta developer docs (developer.meta.com/horizon) # Full dataset, OSINT tasklist, and all processed findings are published with sources embedded in each file: [github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings](https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings) This is an ongoing investigation. Pending: Texas Ethics Commission records for Forge the Future expenditure recipients, NCOSEAction's first 990 filing, IRS Form 8872 for ATEP, and FOIA responses from Colorado and Louisiana. If you have access to lobbying data from states I haven't covered (IL, NY, UT, GA), I'd appreciate a heads up. I am not claiming Meta wrote every one of these bills. Louisiana is confirmed by the sponsor; the others use a shared ICMEC template. I am not claiming there is a direct Arabella-to-DCA funding pipeline; I checked $2 billion in grants and found no evidence. I am not claiming child safety isn't a legitimate concern. What I am documenting is: the company whose lobbyist drafted HB-570 wrote it to exclude its own platforms; the advocacy group pushing these bills nationally has no legal existence and is confirmed funded by Meta; the same consulting firm bridges Meta's super PAC and DCA's messaging; none of these bills exempt open-source or non-commercial software while the EU equivalent does; and the mandatory age-signal API creates persistent surveillance infrastructure at the OS level with no data minimization requirements. The records are above. Draw your own conclusions. This section documents what happened when this investigation was posted to Reddit, and provides context on Meta's documented history of using astroturfing, coordinated reporting, and platform manipulation to suppress unfavorable content. # What happened The original version of this investigation was posted to r/linux, where it was mass reported and pulled down pending moderator review **(150 upvotes, roughly 15k views before being pulled down some 40 minutes after being posted)** The content that was suppressed names Meta lobbying firms, traces documented payments, cites Senate LD-2 filings, and links to IRS records. It identifies Hilltop Public Solutions as the first confirmed entity bridging Meta's $45M super PAC and the DCA astroturf campaign. This is the kind of content that a well-resourced actor would have reason to suppress. I cannot prove the mass reports were coordinated rather than organic. That is the point of the tactic: Reddit's infrastructure makes it impossible to distinguish genuine community objections from manufactured ones, and it rewards the behavior either way by automatically removing the content. # Meta has done this before In March 2022, the Washington Post reported that Meta hired Targeted Victory, one of the largest Republican consulting firms in the country, to run a nationwide astroturfing campaign against TikTok. Internal emails obtained by the Post showed the campaign: * Placed op-eds and letters to the editor in regional news outlets across the country, none of which disclosed the connection to Meta or Targeted Victory * Promoted stories about dangerous TikTok "trends" that had actually originated on Facebook * Pushed local politicians and political reporters to frame TikTok as a threat to children * In an internal email, a campaign director wrote that the "dream would be to get stories with headlines like 'From dances to danger: how TikTok has become the most harmful social media space for kids'" Meta's spokesman defended the campaign by saying "all platforms should face a level of scrutiny consistent with their growing success." Meta did not deny hiring the firm or directing the campaign. The story was confirmed by the Washington Post, Fortune, Variety, CBS News, Engadget, Tortoise Media, the Boston Globe, and Techdirt, among others. This is not speculation about what Meta might do. This is what Meta has been publicly documented doing: hiring firms to plant stories, manufacture public concern about competitors using child safety as the framing, and conceal the corporate origin of the messaging. The Targeted Victory campaign and the DCA campaign use the same playbook: fund an outside entity to push messaging that serves Meta's commercial interests while hiding Meta's involvement. # Reddit's bot and astroturfing problem is structural Research published in Nature (Scientific Reports) documented coordinated political astroturfing patterns across platforms including Reddit. A separate study found that at least 15% of content in surveyed subreddits was posted by corporate trolls or bot accounts designed to manipulate public opinion. Since June 2025, bot networks have been systematically exploiting Reddit and Meta's own moderation systems through mass reporting. Thousands of legitimate Facebook groups were deleted after coordinated bot reports triggered automated enforcement. The same mass-reporting tactic works on Reddit: a small number of accounts can file reports, trigger automated removal, and flag the poster's account for site-wide spam filtering, all without engaging with the content. Venture-backed firms like Doublespeed now offer astroturfing-as-a-service across Reddit, TikTok, and Instagram, operating physical phone farms to bypass platform detection. The infrastructure for suppressing content through coordinated inauthentic behavior is commercially available. # What this means for this investigation Meta spent $26.3 million on federal lobbying in 2025 and deployed 86+ lobbyists across 45 states. It funded a nationally active advocacy group (DCA) with no legal existence in the IRS system. It hired Hilltop Public Solutions to simultaneously run its $45M super PAC and coordinate DCA's messaging. It previously hired Targeted Victory to run a covert astroturfing campaign against TikTok using child safety as the narrative frame. This investigation documents all of that with primary sources. A post containing those findings was mass reported on Reddit within hours and suppressed site-wide by automated systems. Whether the reports were organic or coordinated, the outcome is the same: the content was removed from the platform where Meta has both the motive and the documented capability to suppress it. The research is published in a git repository with every source embedded. It does not depend on Reddit's infrastructure to survive. # Sources * Washington Post, "Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok" (March 30, 2022): [https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory/) * Fortune, "Meta paid a Republican consulting firm to turn the public against TikTok" (March 31, 2022): [https://fortune.com/2022/03/31/facebook-meta-paid-republican-consulting-firm-targeted-victory-turn-public-opinion-against-tiktok/](https://fortune.com/2022/03/31/facebook-meta-paid-republican-consulting-firm-targeted-victory-turn-public-opinion-against-tiktok/) * Variety, "Facebook Parent Company Defends Its PR Campaign to Portray TikTok as Threat to American Children" (March 31, 2022): [https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/meta-facebook-tiktok-pr-campaign-1235218866/](https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/meta-facebook-tiktok-pr-campaign-1235218866/) * Techdirt, "Facebook-Hired PR Firm Coordinated Anti-TikTok Campaign To Spread Bogus Moral Panics" (March 31, 2022): [https://www.techdirt.com/2022/03/31/facebook-hired-pr-firm-coordinated-anti-tiktok-campaign-to-spread-bogus-moral-panics/](https://www.techdirt.com/2022/03/31/facebook-hired-pr-firm-coordinated-anti-tiktok-campaign-to-spread-bogus-moral-panics/) * Tortoise Media, "Meta 'astroturfed' TikTok" (April 5, 2022): [https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2022/04/05/meta-astroturfed-tiktok](https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2022/04/05/meta-astroturfed-tiktok) * CBS News, "Report: Facebook Hired PR Firm To Smear TikTok": [https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/report-facebook-hired-pr-firm-to-smear-tiktok/](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/report-facebook-hired-pr-firm-to-smear-tiktok/) * Engadget, "Meta reportedly paid political consultants to smear TikTok": [https://www.engadget.com/meta-targeted-victory-tiktok-smear-campaign-133139892.html](https://www.engadget.com/meta-targeted-victory-tiktok-smear-campaign-133139892.html) * Boston Globe, "Facebook paid GOP firm to malign TikTok, internal e-mails reveal" (March 30, 2022): [https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/03/30/business/facebook-paid-gop-firm-malign-tiktok-internal-e-mails-reveal/](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/03/30/business/facebook-paid-gop-firm-malign-tiktok-internal-e-mails-reveal/) * Georgetown Free Speech Project, "Facebook hires GOP consulting firm to smear rival TikTok": [https://freespeechproject.georgetown.edu/tracker-entries/facebook-hires-gop-consulting-firm-in-dc-area-to-smear-rival-tiktok/](https://freespeechproject.georgetown.edu/tracker-entries/facebook-hires-gop-consulting-firm-in-dc-area-to-smear-rival-tiktok/) * Nature Scientific Reports, "Coordination patterns reveal online political astroturfing across the world" (2022): [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-08404-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-08404-9) * Medium/HR News, "Study: At Least 15% of All Reddit Content is Corporate Trolls": [https://medium.com/@hrnews1/study-at-least-15-of-all-reddit-content-is-corporate-trolls-trying-to-manipulate-public-opinion-49cb302c26a5](https://medium.com/@hrnews1/study-at-least-15-of-all-reddit-content-is-corporate-trolls-trying-to-manipulate-public-opinion-49cb302c26a5) * TechCrunch, "Facebook Group admins complain of mass bans" (June 24, 2025): [https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/24/facebook-group-admins-complain-of-mass-bans-meta-says-its-fixing-the-problem/](https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/24/facebook-group-admins-complain-of-mass-bans-meta-says-its-fixing-the-problem/) * YNet News, "Public opinion for sale: The new startup causing a storm" (Doublespeed): [https://www.ynetnews.com/tech-and-digital/article/hyraenbmzx](https://www.ynetnews.com/tech-and-digital/article/hyraenbmzx) * Meta Transparency Center, "Inauthentic Behavior" policy: [https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/inauthentic-behavior/](https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/inauthentic-behavior/) * The Hacker News, "Meta Disrupts Influence Ops Targeting Romania, Azerbaijan, and Taiwan" (May 2025): [https://thehackernews.com/2025/05/meta-disrupts-influence-ops-targeting.html](https://thehackernews.com/2025/05/meta-disrupts-influence-ops-targeting.html)

*Having thwarted Bowser's previous plot to marry Princess Peach, Mario and Luigi now face a fresh threat in Bowser Jr., who is determined to liberate his father from captivity and restore the family legacy. Alongside companions new and old, the brothers travel across the stars to stop the young heir's crusade.* Directors: Michael Jelenic, Aaron Horvath Cast: Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Donald Glover, Brie Larson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Benny Safdie, Issa Rae, Keegan-Michael Key, Luis Guzmán **Rotten Tomatoes:** [42%](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_super_mario_galaxy_movie) **Metacritic:** [35 / 100](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie/) Some Reviews: [The Times - Kevin Maher](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/super-mario-galaxy-movie-review-5w6crmhgr) \- 0 / 5 >Is this the end of cinema? Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy and Glen Powell joylessly bleat their way through this supremely vacuous anti-movie which is, at times, physically painful to watch. The film is torturous to sit through and, for me, provoked periods of actual physical discomfort. I had to stab myself repeatedly in the hand with a pen to distract from the howling distress. It's that bad, and that offensive. [AwardsWatch - Trace Sauveur](https://awardswatch.com/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-review-the-iconic-platforming-plumber-is-asphyxiated-in-an-intergalactic-ip-spree-c/) \- 'C-' >But it’s the reality of routine predictability that makes it hard to feel strongly about *Galaxy* one way or the other. After the credits, the impression is one of overstimulation and vacuity—despite the violent blitz of colorful Nintendo imagery for 90 minutes, it ultimately signifies little more than recognizable franchise iconography in animated form. In its relentless fan service, *Galaxy* emanates a generic sameness, decorated with flashy sights and sounds drawn from one of the most iconic video game series ever. It’s all synergistic fluff, but at least the fluff is shiny. [Seattle Times - Soren Anderson](https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/movies/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-review-an-out-of-this-world-sequel/) \- 3 / 4 >Watching it is akin being inside the 2007 Super Mario Galaxy game itself. Which is why it needs to be seen on the big screen. Seeing it on a phone or a laptop wouldn't do it justice. [Slash Film - Nina Starner](https://www.slashfilm.com/2136661/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-2026-review/) \- 3 / 10 >We're going to get more "Super Mario Bros." movies, without question; I fully expect this sequel to gross the GDP of an entire small nation at the box office when all is said and done, and in another ten years, I also expect that a movie centered exclusively around Yoshi will land in theaters. (Hopefully, if Donald Glover sticks around, he'll get to do more than say "Yoshi!") Still, this sort of movie makes me feel bleak about children's entertainment, animation, and original concepts; forgive me for feeling nostalgic, but I just don't think movies made for kids were always this devoid of a soul. At the end of the day, "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie" was nothing more than a video game I couldn't play. After the credits — including not one but two post-credits scenes — rolled, though, I didn't want to go home and load a Mario game onto my Switch; I wanted to watch a better movie. [Consequence - Liz Shannon Miller](https://consequence.net/2026/03/super-mario-galaxy-movie-review-deranged/) \- 'B' >Is it a ride that includes clear story structure, comprehensible stakes, or narrative momentum? Not really. Is it a ride featuring a lot of bright colors, familiar characters, and the occasional deranged moment? Absolutely. [The Wrap - William Bibbiani](https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-review/) \- 25 / 100 >A movie like this will probably make a lot of money, because it doesn’t rock the boat. But a boat that never rocks is a boat that never goes anywhere. That’s how boats work. They’re supposed to take you on a journey. “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” doesn’t take you anywhere you haven’t been before, and it’s not as fun, it’s not as exciting, and it’s not as challenging as literally any of the games it’s based on. This is not an adaptation of the Super Mario Bros., it’s just a reminder that the franchise exists. And although it’s technically a moving picture, nothing about this movie will move you. [The Independent - Clarisse Loughrey](https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/super-mario-galaxy-movie-review-b2949328.html) \- 2 / 5 >*The Super Mario Galaxy Movie* offers very little to audiences, young or old, who don’t already know these characters and spaces like the back of their hand. But, hey, if you take a tequila shot every time something explodes, you’ll have a great drinking game on your hands. [The New York Times - Alissa Wilkinson](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/movies/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-review.html) \- 3 / 10 >There’s a flat empty nothingness to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, even more than its flat empty predecessor, and that’s a huge bummer. [The Playlist - Rodrigo Perez](https://theplaylist.net/super-mario-galaxy-review-all-power-ups-no-progression-in-nintendos-empty-franchise-machine-20260331/) \- 'C' >By the end, the whole thing starts to feel less like an adventure than a kind of endless grinding—one familiar objective after another, one loud set piece after another, all of it speedrunning its own mythology instead of building one. That’s why the film feels so hollow. It has the spiritually vacant quality of AI fantasy slop—familiar iconography assembled for instant gratification rather than meaning. Younger audiences will probably enjoy the sugar rush, but characters still need arcs, and these sequences still need to build toward something. “Super Mario Galaxy” is nice to look at and dead inside, a committee-made franchise object masquerading as an adventure, and ultimately little more than an empty commercial for Super Mario branding. [FandomWire - Manuel Sao Bento](https://fandomwire.com/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-review/) \- 7 / 10 >*The Super Mario Galaxy Movie* is a sequel that, while losing some of the narrative cohesion of its predecessor, gains massively in spectacle, ambition, and heart. Through animation that redefines the studio’s standards and a Brian Tyler score that masterfully honors Nintendo’s legacy, the film offers a memorable experience anchored by inspired vocal performances. For those who grew up with these characters, it’s impossible to remain indifferent to the magic emanating from every animated frame or the way this space odyssey manages to transform nostalgia into something vibrant and new. It’s a visually emotional feast that reaffirms the power of pure entertainment as a tool capable of transporting us back to the happiest moments of our personal history, proving that cinema is still the place where we can all become children again. [IndieWire - Wilson Chapman](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-review-1235186608/) \- 'C-' >Watching “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which is filled with cameos from other Nintendo properties, you get the sense the corporation is hungry to announce spin-offs at any minute now. The trailers already spoiled the inclusion of >!“Star Fox” lead Fox McCloud (Glen Powell)!<, but there are some other appearances by familiar characters that feel like the movie dangling an adaptation of the “Super Smash Bros.” fighting game crossover in front of fans’ faces. “The MCU, but for video games” isn’t exactly the ideal direction for blockbuster cinema to be going in, but maybe that inevitable adaptation will manage to tap into a well of creativity and fun that has so far eluded Nintendo in their moviemaking efforts. When the film comes, though, I’ll probably be rooting for Bowser Jr. to burn everything down. [The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/mar/31/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-review-sequel-video-game-chris-pratt-charlie-day) \- 1 / 4 >It’s now commonplace to compare programmatic stuff like this to AI, but this is almost a second evolutionary step downwards; it looks as if humans, using AI, have tried to copy something that was originally AI generated, creating a bland, simplistic template that can be sold in all global territories where it can be dubbed by local voice talent. It’s certainly a way of gouging cash out of families for the Easter holidays. [RogerEbert - Clint Worthington](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/super-mario-bros-movie-2-super-mario-galaxy-movie-review-2026) \- 1.5 / 4 >“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” moves through you so briskly that you’ll get whiplash by the time the film reaches its deeply abrupt ending. But maybe that’s the point—after all, this is not a movie to be scrutinized, but to allow beleaguered elder millennial dads to sit their tots down for a precious two hours (if you count the trailers) and get some much-needed rest. It’s cute, and breezy, and rock-stupid, and will probably make a billion dollars again. Such is the world in which we live. [Akron Beacon Journal - George M. Thomas](https://www.beaconjournal.com/videos/entertainment/movies/2026/03/31/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-is-strictly-for-younger-fans-review/89406555007/) \- 'C-' >As a parent, there are some movies you just take the hit on if your kid wants to see it in the theater. This is one of them. The plot is threadbare, the action is frenetic - it almost feels like the perfect movie for today's screen generation. For kids, this is an 'A+' movie, but I'd argue not so much for adults. [Associated Press - Lindsey Bahr](https://apnews.com/article/super-mario-galaxy-movie-review-c8577c5bd5722dd259dc9ce349990b52) \- 2.5 / 4 >Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Illumination founder Chris Meledandri... seem committed to keeping things light and playful even while beholden to advancing some kind of coherent, moderately compelling story where there wasn’t one previously. [Slant Magazine - Eli Friedberg](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-review-chris-pratt-anya-taylor-joy/) \- 1.5 / 4 >The film has, figuratively and literally, somehow even less gravity than its source material and predecessor. The visual language is divorced from reality and referent to the games; even *Looney Tunes* action is grounded in the real world—the better to subvert it. The game-inspired spaces aren’t there to be explored and mastered but rather displayed quickly and expensively. And the movie-original settings, taking their cues from [*Wreck-It Ralph*](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/wreck-it-ralph/), are literal mass-transit junctions where a maximum number of cameo characters can be worked into the scenery. [Next Best Picture - Daniel Howat](https://nextbestpicture.com/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie/) \- 6 / 10 >“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” comes close to several emotional moments here and there. Still, the filmmakers seem to pull back at every turn, not wanting audiences to dive too deep into these characters and their motivations, or to engage in any grander commentary whatsoever. It becomes difficult to dig deeper into the film’s themes, if they exist. Even so, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is inarguably fun, built for fans of the long-running franchise. For lifelong fans of this universe and young kids experiencing it for the first or second time, this is a Mario fan’s dream. There’s enough here to leave a mass audience satisfied, even if anticipation grows for the next film to level up. For now, good enough is simply enough. [Radio Times - James Mottram](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/super-mario-galaxy-movie-review/) \- 2 / 5 >While it’s likely that retro gamers won’t find anything here that wasn’t in the first movie – Yoshi and one or two others aside – it’s no doubt got enough for kids to enjoy, which will surely come as a relief for parents looking to entertain their offspring over the Easter holidays. You never know – it might even convince them to put down their controllers, or their phones, for ninety-odd minutes.

# **OPINION** ## **GUEST ESSAY** # **Why Does Trump Get Away With It?** **Dec. 30, 2025** ***Credit...*** *Eric Lee for The New York Times* **By Thomas B. Edsall** *Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington on politics, demographics and inequality.* --- On Dec. 24, 2008, President George W. Bush revoked the pardon he granted a day earlier to Isaac Robert Toussie, a developer in Brooklyn who had pleaded guilty to mail fraud and making false statements to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. What prompted Bush’s change of mind? Among other things, The Daily News had disclosed that Toussie’s father, Robert Toussie, had contributed $28,500 to the Republican Party, which, according to the White House, “might create an appearance of impropriety.” Fast-forward to 2025. In early April, Elizabeth Fago attended a $1 million per person Trump fund-raiser at Mar-a-Lago. On April 23, President Trump signed a full pardon for her son, Paul Walczak, a nursing home executive. Walczak had pleaded guilty to failing to pay the I.R.S. $7.4 million in taxes withheld from his employees’ paychecks. According to the Department of Justice, he used the money to buy a yacht and make “personal purchases at retailers such as Bergdorf Goodman, Cartier and Saks. During this same time, he also did not pay $3,480,111 of his business’s portion of his employees’ Social Security and Medicare taxes.” The pardon saved Walczak from serving an 18-month prison sentence and paying $4.38 million in restitution. In the Trump administration, contributing money to his campaign, to his inauguration or to a special Trump project such as the East Wing ballroom appears to be one of the factors qualifying convicted criminals for special treatment when seeking a presidential pardon. The contrast between Bush and Trump raises the following question: How does Trump get away with doing things, repeatedly, that would have been disastrous for previous presidents — Republican and Democratic? Neither the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush nor the Democratic administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama would have survived intact if they and their families had started a multibillion-dollar business supported by foreign interests similar to the Trump Organization’s cryptocurrency operations or issued pardon after pardon to drug dealers, campaign contributors and political supporters on the scale Trump has engaged in. In thinking about this question, I put together a long and constantly growing list of answers. They are not mutually exclusive but collectively complementary. Together, they are the ingredients for a stew of corruption. In no special order, here they are: The lack of guilt felt by Trump. Enforcement of and obedience to norms in a democracy require recognition of the importance of those norms. Trump shrugs those norms off. In most but not all of these cases, he is unapologetic and transparent about what he is doing, enabling him to avoid the trap that ensnared Richard Nixon and Clinton, both of whom discovered that the cover-up is often worse than the crime. The news media, which has become polarized into pro- and anti-Trump camps, effectively gutting its role as an enforcer of accountability. The costs of polarization. Structurally, educational polarization has turned the Democrats into the party of so-called cognitive elites, engendering middle- and working-class suspicion of the party’s motives. For both left and right, partisan polarization has turned truth and facts into subjective concepts subject to partisan and self-interested definition. The liabilities of the opposition. Democratic overreach — encapsulated in the term “wokeness” — has severely damaged the party’s moral credibility, making it harder to criticize Trump productively. Structural frailty. American democracy and the Constitution are not equipped to deal in an effective and timely manner with a president who aggressively and willfully tramples the law. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority. The court has, with some recent exceptions, failed to fulfill its role as enforcer of restraints. The majority’s support of the unitary executive theory, combined with such rulings as Trump v. United States, has effectively approved presidential criminality. A supine Republican Party. Republican majorities in the House and Senate have abandoned all semblance of institutional and constitutional integrity, passively allowing Trump to wrest away their powers over taxing and spending, turning Congress into a collection of sycophants. The distribution of economic growth. The stagnation of conservative rural and exurban MAGA counties since the Great Recession, in contrast to the renewed progress of liberal urban and coastal counties, has convinced many voters in the slow-to-no-growth areas that the system is rigged against them and liberals are doing the rigging. For an overarching analysis of the contemporary dilemma over American democracy, it would be difficult to match or improve on a Nov. 18 articlein Political Science Quarterly, “What Donald Trump Has Taught Us About American Political Institutions,” by Eric Schickler, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. Schickler directly addressed the question posed in this column: Generations of political scientists have viewed the American constitutional system and its surrounding pluralist civil society as stable touchstones that safeguard against the threat of authoritarian leadership. Capitalizing on changes that go back several decades — the rise of nationalized polarization, the development of the unitary executive theory and the growing sway of populist conservatives within the Republican Party — Donald Trump has demonstrated that the sources of countervailing power in the U.S. political system are far more fragile than previously understood. Trump has prevailed upon congressional Republicans to surrender their core constitutional responsibilities, has eviscerated critical foundations of the modern administrative state and upended the relationship between the federal government and major civil society actors. The Trump administration, Schickler wrote, has confirmed an argument that some conservatives had been making since the New Deal: a big national government that has extensive regulatory and spending tools can use that leverage to bend societal institutions to its will. These conservatives just did not anticipate that it would be an ostensibly conservative president who used that leverage to exert authoritarian control. Trump, Schickler contended, has revealed a core constitutional weakness of American democracy: the inability of threatened individuals, institutions and constituencies to unite in opposition to an authoritarian leader, the collective action problem, as it has come to be known: Faced with a president willing to use arbitrary power to reward and punish civil society actors — and a compliant Congress and Supreme Court — a diverse set of actors has each decided it is in their self-interest to defer to unprecedented, and in many cases illegal, demands from the president. Transformative presidents often if not always make their mark by destroying elements of the “old order,” Schickler noted, but Trump stands apart in being willing to destroy essentially any element of the old order — leaving aside the bond market, evidently — to achieve dominance. This willingness to impose serious harm on multiple, key sectors of civil society — wealthy corporations, media companies and universities among them — provides unique leverage. Roxanne Rahnama, a fellow and lecturer in political science at Stanford, described in an email how the reinforcing interaction of contemporary trends works to Trump’s advantage: Nationalized polarization has fundamentally changed congressional incentives and eroded the separation of powers and capacity to check the president. When members’ donors, activists and media ecosystems operate nationally rather than locally, Republicans face extreme pressure to align with Trump and his supporters to survive primaries. Nationalized polarization has impacted incentive structures in ways that pre-empt punishing norms violations. In Rahnama’s view, one answer to “the bigger question about Trump ‘getting away with doing things’” suggests that “traditional accountability mechanisms are failing simultaneously: Congress’s incentives to check Trump are constrained by nationalized polarization, the court grants immunity, and a third piece of the argument is how much of civil society has capitulated.” Sean Westwood, a political scientist at Dartmouth, had another take, writing by email: The defining paradox of this political moment is not the durability of Donald Trump, but the hollowed-out authority of the institutions meant to check him. Observers often wonder how he weathers scandals that would have capsized any predecessor. The answer lies less in his unique political alchemy and more in the complete immolation of the credibility by his opposition. The Democratic Party and its cultural vanguard have spent nearly a decade hyperventilating over every transgression, enforcing a rigid cultural orthodoxy misaligned with average voters, and gaslighting the public about the visible cognitive decline of the previous president. They have cried wolf so often, and with such performative hysteria, that the American electorate has gone deaf. Not only have voters “gone deaf,” Westwood argued, but the arguments Democrats and liberals make are incomprehensible to the electorate at large: “While the political class debates the ‘unitary executive’ and the legacy of the Federalist Papers, they are speaking a dialect of procedural virtue that just doesn’t resonate with the public.” The tragedy, Westwood continued, is that by focusing on the abstract threat of authoritarianism, the Democrats miss the tangible threat of incompetence. If Trump’s tariffs spike inflation, or if his deportations rot crops in the fields, he loses support not because he violated the Constitution, but because he failed his primary job: keeping the lights on. The Democrats are trying to prosecute him for malice when they should be prosecuting him for malpractice. Trump gets away with it not because the voters want a dictator, but because they have stopped listening to the prosecutors. While Westwood pointed to partisan failure, others cited institutional and constitutional failure. Jacob Grumbach, another political scientist at Berkeley, responded to my inquiries by email: We can look back at many longer-term causes of these trends — deindustrialization, immigration and diversification, technological change and both party establishments’ inability to implement durable political and policy solutions to these problems. But the most important thing to understand at this point is that the U.S. Constitution, once considered the most durable in the world, was easily broken. Grumbach described the nation’s vulnerabilities: Congress, the Supreme Court, the administrative state and civil society were each assumed to be powerful checks on the executive. Each has failed dramatically. Congress no longer has an incentive to check a president of the same party because of the nationalization of fund-raising, media and the interest group environment. The Supreme Court has, in large part due to norm erosion in Congress and the White House, a very conservative supermajority that is both aligned with and afraid of checking the current executive. The administrative state turned out to be easily destroyed through unconstitutional actions like DOGE and impoundment. Finally, American civil society’s decentralization made it easy to pressure individual corporations, law firms, media outlets and unions to “bend the knee” and pre-empt a more coordinated resistance. Another source of Trump’s apparent immunity from the consequences of scandal lies in the way he has overturned the traditional relationship between a president and his party. Daniel J. Galvin, a political scientist at Northwestern, wrote by email in response to my queries: Historically, parties selected presidential candidates largely on the basis of demonstrated commitment to collective party goals and shared beliefs, typically signaled through prior service to the party and in government. Trump’s 2016 overthrow of the Republican Party establishment, Galvin wrote, resulted in a reversal of accountability. Where presidents were once accountable to their parties, the Republican Party is now accountable to Trump. For most congressional Republicans, loyalty to Trump now far outweighs commitment to Congress as an independent institution or to the fragile constitutional system of checks and balances. For many Republican incumbents, this subordination comes naturally, according to Galvin: Roughly 59 percent of current congressional Republicans entered office after Trump did. He does not need to threaten or bully them; many were selected precisely for their loyalty to Trump and to MAGA. In this sense, the party has truly been remade in his image. Galvin summarized his analysis: In short, had parties not abdicated their most important role — selecting candidates who were, and would reliably remain, loyal to the party — Trump would never have come close to the presidency. That is why the danger of lawlessness and corruption in the White House will persist even after Trump exits the scene. In response to my query asking for his views on the list of factors contributing to Trump’s immunity, Hans Noel, a political scientist at Georgetown, outlined a series of modifications and shifts in nuance by email: In the case of Trump’s lack of feeling guilt, Noel wrote, I’d put it slightly differently. A lot of norms and proper behavior, in a democracy or in the office or anywhere, are enforced by informal reputational costs. We don’t like it when people don’t approve of us. It’s not simply that Trump feels no guilt. It’s that he doesn’t care about reputational costs from the kind of people who don’t approve of what he is doing. I think he does care a lot about what at least some people think about him, but his reaction is usually to double down and insist he’s winning, rather than adjust his behavior. In the case of Trump’s transparency, Noel continued, He’s signaling not only that he sees nothing wrong but that you shouldn’t see anything wrong, either. His defenders can say: If this was so wrong, why would he be so transparent about it? I also think Trump may in fact not think there is anything wrong with what he is doing, since he sees the world in a very transactional way. In his seminal 1993 book, “The Politics Presidents Make,” Stephen Skowronek, a political scientist at Yale, argued that such presidents as Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan stand apart for reasons that have gone largely unrecognized: For better or worse, the American presidency has proven itself most effective politically as an instrument of negation. … It has functioned best when it has been directed toward dislodging established elites, destroying the institutional arrangements that support them and clearing the way for something entirely new. The presidency is a battering ram, and the presidents who have succeeded most magnificently in political leadership are those who have been best situated to use it forthrightly as such. I asked Skowronek where Trump would fit in this analysis. He replied by email: Sad to say, I think the quoted passage fits Trump perfectly. Trump has drawn out the power of the presidency as an instrument of negation, a battering ram breaking down the old establishment. He revels in that role. His political authority rests squarely on his authority to repudiate. If Trump stands out from other great repudiators in American presidential history, it is for the absence (so far) of any effective push back capable of re-establishing a boundary and using that boundary to begin rebuilding another, different system of collective control. In other words, while most historians and scholars of the presidency rank Trump at or close to the bottom on any list of presidential greatness, this wantonly destructive man has mimicked the strategies of such greats as Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. In doing so, he will, unlike them, leave the nation worse off than it was when he took office.

**Game Title**: 007 FIRST LIGHT **Platforms**: * PlayStation 5 (May 27, 2026) * XBOX Series X | S (May 27, 2026) * PC (May 27, 2026) * Nintendo Switch 2 (TBD) **Trailers:** * [007 First Light - Announcement Trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4qY9DYE184) * [007 First Light - Official Launch Trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDvbGANDH4E) **Developer**: IO Interactive **Reviews aggregates:** # [OpenCritic: 91 / 100 - 100% Critics Recommend](https://opencritic.com/game/19224/007-first-light) # [Metacritic: 88 / 100](http://www.metacritic.com/game/007-first-light/) **Some Reviews (updating):** [VICE - Brent Koepp](https://www.vice.com/en/article/007-first-light-review-the-best-james-bond-game-since-goldeneye/) \- 5 / 5 >*007 First Light* is easily the best James Bond game since *GoldenEye* and is also one of the better *Bond* stories told in the last decade. IO Interactive has created a game that is a culmination of all of their best mechanics over the years. *007 First Light* has the addicting sandbox gameplay of the *Hitman* franchise while also having an incredible narrative that matches the quality of Naughty Dog and Rockstar Games. James Bond is finally back and is better than he’s been in years. [VGC](https://opencritic.com/outlet/821/vgc) \- [Jordan Middler](https://opencritic.com/critic/8444/jordan-middler) \- 5 / 5 >007 First Light might just be the best James Bond game ever. The way IOI has translated the Bond fantasy into a 14-hour globetrotting epic is masterful. It's a game full of spectacle, humour, action, and romance. Everything James Bond should be. New Bond owners Amazon must ensure this franchise continues. [Windows Central - Jez Corden](https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/007-first-light-review) \- 5 / 5 >007: First Light felt impeccably polished throughout. I was never disengaged or rushing to completion, even in the slower, stealthier segments — it was often here the characters and world-building shone the most. A huge variety of gameplay locations, gameplay styles, unique activities, set-piece moments, logic puzzles, investigations, platforming, and, honestly, exploration opportunities never left me wanting. [The Guardian - Matthew Castle](https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/may/26/007-first-light-review-james-bond-game-pc-xbox-playstation-5) \- 5 / 5 >It’s that full Bond immersion that 007 First Light will ultimately be remembered for, more so than the odd wonky setpiece scene. I have no doubt that this was made by excitable Bond geeks throwing “what if” moments at a whiteboard. What if you got to explore Q Lab watching underlings test malfunctioning prototypes? What if you were tied to a torturer’s table and had to talk your way out? What if you found yourself at 15,000ft with no parachute? And what if you had access to John Barry’s classic scores and could deploy a staggering needle drop out of nowhere? [The Independent - Jake Brigstock](https://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/gadgets-tech/video-games-consoles/007-first-light-review-b2983517.html) \- 5 / 5 >One of the very first things you’ll notice is just how *good* *007 First Light* looks visually on the whole, both in cutscenes and general gameplay. Especially playing on PS5 Pro where the latest version of PSSR is in use, the game is a feast for the eyes, both in low-light settings and densely packed brighter areas. The lighting in this game is astonishing and the reflections in water and mirrors are equally impressive. In the very first mission, James Bond encounters a broken mirror in a room he sneaks into and the reflection you see is perfect. This level of detail is found throughout the game, and the sound design is equally impressive too, with a superb score, great soundtrack, including tracks from Chase & Status, and immersive, real-world sounds. [Digitec Magazine](https://opencritic.com/outlet/887/digitec-magazine) \- [Philipp Rüegg](https://opencritic.com/critic/10267/philipp-r-egg) \- 5 / 5 >After 30 years, ‘GoldenEye’ is finally retiring. With ‘007 First Light’, IO Interactive – the masterminds behind ‘Hitman’ – delivers the ultimate Bond experience that fans have been waiting for since the N64 classic. [Gfinity](https://opencritic.com/outlet/803/gfinity) \- [Alister Kennedy](https://opencritic.com/critic/10213/alister-kennedy) \- 10 / 10 >007 First Light is, for me, an absolute masterpiece that shattered all pre-release anxieties and is, in fact, the greatest Bond video game of all time. IO Interactive masterfully balances explosive action with "Hitman"-inspired stealth, all brought to life by Patrick Gibson’s breathtaking, definitive performance as a young James Bond. Equal parts thrilling and cinematic, this incredible experience is a gorgeous love letter to the franchise and a sure-fire Game of the Year contender. [MeuPlayStation](https://opencritic.com/outlet/977/meuplaystation) \- [Thiago do Nascimento Barros](https://opencritic.com/critic/11538/thiago-do-nascimento-barros) \- 100 / 100 >007 First Light is all about aura. It honors James Bond's legacy by bringing everything we love about him since the 1960's movies in the ultimate 007 videogame experience. Chases, shootings, explosions, plot twists, politics, charm, Bond Girls, guns, cars, boats, Q Technologies, Moneypenny, M, iconic characters, beautiful locations... All of that with great level design, combat and exploration. The name is Bond, James Bond. [Manual dos Games](https://opencritic.com/outlet/910/manual-dos-games) \- [Luiz Henrique Silva](https://opencritic.com/critic/10744/luiz-henrique-silva) \- 10 / 10.0 >007 First Light delivers on the promise of being the ultimate James Bond game by introducing a new version of the character that oozes charisma in every second on screen, alongside an excellent storyline supported by memorable side characters who help drive the narrative forward. The game also features an extremely creative level design that fully embraces its stealth and combat systems, making players truly feel like an MI6 spy. [GamingTrend - Joe Morgan](https://gamingtrend.com/reviews/007-first-light-review/) \- 95 / 100 >007 First Light is a top-tier game both Bond fans and stealth action gamers will love. It has all the hallmarks of a great Bond film with some of the best stealth action gameplay in the industry. I’m excited to see one of my favorite franchises in the hands of a studio that loves it as much as I do. 007 First Light is worthy of the Bond legacy and easily one of the best games of the year. [SECTOR.sk](https://opencritic.com/outlet/615/sector-sk) \- [Peter Dragula](https://opencritic.com/critic/5091/peter-dragula) \- 9.5 / 10.0 >007 First Light is a strong new beginning for James Bond in games, combining a deep origin story, varied missions, stealth, action, excellent hand-to-hand combat, precise shooting, impressive visuals and classic Bond atmosphere. A few slower sections and the lack of a body-hiding mechanic are minor issues in an otherwise excellent spy adventure. [PPE.pl](https://opencritic.com/outlet/642/ppe-pl) \- [Wojciech Gruszczyk](https://opencritic.com/critic/5528/wojciech-gruszczyk) \- 9.5 / 10.0 >007 First Light is the best James Bond game ever – brilliantly written, superbly acted and brimming with that unique atmosphere we’ve come to expect from stories about Agent 007. IO Interactive has combined its own experience from Hitman with a cinematic adventure in the style of Uncharted, throwing in gadgets, spectacular missions, interesting characters and a very well-crafted story of the young Bond. Not everything works perfectly, as the game sometimes holds your hand (a bit too tightly!), but ultimately it’s a brilliant start to a new era of 007 in gaming. [GameTyrant - Noah Cochrane](https://gametyrant.com/news/007-first-light-review-a-masterclass-in-spydom) \- 9.5 / 10 >007 First Light delivers the action, style, emotion, and spectacle you want from a James Bond game. It is a masterclass in spydom, and easily one of the most exciting action games of the year. [ComingSoon.net](https://opencritic.com/outlet/845/comingsoon-net) \- [Tyler Treese](https://opencritic.com/critic/65/tyler-treese) \- 9.5 / 10.0 >As stylish as the films themselves, 007 First Light is a brilliant depiction of Bond. As a flawed agent still coming into his own, yet still having the undeniable charm and swagger, this is the most relatable version of 007 yet. It’s also the legendary spy’s best video game adventure since the Nintendo 64, allowing you to really get the full espionage experience, using gadgets, your own problem-solving abilities, and, of course, your trusty pistol to get through some incredibly tense exchanges. [The Nerd Stash](https://opencritic.com/outlet/884/the-nerd-stash) \- [Julio La Pine](https://opencritic.com/critic/10143/julio-la-pine) \- 9.5 / 10.0 >007 First Light is not only the best James Bond video game to date, but also one of the greatest action-adventure titles of this generation, full of jaw-dropping action sequences, a compelling narrative, and superb acting. [Atarita](https://opencritic.com/outlet/885/atarita) \- [Atakan Gümrükçüoğlu](https://opencritic.com/critic/10246/atakan-g-mr-k-o-lu) \- 93 / 100 >Centering on James Bond's origin story, 007 First Light blends action and stealth elements with flawless pacing, delivering that long-awaited, glorious return to the franchise. With its impactful melee combat mechanics, cleverly designed spy gadgets, and stellar acting performances, it places the player directly in the lead role of a breathtaking blockbuster movie. [Xbox Achievements](https://opencritic.com/outlet/152/xbox-achievements) \- [Dan Webb](https://opencritic.com/critic/681/dan-webb) \- 92% >Even without all that, though, *007 First Light* is still undeniably one of the best Bond games ever created – it most certainly gives *Goldeneye* a run for its money, but for very different reasons, of course. It's a game for action-lovers, Bond-lovers, stealth-lovers, or people who just love a good spy story. It's a wonderfully handcrafted affair that oozes love and care from every faucet. IO clearly did their research and nailed absolutely everything to do with the Bond franchise – Alan Partridge would be proud! And thanks to the elements of the *Hitman* DNA that run deep, *First Light* is an espionage game that just nails every aspect of the genre. [INVEN](https://opencritic.com/outlet/805/inven) \- [Kyuman Kim](https://opencritic.com/critic/9273/kyuman-kim) \- 9.1 / 10.0 >After a long stretch in the dark, a truly worthy 007 game has finally arrived. With a young Bond at its center, it delivers nearly everything fans could want from a Bond film—thrilling storytelling, clever twists, and charismatic characters alike. It feels poised to become a new “first light” in the history of 007 games. [Metro - David Jenkins](https://metro.co.uk/2026/05/26/007-first-light-review-ultimate-james-bond-video-game-28514397/) \- 9 / 10 >All of a sudden, it feels like IO Interactive may have been selling themselves short for only focusing on Hitman in the last few decades, because 007 First Light is an exceptional piece of interactive entertainment, that deserves to have a significant influence on the industry at large. [DualShockers](https://opencritic.com/outlet/285/dualshockers) \- [Christian Bognar](https://opencritic.com/critic/9546/christian-bognar) \- 9 / 10.0 >Creating a new James Bond game after a 14-year hiatus was a risky endeavor by IO Interactive. This is one of the most iconic characters in all of entertainment, and doing him justice is not easy. Somehow, however, IO Interactive pulled it off and not only produced an amazing video game, but also created a story that is worthy of the Bond pantheon. With superb writing, top-notch acting, beautiful cinematography, and expressive gameplay, 007 First Light is as sleek as it is engaging. James Bond is back, baby, and he's never been this cool. [Loot Level Chill](https://opencritic.com/outlet/948/loot-level-chill) \- [Mick Fraser](https://opencritic.com/critic/572/mick-fraser) \- 9 / 10.0 >007 First Light is a superb adventure game, doing for Bond what the Great Circle did for Indiana Jones, and bringing it to modern audiences without compromising a sliver of what makes the character and universe tick. Besides the occasional patch of rough performance (some dropped frames here and there) and some accidentally amusing ragdoll stuff, it runs beautifully on PS5. The campaign is just long enough to satisfy all the requirements, while a raft of extra challenge missions unlock when the story is done to keep you playing long after you’ve rolled credits. Fans of the character will love 007 First Light, while even those who don’t know their Xenia Onatopp from their Pussy Galore will find a slick, thrilling, and supremely well-put-together action game that does so much more than simply coast on the popularity of its franchise. [Collider - Samuel R. Murrian](https://collider.com/007-first-light-review/) \- 9 / 10 >The narrative and gameplay of the second act could be tighter, but everything leads to a finale that plays out like pure wish fulfillment. Comparisons to *GoldenEye* and earlier bona fide classic Bond games are likely to be made over the following weeks, but IO has wisely made a game that aims squarely to be its own enterprise. The game concludes on a well-earned, giddy high that's likely to leave fans anxious for a follow-up as soon as the end credits and the thunderous Monty Norman theme roll. [PSX Brasil](https://opencritic.com/outlet/514/psx-brasil) \- [Ivan Nikolai Barkow Castilho](https://opencritic.com/critic/3863/ivan-nikolai-barkow-castilho) \- 90 / 100 >007 First Light is an excellent James Bond game: varied gameplay with intelligent approach options, a story worthy of the character's films, beautiful graphics, and great technical performance. The TacSim mode is a great way to increase the title's longevity. Although the campaign features many slow-paced moments with secondary characters and combat animations that repeat frequently, it's an adventure that deserves to be checked out by any 007 fan or action game enthusiast in general. [Screen Rant - Kyle Gratton](https://screenrant.com/007-first-light-review/) \- 9 / 10 >Like Q retrofitting Bond's Omega watch, IO Interactive not only knows what the franchise needs, but what makes it tick. With gorgeous and impressively intricate locales, ***007 First Light*** is brimming with trademark *James Bond* intrigue. There is a world-altering conspiracy threatening king and country to match, and a gameplay loop to get to the bottom of it that's as intoxicating as a vodka martini. [But Why Tho?](https://opencritic.com/outlet/722/but-why-tho-) \- [Matt Sowinski](https://opencritic.com/critic/10367/matt-sowinski) \- 9 / 10.0 >IO Interactive feels like they've found a new home in the James Bond franchise. 007 First Light is a blast, with a tense and enthralling narrative that punches way higher and harder than anyone could have expected. [DayOne](https://opencritic.com/outlet/758/dayone) \- [Jon Clarke](https://opencritic.com/critic/7203/jon-clarke) \- 9 / 10.0 >With a great cast of characters, tons of imagination, and just the right amount of player agency and replayability, there is a delightful playground full of gadgetry and spycraft that players will want to return to again and again. A confident return for the Double-O program, and - sorry Goldeneye - this is, without a doubt, the best James Bond game ever made. [GAMINGbible](https://opencritic.com/outlet/983/gamingbible) \- [Olly Smith](https://opencritic.com/critic/3213/olly-smith) \- 9 / 10 >007 First Light is an exquisite taste of slick spy action and blockbuster storytelling, and is fully what a Bond game should be, but rarely is. [Checkpoint Gaming - Omi Koulas](https://checkpointgaming.net/reviews/2026/05/007-first-light-review-license-to-thrill/) \- 9 / 10 >Despite it taking on more of a typical action game format most of the time, what makes 007 First Light work so well is that IO Interactive hasn’t simply turned Hitman into a Bond game. You can feel the studio’s strengths in the stealth systems and reactive NPCs, plus still get a bit of the sandbox-style exploration, but First Light is far more cinematic and narrative-focused. While some players may want larger, open-ended spaces, the more linear structure ultimately creates a stronger, more personal Bond story without losing the flair IOI is known for. My recommendation: go into this expecting a fun action-blockbuster, and you’ll have a grand ol’ time. [Eurogamer - Rick Lane](https://www.eurogamer.net/007-first-light-review) \- 4 / 5 >First Light isn't the Bond game that I wanted from IO Interactive. But I had a great time with it regardless. IO has proved it was the right studio to handle the license, albeit for different reasons than I expected. Amazon may not have a clue what to do with 007, but letting IO handle the whole shooting match would not be the worst idea. [Dexerto - Liam Mackay](https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/007-first-light-review-3368113/) \- 4 / 5 >007: First Light is worthy of the Bond legacy, bringing classic spy action to current-gen. It’s everything a Bond game should be and a true spectacle, taking inspiration from the biggest hits with sharp dialogue, inventive gadgets, classic cars, satisfying stealth, a great cast, and huge action set pieces.  Its pacing isn’t always perfect, and combat could have more variety, but fans of 007, action, stealth games, and, of course, the Hitman franchise are bound to have a great time. [The OuterHaven - George Yang](https://www.theouterhaven.net/007-first-light-review/) \- 4 / 5 >007 First Light is the best James Bond game to date. Free from the shackles of licensed titles, First Light is able to tell a compelling origin story filled with political intrigue, espionage, and heart. Along with implementing its own twists on tried and true action adventure gameplay mechanics, 007 First Light comes equipped with beautiful landscapes, creative level design, and tons of replayability. Despite some performance issues and combat woes, this new era of Bond has successfully completed its mission. [Wccftech - Alessio Palumbo](https://wccftech.com/review/007-first-light-review/) \- 8.5 / 10 >From a technical standpoint, 007 First Light is also absolutely excellent. **The latest evolution of the Glacier engine delivers great visuals and handles the game's larger levels with ease**, never breaking a sweat even at maximum settings and NVIDIA DLAA enabled on a PC with a GeForce RTX 5090 GPU and Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU. There was **no stuttering**, either, a nice departure from what we're used to seeing in too many PC games. Unfortunately, IO Interactive delayed path tracing to a later update coming this Summer. It would have been ideal to play the game for the first time at its peak visual splendor; on the flip side, if there were optimization issues to iron out, it was definitely best to avoid ruining the launch experience. [Gamereactor - Ben Lyons](https://www.gamereactor.eu/007-first-light-1723293/) \- 8.5 / 10 >So yes, 007 First Light has plenty of hits and plenty of misses. In answer to the question earlier, there is enough in this game to give you confidence in IO Interactive and its broader vision for this style of a James Bond game, with plenty of ambition and quality oozing out of every crack. But there is clear room for improvement too, areas that would take this game from being simply an enjoyable and great action-adventure project and elevating it to be something truly unmissable. As it is, you'll enjoy 007 First Light, but it's no Uncharted 4 and it's no Hitman 3, either. [PCGamesN - Paul Kelly](https://www.pcgamesn.com/007-first-light/review) \- 8 / 10 >If Hitman is a blank canvas, then First Light is a coloring book; everything is planned out, it's just up to me to fill out the details. I can choose whatever colors I like, in theory, but in the end, the picture looks the same. I'm always improvising a route from A to B, and while it doesn't feel as free-form and creative as IO Interactive's previous jaunts, it's a perfect fit for Bond. [IGN - Luke Reilly](https://www.ign.com/articles/007-first-light-review) \- REVIEW IN PROGRESS (Very Positive) >007 First Light has made a fabulous first impression, and I’m certainly already quite comfortable to say it’s the best Bond has been since GoldenEye. I’ll be updating this review as soon as I’ve finalised the story and experimented with TacSim mode, which allows us to replay previous missions with extra challenges to earn new rewards. [Push Square - Stephen Tailby](https://www.pushsquare.com/reviews/ps5/007-first-light) \- REVIEW IN PROGRESS (Very Positive) >I'm not quite finished with 007 First Light just yet, but overall I'd say it's exactly what I was hoping for. The characterisation of this young Bond and his associates is really strong, and the globetrotting story lets you explore some great locations. It really shines in its sandbox missions, but shootouts have their moments too, and the whole thing weaves together really quite nicely. I'm really interested to see how the final few missions shake out, but beyond some technical quibbles and uncertainty on the driving, I'm pretty happy with IOI's new vision for James Bond.

*A strange doorway appears in the basement of a furniture showroom.* Director: Kane Parsons Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell Distributor: A24 **Rotten Tomatoes:** [88%](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/backrooms) **Metacritic:** [76 / 100](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/backrooms/) Some Reviews (updating): [HeyUGuys - Linda Marric](https://www.heyuguys.com/backrooms-review/) \- 5 / 5 >Disturbing, visually unforgettable, and intellectually ambitious, Backrooms is the kind of horror cinema that treats atmosphere and ideas as inseparable from spectacle. That Parsons has made the leap from teenager filming YouTube shorts to helming one of A24's most compelling releases of 2026 is truly remarkable. [I Couldn't Help But Wonder - Naz Perez](https://nazperez.substack.com/p/film-review-a24s-backrooms) \- 9.5 / 10 >This is the kind of psychological smart horror I have been hungry for since 'Heretic'. And I think A24 has another big franchise on their hands if they want to continue this mythology on the big screen. Renate Reinsve gives one of the most quietly devastating performances of the year, and this is her first horror film ever. Aesthetic, theme, performance, world-building. It is all there. 9.5/10 - only docked because I think it could have gone a half-step deeper into the philosophical undertow. [The Irish Times - Tara Brady](https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/review/2026/05/27/backrooms-review-kane-parsonss-exquisite-direction-brings-webs-scariest-creepypasta-to-the-big-screen/) \- 4.5 / 5 >Ejiofor cleverly manifests a character caught between psychic dislocation and male privilege; Reinsve’s wounds are deeper but palpable beneath her collected facade. Mark Duplass deepens the mystery as a cryptic scientist. The bigger stars, however, are Danny Vermette’s production design and Parsons’s exquisite direction. [Fresh Fiction - Courtney Howard](https://freshfiction.tv/backrooms-review-kane-parsons-beautifully-claustrophobic-creepypasta-horror-hits-like-nothing-else-even-his-youtube-series/) \- 'A' >BACKROOMS serves to unnerve with its spooky haunts. It’s soaked in anxiety and dread that overwhelm our senses, specifically in the latter half, and it all leads to a jaw-dropping conclusion. Its Still Life entities are accompanied by gut-wrenching unease upon their inevitable introduction. Deeper subterranean levels of mind-blowing revelations are bound to appear as this is built for multiple viewings. Ingenious and disturbingly affecting, we can only hope Parsons, as a modernist architect of panic attacks, will be able to continue to world-build in potential future offerings. [The Film Verdict - Alonso Duralde](https://thefilmverdict.com/backrooms-film-review/) \- 9 / 10 >With connective tissue linking it to both *Skinamarink* and *Synecdoche, New York*, *Backrooms* is a chillingly ambitious debut that finds the terror in enclosed spaces and echoing silences. It’s a screen nightmare that could easily work its way into viewers’ real ones. [The Prague Reporter - Jason Pirodsky](https://www.praguereporter.com/home/2026/5/27/backrooms-movie-review-chiwetel-ejiofor-renate-reinsve-navigate-kane-parsons-liminal-debut/) \- 3.5 / 4 >Still, for its minor flaws, Backrooms feels like the arrival of something genuinely new in mainstream horror: a studio-backed feature that still retains the unsettling weirdness and experimental spirit of internet-born horror storytelling. Parsons translates the uncanny dread of the original creepypasta into cinematic form with startling confidence, creating images and spaces that linger in the mind long after the credits roll. Like the Backrooms themselves, this is a film that’s difficult to fully explain—but impossible to forget. [The Independent - Clarisse Loughrey](https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/backrooms-movie-review-kane-parsons-b2981258.html) \- 4 / 5 >While the Backrooms, to the non-online and the non-gamer, might seem like a byproduct of AppleTV’s *Severance*, their language has been deployed for years by games like *Control*, *The Exit 8*, and *Lethal Company*. But the many video game adaptations we’ve seen haven’t really dared to tell their stories in the medium’s minimalist, environment-driven way, where characters learn through the objects around them. *Backrooms* does. And it’s all the more fascinating for it. We’ll have to see who follows in Parsons’s footsteps, but his film might very well end up defining a generation. [Little White Lies - Esther Rosenfield](https://lwlies.com/reviews/backrooms) - 4 / 5 >Like those yellow-wallpapered hallways themselves, it is endearingly open-ended and peculiarly captivating. [NextBestPicture - Dan Bayer](https://nextbestpicture.com/backrooms/) \- 8 / 10 >Both unconventionally scary and satisfying, Kane Parsons successfully brings his web series to the big screen as a transfixing exercise in sustained tension. Immaculately creepy, mind-boggling production design. [IGN - Lex Brusco](https://www.ign.com/articles/backrooms-movie-review-chiwetel-ejiofor) \- 8 / 10 >Backrooms expertly expands on the conceptual groundwork of the YouTube series with smart visual composition, beautifully terrifying production design, a complex protagonist, and a return to Kane Parsons’ roots of computer generated sequences that pack a serious punch. The film also opens the doors to some compelling pathways to deepen the lore even more, if newcomers are willing to meet the film on its level, where it isn’t going to spoon-feed anyone. Parsons’ film is a harrowing trip to the dark heart of fractured memory, loneliness, and inner turmoil. It takes what’s psychologically horrifying about the liminality of life and transmogrifies it into something truly terrifying. That’s something the concept has always done well, and its future seems bright with Parsons at the helm of the nightmarish maze. [The AU Review - Peter Gray](https://www.theaureview.com/watch/film-review-backrooms/) \- 4 / 5 >Rather than reducing the Backrooms into conventional monster horror, Parsons preserves the existential dread that made the original creepypasta resonate so powerfully online. The result is a horror film that feels genuinely singular: eerie, melancholy, deeply uncanny, and willing to trust audiences enough to leave them lost inside its maze. [Slant Magazine - Rocco T. Thompson](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/backrooms-review-chiwetel-ejiofor-renate-reinsve-kane-parsons/) \- 4 / 5 >*Backrooms* is undeniable, both as a future load-bearing pillar of the internet-born horror movement that’s now breaking ground and for being built on a concept that feels truly new. Horror reinvents itself every decade or so, and what it does better than any other genre is reflect back at us the collective nightmares of the world we live in. But what’s especially unnerving about this film’s particular journey through the looking glass is that it doesn’t take us very far at all. It points us back to our distorted selves and the hollow world we’ve built, replicated and twisted ad infinitum into a fluorescent-lit purgatory whose very familiarity is its horror. [RTE - Harry Guerin](https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/movie-reviews/2026/0527/1575138-backrooms-when-theres-more-to-your-job-than-you-think/) \- 4 / 5 >This is a film that maps out its own universe in style, and Parsons' gift for wringing suspense from every scene is prodigious. Here, you really don't know what's around the corner. Is it all in Clark's head? Will therapist Mary (*Sentimental Value*'s Renate Reinsve) believe him? How many sequels can Parsons and screenwriter Will Soodik get away with? One thing is for certain: this isn't over. The ending leaves a lot hanging and will not be to everyone's taste, but even the grumblers will walk away from *Backrooms* determined to find out more. Welcome to your new rabbit hole. [Radio Times - Jeremy Aspinall](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/backrooms-review/) \- 4 / 5 >It’s an eye-catching debut feature from Parsons whose adoption of the previously over-used found-footage formula to garner scares is deftly utilised, even offering clues as to the reality of the situation. Meanwhile, the surreal shifts and turns that occur as Clark travels deeper into an infinite dimension of rooms mean you are never quite sure what the endgame will be, especially once Clark’s therapist is compelled to investigate her patient’s apparent disappearance. Ejiofor is at his hangdog best and is matched by Reinsve, whose calm, enigmatic exterior masks a mystery from her own past. However, the real star here is the setting and its fascinating metamorphosis from the bland to the downright uncanny. [Slash Film - BJ Colangelo](https://www.slashfilm.com/2176810/backrooms-2026-movie-review/) \- 7.5 / 10 >He might be a filmmaker currently too young to legally drink in the States who undoubtedly had the mentorship of producers like Mark Duplass and Oz Perkins to show him the ropes on this first feature, but Parsons announces himself as a filmmaker worth watching closely, delivering what may be the strongest creepypasta adaptation yet — and a deeply unsettling reminder that sometimes the scariest thing in the world is confronting the inaccuracies of existence. The film's haunting final image lingers long after the credits roll, the kind of ending designed to inspire immediate post-screening debates in theater lobbies and Reddit threads alike. I can't wait to see what fresh hells await us from Parsons next. [DiscussingFilm - Andrew J. Salazar](https://discussingfilm.net/2026/05/27/backrooms-review-kane-parsons-a24/) \- 3.5 / 5 >At its best, Kane Parsons’ *Backrooms* is as claustrophobic and nerve-wracking as his viral web series. Parsons and co-composer Edo Van Breemen (another Osgood Perkins collaborator) embellish the movie with creepy yet atmospheric synths, adding to what fans have always wanted from such an adaptation. At its lowest, though, this horror film leaves more to be desired in its scares and plotting (such as the rather simple purpose that Mark Duplass’ Async agent serves in his brief screen time). Admittedly, the bulk of these hiccups and divisive aspects stem from a risk taken or a clear decision made. And for a filmmaker as young and adventurous as Parsons, some credit is due for taking so many swings. I mean, for a director who had established industry names like Osgood Perkins, Shawn Levy, and James Wan in line to back his first feature at only 19 years of age, it would have been easy for Parsons to phone it in when so much of his source material works so well on its own. But he didn’t, and that’s how you know he’s here to stay. [Toronto Star - Peter Howell](https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/backrooms-is-an-unsettling-but-rarely-terrifying-film-adaptation-of-the-viral-web-series/article_92212642-6047-4f9f-bdf7-dba8c72a4d8b.html) - 2 / 4 >Ejiofor is a gifted actor stranded in a maze that doesn’t quite know what to do with him; ditto for the screenplay. Reinsve, so luminous in “The Worst Person in the World,” is similarly underused. [InSession Film - Shaurya Chawla](https://insessionfilm.com/movie-review-backrooms/) \- 'B+' >*Backrooms* will likely prove to be a treat for fans of the original material and its most eagle-eyed viewers. While Parsons directs the movie in a manner that would allow audiences unfamiliar with the original material to watch it, there is an enhanced experience to be had with more contextual backing, especially as the narrative and characterization is a bit thin. By the end, however, what *Backrooms* does succeed at, is being a really solid horror experience that continues to showcase the talents of young filmmakers in the industry and pave the way for even more impressive works in the future. Time will tell where Parsons’ career goes, but if *Backrooms* is any indication, he will go a long, long way. [IndieWire - Ryan Lattanzio](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/backrooms-review-kane-parsons-a24-1235196393/) \- 'B' >The budget-goosed maximalism of Parsons’ movie might make it less likely to scare the hell out of you than watching his forbidden-feeling videos unspool out of your laptop in bed at night. Will Soodik’s script attempts to anchor the “Backrooms” lore in psychological realism that would feel hokey without performances so psychically attuned to Parsons’ vision. Ejiofor is a sad-sack melancholic before he turns increasingly crazed and tries to play liminal-space detective, while Norwegian actress Reinsve proves she’s both Final Girl material *and* “The Worst Person in the World.” “Backrooms” is a movie more likely to blow young minds, but remember the first horror movie you saw that changed who you were? This movie will be that for a lot of people. [The Times - Kevin Maher](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/backrooms-review-how-did-a-teenage-boys-viral-hit-become-a-horror-film-klpfmqnz0) \- 2 / 5 >And please can we stop with the boy wonder thing? This isn’t the 1940s, during which Orson Welles directed *Citizen Kane* at the age of 25. Women film-makers today, among them Greta Gerwig, Emerald Fennell, Celine Song and Nia DaCosta, have to be at least 30 before they’re “allowed” to direct a film. Anointing Parsons a boy genius then handing him $10 million, no questions asked, to make a ropey, substandard horror doesn’t seem right. The premise remains untouched. A limitless subterranean and mostly empty mustard-coloured office complex of multiple rooms, strip lighting and bad carpets that for brief unsettling moments features creepy stick figures, a tottering woman or a seagull. Into this — sigh, ugh, do we have to? — so-called liminal space are thrown our clueless protagonists, the frustrated furniture store manager Clark (Ejiofor) and his doe-eyed and slightly insipid therapist Mary (Reinsve). And this is where the fun allegedly begins. [DEADLINE - Pete Hammond](https://deadline.com/2026/05/backrooms-review-chiwetel-ejiofor-renate-reinsve-horror-1236921788/) >The sheer cinematic sophistication of this feature film adaptation of the You Tube series should not be surprising when you consider some of its many producers are the likes of James Wan, Shawn Levy, Perkins, Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping and more. Clearly A24 and its production partners have given Parsons some heavyweight support and guidance in realizing a movie version of a cerebral idea that works on its own terms and could spark a franchise. After all it is the walls and the doors that are the *real* stars here. This is a visually stunning nightmare though and props must be given to cinematographer Jeremy Cox, and production designer Danny Vermette for a dazzling magical mystery tour through this prison with no exit, a weirder wonderland than any Alice ever visited, spare but with mementos from past lives now distorted and twisted, something out of our dreams and somehow brought to vivid life on the big screen. Big props also to editor Greg Ng, VFX supervisor Edward Douglas, and the appropiate electronic score from Parsons and Edd Van Breeman that accompanies this bizarro land full of constant noises that offer clues for what lies within these walls and behind these doors – or not. We don’t really know (the sound design is exceptional). [Associated Press - Jake Coyle](https://apnews.com/article/backrooms-movie-review-c7481eab3d0f46436730e88a6ccb9b89) - 2 / 4 >As a horror, fluorescent-lit riff on Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Backrooms” doesn’t quite work. While the movie finds a potentially insightful pathway to a story, it can’t bridge its very physical, wall-to-wall-carpeted labyrinth with Clark’s mental state. A movie with so many doors ultimately can’t find the right one. Despite a paper-wall-thin concept, both Ejiofor and Reinsve give “Backrooms” some depth. Ejiofor has almost always been a supremely level-headed screen presence, but here embraces a latent capacity for fevered mania. Reinsve, the star of “The Worst Person in the World” and “Sentimental Value,” proves especially absorbing in her first horror film. She gives the movie a slinky intelligence. [Looper - Matthew Jackson](https://www.looper.com/2181564/backrooms-movie-review/) \- 7 / 10 >When "Backrooms" is playing with horror on that existential level, punctuated by a couple of truly marvelous jump scares, it works wonderfully. Unfortunately, it flinches and turns from this approach one too many times. Even with its flaws, though, this is a remarkably cohesive calling card for Parsons, and the announcement of an exciting new voice in horror filmmaking. There's nothing wrong with reaching the widest possible audience with your work, but in the case of "Backrooms," there are layers of mystery that get stripped away when you attempt to explain too much, center the liminal vastness of the title location on human characters, or simply give in to predictable horror instincts in the final act. [Screen Rant - Graeme Guttmann](https://screenrant.com/backrooms-movie-2026-review/) \- 7 / 10 >There are plenty of nods to Parsons' videos, including the presence of Async, but the film really strives to examine the psychology of its characters in a way that it isn't fully equipped to do. Even when it falters, though, ***Backrooms*** is still an effective horror film, dealing in quiet terror over abject horror. In a world where fear is constantly thrown in our faces, having to look for it, and wanting to do so in the first place, can be just as disturbing. [Empire - Jamie Graham](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/backrooms/) \- 3 / 5 >Switching between the rigorous lensing of an objective camera and lurching, found-footage-style perspectives, *Backrooms* is one of the most out there, surreal, art-horror features since David Lynch’s *Eraserhead*. The web series might boast 200 million views since debuting in 2022, but this movie is most certainly not for everyone. It favours opacity, half-glimpsed creatures and a steady sense of unease over crowd-pleasing jumps, and is sure to spark endless debate and interpretations among those who aren’t bored silly by it. [CBR - Caralynn Matassa](https://www.cbr.com/backrooms-review/) \- 6 / 10 >Incredibly immersive production design, especially the massive Backrooms set and unsettling architectural details. Strong atmosphere and dread, helped by anxious found-footage-style camerawork and eerie 1990s aesthetics. But the story loses some coherence in the back half, especially once Mary takes over more of the narrative. Renate Reinsve feels slightly miscast, despite her talent. The movie doesn't fully live up to the hype, ending with more disorienting confusion than satisfying impact.

**1 year, 1 month, 5 days ago** I posted [ASTS the space trade will cum](https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1k3o8au/asts_dd_the_space_trade_will_cum/). The six word title told you that the thematic trade around the space sector will materialize and that $ASTS was the public pure-play. The stock was $20 that Monday and it closed this Friday at $105. Seems like the space trade came and most wsb commenters were wrong (hard to believe). To quantify this I have compiled the money hating commenters to publicly shame them at the bottom of this post. If you wish to avoid the same fate all you need to do is read, buy, and hold. Space is *still* undervalued and will re-rate higher(er) in the lead up to the SpaceX IPO. https://preview.redd.it/lf8bav830c3h1.png?width=477&format=png&auto=webp&s=12d3ce43dc252150171a920cdf0438d523f05ef8 Now that the street suddenly cares about space we can quickly compile what they don't understand about ASTS (yet). I know that none of you can read outside of a title of a post but if you were paying attention you would know that SpaceX just filed its S-1 prior to their IPO. As the Patagonia vests pour over it this weekend and try to make some money Tuesday they will likely come across ASTS and see **the white space the name still has**. You can do the same but with less Claude credits by reading this thread. For those new to the story you can read [my DD](https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1k3o8au/asts_dd_the_space_trade_will_cum/) but in short: ASTS is designing, building, and operating the largest satellites in Low Earth Orbit designed to provide broadband connectivity to **every cell phone on earth.** # TL;DR (it's okay to admit you can't pay attention for long spans of time) * **SpaceX S-1 shows where the money is.** Launch is a commodity; profit is in Starlink-style satellite connectivity. SpaceX is going public at a \~$2T valuation. $ASTS is THE public pure-play leading into the IPO. * **SpaceX names ASTS as a competitor** in their own risk factors. The biggest space company on Earth named ASTS. * **$740B Starlink Mobile TAM** quantified by SpaceX themselves. This is a huge market and ASTS is positioned to dominate it. * **Constellation ramp**: ASTS is set to have 45 sats in orbit by EOY. The next 3 are launching in June — *via SpaceX*. Yes, SpaceX is launching their named competitor's satellites. Imagine that. More batches are rolling out soon and will show the street that production is up to scale. * **Defense / Golden Dome**: the same hardware as the commercial sats does space-based radar. Already in use. DoD scaling it. **2026 government revenue will be a "big contributor"** per the last earnings call. The street still doesn't understand this capability. The company knows where *every* cell phone on earth is located. What is that worth? * **FCC SCS commercial authority granted**. For years the bears (and wsb commenters below) yelled "Elon owns Trump and the FCC. ASTS will never get approval" — wrong. * **Spectrum**: ASTS holds an 80 year lease of 45 MHz of **L-band** spectrum for the US. **SpaceX just paid EchoStar $17B for 50 MHz** of AWS-4 / H-Block - that's the public comp. Apply that comp to the Ligado L-band ASTS controls and sum-of-parts gets you to half of the current market cap on spectrum alone. * **US telco JV**: ASTS already has Verizon and AT&T. T / VZ / TMUS are forming a Direct-to-Device JV to keep Starlink out; SpaceX is being [locked out and blindsided](https://x.com/Gwynne_Shotwell/status/2055000810883346754). When TMUS exclusivity rolls off, ASTS owns the satellite layer of the entire US mobile industry. * **Big tech is circling**: Meta has visited ASTS and is working on WhatsApp connectivity. The question is when Zuckerberg realizes Meta missed the biggest trend after AI and buys a stake in ASTS. # 1. SpaceX's S-1 Is My Bull Case Source: [SpaceX S-1](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1181412/000162828026036936/spaceexplorationtechnologi.htm) What the market hasn't priced: **Launch is a commodity. Money is in connectivity.** SpaceX's entire pitch is that the value driver isn't rockets — it's Starlink. They are IPO'ing on the back of the satellite-to-consumer connectivity business (with Grok so Elon can get out of some bags). **ASTS is the only public pure-play for a vertically integrated satellite manufacturer.** ASTS also isn't burdened by an AI Chatbot that puts women in bikinis. What is the only public comp worth against the massive SpaceX valuation? More than what ASTS trades at today, I figure. We can break out the segment margins. From the S-1: |Segment|FY25 Revenue|FY25 Adj EBITDA|EBITDA margin| |:-|:-|:-|:-| |Launch|$4,086M|$653M|16%| |**Starlink**|**$11,387M**|**$7,168M**|**63%**| |AI|$3,201M|($1,237M)|negative| **63% EBITDA margins.** Larger than the rocket business that gets all the press. Launch is a 16%-margin commodity. AI is still in the cash-burning $8 burrito and $20 uber anywhere stage of the business. https://preview.redd.it/i87jlx440c3h1.jpg?width=889&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa6bcf80306306601b52a4b466d198ae56530146 **SpaceX puts a number on the TAM.** Direct from the filing: >"There were eight billion mobile connected devices globally. … We estimate the Starlink Mobile market opportunity to be **$740 billion** … weighted average monthly mobile ARPU of $8 per user." This is the market ASTS sells into too. ASTS currently has *more and better* global MNO partnerships than SpaceX. **SpaceX lists ASTS as a competitor in the risk factor section:** >"Our Starlink Mobile offering competes with other satellite-to-mobile satellite operators including, among others, **AST SpaceMobile**, Lynk, Globalstar and Skylo." When the largest space company in the world flags you by name in their IPO risk factors, that is not bearish. [You can track SPCX](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/trade/xyz:SPCX) and its assumed open price via hyperliquid. Multiply the price shown by the float of 11,870,000,000 shares its currently priced at 2.45 Trillion dollars. With a T. Why own that when you can just own ASTS? **I'm not making a judgment on the SpaceX IPO valuation** but if it goes live anywhere near where it is presumed to open then every single public space stock needs to re-rate. They will. **Bonus**: a chunk of recent sales in ASTS is SpaceX investors hedging their private SPCX exposure. That hedge collapses the moment they can offload SpaceX post-IPO (thank your 401k for them). # 2. Production Ramp Is Real And Accelerating * **45 satellites in orbit by end of 2026.** * **Next 3 satellites launch in June via SpaceX.** Once production for the next batch is proven (timeline weeks) we will see a slew of new satellites leaving the facility and entering orbit. A constant string of news over the next 6 months will keep momentum on the stock and the company in headlines as the space sector re-rates. The build-out is happening at the factory level. See the [production in action](https://x.com/AST_SpaceMobile/status/2052850412685041733?s=20). # 3. Golden Dome And The Defense Rerate I caught [flak](https://reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1k3o8au/asts_dd_the_space_trade_will_cum/mo600i8/) the last time I wrote about Golden Dome. People can stop now. Direct from the last earnings call: >"Remember, we're currently deploying the largest ever phased arrays in low earth orbit, and that gives us really an unprecedented capability to go to regular, small, low-profile handsets as well as do radar capabilities. And when you look at the backdrop of awards and budgets over the last 3 to 6 months, there's been a real strong uptick as expected in the Space Force budget and in allocations related to Golden Dome." >"RFPs are being issued, awards are being made for key elements of Golden Dome that will relate to us, things that you see that are space-based radar and others. So this is a really big moment for us. You're going to see some revenue coming in through U.S. government that's going to be a big contributor to our 2026 revenue." And on the defense capability itself, from CEO Abel Avellan: >"I will not be able to describe it on this forum, but basically, it is a non-communication capability that uses the same hardware that we use on our commercial satellites. And that's been in use today." Translation: the largest phased arrays ever flown in LEO double as space-based radar. The DoD is **already using it** and is scaling it materially. 2026 government revenue is going to be a needle-mover. When this stock rerates from "communications stock" to "communications AND defense stock," the multiple is not where it is today. # 4. FCC SCS Approval — Bears Got Embarrassed For a year the bear case was "Elon controls Trump and the FCC, ASTS will never get commercial authority." That ended in April 2026: * [FCC commercial SCS authorization](https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-391A1.pdf) * [Business Wire release](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260422147378/en/FCC-Grants-AST-SpaceMobile-Commercial-Authority-to-Deliver-Direct-to-Device-Cellular-Broadband-from-Space-Advancing-Nationwide-Resilient-Cellular-Broadband-Connectivity-in-the-United-States) ASTS has commercial SCS authority. ASTS will continue to gain approvals. The bear case died. What is the value of owning guaranteed parking in space for the largest satellites in low earth orbit? Probably a few bucks. # 5. Spectrum Stack Alone Is Worth Most Of The Market Cap ASTS holds **Ligado L-band spectrum** for the US — a strategic, scarce, mid-band asset built for satellite-to-mobile. SpaceX just paid EchoStar **$17 billion for 50 MHz** of AWS-4 and H-Block to compete in the satellite-to-mobile arena: >"On September 7, 2025, the Company entered into a License Purchase Agreement … with EchoStar Corporation for total consideration of **$17,000 million** … to purchase EchoStar's rights and licenses related to an aggregate of **50 MHz of spectrum** in frequency ranges 2000–2020, 2180–2200, 1915–1920 and 1995–2000 (the AWS-4 and H-Block Licenses)." That's the comp. **The biggest, most sophisticated buyer in the sector just paid $17B for 50 MHz to do what ASTS already has spectrum for.** Apply that price-per-MHz against ASTS's Ligado L-band position and sum-of-parts on the spectrum stack alone covers a large fraction of the current ASTS enterprise value. I actually laid this out in the original writeup before the Echostar purchase and was proven right again. Weird. # 6. US Telco JV — SpaceX Just Got Locked Out, ASTS Is The Replacement State of play in the US: * **ASTS has Verizon and AT&T.** Two of the big three already exclusively partnered for the service over a number of years. * **T-Mobile is exclusive to SpaceX/Starlink — and that exclusivity ends in \~4 months.** * **The big three are forming a Direct-to-Device JV** explicitly to keep Starlink from disintermediating them. SpaceX is being locked out. The SpaceX side noticed. Gwynne Shotwell's reaction: * [Gwynne Shotwell (SpaceX President & COO) on the JV blindside](https://x.com/Gwynne_Shotwell/status/2055000810883346754) * [ASTS commends the proposed DtD JV](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260513491108/en/AST-SpaceMobile-Commends-Proposed-Direct-to-Device-Joint-Venture-by-U.S.-Mobile-Network-Operators) When the TMUS exclusivity rolls off and the JV stands up, **ASTS becomes the satellite layer for the entire US mobile industry**. SpaceX gets pushed to enterprise / consumer-direct only on US soil. The carriers — who have the customers, the billing relationships, and the spectrum — back the partner who doesn't compete with them. That partner is ASTS. What is owning the satellite layer of the US mobile industry's defense against Starlink worth? Significantly more than current EV. Do you think the market will realize that the company already has the same in progress in Europe with [Satellite Connect Europe](https://www.satelliteconnecteurope.com/)? # 7. Big Tech Is Going To Wake Up Meta has visited ASTS and is working with ASTS on WhatsApp satellite connectivity: [LinkedIn post from Vinod Samarawickrama (industry insider)](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vinod-samarawickrama-767bb273_space-satellites-satellites-activity-7446904451719876608-Fflu/). https://preview.redd.it/i7t5dhi50c3h1.jpg?width=346&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a5b59186e19cfe77fb28c376fcf38699b6a44080 Zuckerberg knows that mobile is where the money is ([look at Facebook before their iOS app](https://magazine.wharton.upenn.edu/digital/the-pivotal-tale-from-facebooks-history/)) and he will want to gain exposure to the connectivity layer for every existing cell phone on earth. What is connecting every cell phone on earth worth? https://preview.redd.it/r2i2md560c3h1.jpg?width=896&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ab4ea6997bebe4e601f33fea1659390e1158a09d # 8. Launch Supply [FAA cleared Blue Origin to launch](https://x.com/blueorigin/status/2057927826393944480). Launch supply is no longer a single-vendor SpaceX bottleneck. ASTS has launch agreements with Blue Origin, SpaceX, and (after last earnings call) United Launch Alliance. Being a buyer of launch (instead of a provider of) is bullish. (Launch is a commodity remember?) As prices drop the company who can put the most mass in orbit stands to benefit. That is ASTS. # 9. Space Based Data Centers are Real [Bezos did an interview with CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/bezos-blue-origin-space-data-centers.html) and told us that space based data centers are a reality. Elon has said that satellites need [100kW of energy](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/spacex-hiring-turn-elon-musks-104101470.html) to be feasible replacements. Starlink V2 satellites are currently \~28kW according to [Google's research for the effort](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.19468). Guess who has the largest satellites in low earth orbit TODAY that have more than 100kW of power? ASTS. https://preview.redd.it/vl9ac6e70c3h1.png?width=798&format=png&auto=webp&s=163f7ec33d6e924a618e779856df396558a6c71f I know people here love to shit on AI and futurism. I think its worth considering that maybe the people putting the most shit in space might actually know what's possible rather than some redditor who has AI derangement syndrome. AI Data Centers will happen and ASTS patents and knowledge launching huge satellites into LEO will play a part. I'm sure of it. The SpaceX S1 has a section titled *We Believe Orbital AI Can Accelerate Time to Power and Reduce Token Costs.* The logical jump to ASTS is going to be simple enough for the street to understand. Maybe you should think about it too. # 10. "But The PE Ratio…" Someone will load this thread and post "lol no earnings" "only 14.7M in revenue lol" "omg price to sales." Its a growth stock, understand the growth potential of the company to understand its valuation. Get your mom to read this to you slowly: You don't value an under-construction oil pipeline at zero because it hasn't shipped a barrel yet. You value the infrastructure for what it will produce when it is built. ASTS is a *GLOBAL UTILITY* building the satellite layer connecting every cell phone on earth. **The buildout is funded. The contracts are signed. The regulatory approval is done. The launches are scheduled.** Here is what the street sees for future growth of the company: https://preview.redd.it/kih97ie80c3h1.jpg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3f4a24edb0a4976c86d622150deec23746b72ce The PE ratio starts to matter when the constellation is built. Until then you are trading the buildout. The buildout is happening on schedule and **into the hottest cycle for space of all time.** The setup is insane. # 11. Want to Learn More about ASTS? # [Read this](https://www.kookreport.com/post/ast-spacemobile-asts-the-mobile-satellite-cellular-network-monopoly-please-find-my-final-comp). # Position (the number is bigger than last time) https://preview.redd.it/0tuhzy890c3h1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=9e1aee4ec13fc0ffa3afd846a0c0f7126be3180d *Posting this obviously leads to a sell off at some point* (as has every one of the posts I've made) but **I've held through it all and will continue to do so**. The trend is up and to the right. Remember chat: In order to make a 100x you need to hold after a 10x. # Look at these idiots https://preview.redd.it/07zsmhga0c3h1.jpg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3bf55cb5c7b57687f3c3beeb2cdc43fbb8cb12c Everyone (I think) who told me I was wrong is on the list below. We will revisit this post in the same way I'm sure. Catch ya next year. I needed to make the links distilled since having too many links got the post removed by reddit. So it's a build your own perma-link scenario. Think of how fun it will be for you! I couldn't tag every user based on the same. If the user deletes the content its saved via artic-shift, no worries. [From ASTS DD: the space trade will cum](https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1k3o8au/asts_dd_the_space_trade_will_cum/) |Name|Comment|to recreate add | |:-|:-|:-| |rudyallan|They already been thru several rug pulls. He needs newbie to enter the rug pulls.|/mo4e4f1/| |rudyallan|when the regards get an indoctrination. They become ''super Fanboys''. They become ready for the ultimate rug pull.|/mo4eqbd/| |rudyallan|they claim that Blue Origin will launch all their satellites..But Blue Origin have many many problems also|/mo4vuqg/| |rudyallan|Stock brutally Gaped and Beaten.|/moahop9/| |cbusoh66|They need 150+ satellites, they got 4 up, and they're way behind Starlink and Apple going their own wag, and they just diluted and will continue to dilute because they need more than $2 billion, at the very least. And there's no market for satellite service, the TAM for actual paying customers is tiny, Abel is blowing smoke up your asses...|/mo3wj5a/| |cbusoh66|They sent 4 fucking satellites up last year and they just got delayed to send the next batch (sans ASICs) until July at the earliest, how long have they been sitting on their "17" now? They are way behind on everything, as it's their habit, and they need to send hundreds up, good luck with that, they will end up having to dilute again and again, and again.|/mo3zlph/| |cbusoh66|All B.S., they will never turn a profit before the end of the decade and they will dilute to death. ASTS will see single digits sometimes this year.|/mo3t58f/| |Rocketeer006|So here's what happened. ASTS just delayed their next launch which doesn't look to great, so some dumb hedge fund came here to try and pump it with the stupidest post I've ever seen on WSB.|/mo4fu02/| |Rocketeer006|Of fuck off, no you didn't. You're probably a pump bot just like OP|/mo4fyb3/| |Rocketeer006|Didn't this company just delay their next launch? They are falling more and more behind unfortunately|/mo4fkoj/| |c4chokes|How much are you in the hole?? I don't think we can dig you out 😂😂😂|/mo5xmuq/| |c4chokes|Why are you stumping for this company??|/mo6fjqu/| |Hefty\_External\_1212|you're gambling with literally your savings account for health-related expenses? you're a degenerate and I hope your calls keep bleeding|/mo9qduk/| |Hefty\_External\_1212|what a massively transparent cope lmao|/mo9qb0l/| |Hungrymon111|Yes you do, since you posted this for random people to buy in and pump your bags. Once recession starts really rolling this stock will drop/slow bleed to at least -70%. Momentum's already fading.|/mo8wf5g/| |Hungrymon111|Not even 5m in revenues, burning 500M(!!!) and has 7.5B market cap LOL. Good luck, I will not touch this with a 100 meter stick|/mo8ujku/| |ku8475|Couple issues off the bat I see: -These sats work like cell towers in the sky. From my quick research they are looking at about 160ish SATs for the constellation. So assuming the capacity is roughly 2k-5k we are looking at a generous 850k global simultaneous users when the all sats are up…|/mo4o5x7/| |ku8475|Spoken like a true MBA, good luck.|/mo66o7v/| |last-shower-cry-was|Price to sales and EV to sales is over 100.|/mo4dsaf/| |last-shower-cry-was|Great! All it has to do is double revenue every year for 5 years, demonstrate high margins, and it's grown into its current valuation. I can find tons of stocks growing 30% at a P/S of under 1.5. Oops sorry I forgot this is a casino. My bad.|/mo4ez6c/| |Maritime88-|Did you mention the delay? Or the requirement for more capital raises?|/mo5dtob/| |Maritime88-|If you guys aren't selling with both hands , ask yourself why when it's $2 again. More capital raises are required.|/mo5doh5/| |SkatesUp|Nope. It's the same shit regurgitated every time. Stock gets pumped on some mumbo jumbo news and falls back each time...|/moc9mg3/| |SkatesUp|The pumpers are starting to panic - the blind them with science tactic isn't working anymore. Glad I got out when I did.|/mocccaq/| |7fingersDeep|You bunch of fucking morons. The comms are for terrestrial commercial users. Holy fuck. This is not for weapons systems or for missile warning and tracking. I love getting downvoted by people who put their money into a stock when they literally have no fucking idea about the business or technology.|/mo600i8/| |AchyBreaker|Excuse me sir I came here to lose money on stocks not to read entire books|/mo3noma/| |Aggressive-Ad3286|Still a shit company and even shittier stock, no matter how many times you shills try to pump it.|/mof0rjq/| |Aranthos-Faroth|I've been on WSB a long time. This is the longest post I've ever seen here. Puts.|/mo3mos2/| |AxDeath|The first thing I read says "These kinds of companies normally fail", so I think I know everything I need to know|/mo3tzod/| |bnh1978|TL;DR Puts on OP's wife.|/mo3p0bc/| |Cash50911|This convinced me not to buy.... Your comparison about cell phone connectivity uses decade old tech. There are many other things that are just inaccurate or purely speculative. You provided a great narrative but no financials to back up how the company can execute the narrative.|/mo3xl2p/| |chosunwon|OP please show loss porn for today's -12% day. we must know|/moaos0k/| |Designer-Composer820|Down 11.5% after this post. Welcome to Wendy's.|/mobiwcq/| |DLD1123|Space isn't real. Puts.|/mo5umc2/| |domthebomb83|This aged like fine milk|/mo9ilmj/| |ElectricalGene6146|Got it, puts, thanks!|/mo3xhr0/| |FabricationLife|Puts on this garbage because this post is so long is literally has to be cope|/mo5u0ze/| |Fancy-Jackfruit8578|We need to ask Reddit to reduce to 10 character limit to avoid this phd thesisimg|/mo3ovzr/| |Father\_of\_Lies666|Brother, not all satellite companies have failed. Just most. If you don't think SIRI, T, and VZ are satellite companies, you're wrong.|/mo3os3d/| |Federal-Hearing-7270|Don't expect the stock to go up 100% in a week when market cap is on its way to 10 billion and there is no revenue yet. There are too many whiners at the subreddit chat of this stock and there is no need for more|/mo4qhc0/| |figlu|Will be cheaper when stock market crashes|/mo5vhvi/| |fltpath|You failed in your analysis, as it does not address the single point failure in the entire system...the required ground based system, which has to be connected to the cell phone provider network. No ground based system...no connection.|/mo4dx8a/| |frosty765|Lol anyway puts, as they again delayed launch…. Buy around 20, sell 24+ worked for months…|/mo4bjdd/| |Go\_With\_The\_Fleaux|Right. I'm waiting until right till we get close to expiration and exiting the trade. Don't really care what happens to the stock after that.|/mo6642b/| |GoLoco511|We don't want a more comprehensive write up man|/mo3yikt/| |GVtt3rSLVT|I couldn't read all that during one shift of work. Especially about a boring stock|/mo651de/| |Hot-You-7366|as someone who covered Satellites industry at a bank, your missing that satellite service sucks ass. Cant get it indoors, even leaves on trees fuck it up. Its terrible compared to cell towers and wifi. So... yea|/mo9yjhw/| |iannoyyou101|Going long on any stock in this market lmao|/mo5ukqp/| |IcestormsEd|If you need all that to sell us an idea, you are hiding something. But puts it is.|/mo3m38t/| |Invest\_and\_ballout|Took me 5 days to read that post. Now I'm going to short the stock|/mo3qatm/| |JackFourj4|what is their cash position right now, how long till positive cashflow? I like their business but not fond of hopping on hype trains in this climate, might wait it out a bit till the tariff war is over|/mo8jcl6/| |Jelopuddinpop|Not OP, but 2 reasons... 1) they're trying to contribute to the community instead of just leeching others' iddas, and 2) they hold a significant position and are trying to drum up exit liquidity.|/mo5d9wt/| |justbrowse2018|It's up 1000% in a calendar year bro. That seems unsustainable.|/mo40xug/| |MajikoiA3When|No TLDR? Puts it is.|/mo3lxhe/| |Mother\_\_\_Night|They face competition that has large, insurmountable cost advantages and absurd levels of regulatory influence. Puts.|/mo3sl5m/| |Ok-Big-4585|its in a short setup atm unless breakout|/mo7rbxd/| |Ok-Caregiver-1689|Holy shit I ain't reading that, I'll just buy some puts.|/mo3kayp/| |Ok-Resist8342|Oh, I'm one of those Asts sub Reddit morons, don't you worry about that.|/mo4bhln/| |Pepepopowa|Bro they are already dead, stock kicking|/mo6ieol/| |perivascularspaces|You forgot Mango Pres killing the US role in the World and the opposition not even trying to defend it, driving all of your DD into the dirt.|/mo3pldw/| |ProgrammaticallyHip|Yes, they are safer in a recession. But ASTS is down 11% in a month and VZ/T/AMT were down 6.5, 5.5% and 5% at one point respectively during this recent volatility... And ASTS would likely get crushed.|/mo42x4r/| |PuzzleheadedSound407|This guy knows more about the company than the CEO and board combined.. So, puts.|/mo6ouhq/| |sev3791|With all the satellites crowding space already, believe it or not puts 👇|/mo5kyqm/| |shadow\_p|This is a really cool report. I read the whole thing. But I'm still not buying. I don't want to hold your bag.|/mo48nfz/| |skyfox437|Read? My attention span stopped at the pictures.|/mo46aql/| |Southern\_Cap\_816|ASTS has no customer base and the tech is not proven. One launch error and the sell-off begins. Summer is a good time for launch failures.|/mo3ul0m/| |steffur|What happens if SpaceX says we won't fly ASTS satellites anymore. Then...?|/mo3vzrm/| |Strive--|I feel like potential ASTS stock traders are still sifting through this post's coke-driven multi volume keyboard burner of a post, so they haven't had the time to pump and dump the stock, so it sits idle.|/mpn9zr7/| |The\_NiNTARi|Isn't ASTS reliant on SpaceX to launch these satellites? I'd for see that as a major issue|/mo4ou8v/| |thelundyy|Longest and most useless post of all time award! Congrats!|/mo3lax7/| |TonyStarks81|Love the company, hate the current economic climate. Went all cash weeks ago and sold my ASTS that I bought at $10. I will join back in at some point, but right now I don't think anyone would be shocked if this trade war caused more significant bleeding across the market…|/mo44fm8/| |WallStWarlock|What's the catalyst. Needs catalyst|/mr0p1lb/| [From Conviction or mental illness, you decide (ASTS)](https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1ewg3t9/conviction_or_mental_illness_you_decide_asts/) |Name|Comment|to recreate add | |:-|:-|:-| |jay\_i\_am|Sir! i know how PUMP AND DUMP works lol|/lj2o92l/| |jay\_i\_am|Calm down son! You're very triggered. What sort of life do you live that you have to CON people? Just to make some money. I mean, it's one thing that you made your money (if you actually did). Who knows? this might just be a paper trade. But, to think that you are actually 'helping people' is beyond delusional…|/lj2ta9i/| |jay\_i\_am|I suspect this post is set up to now DUMP ASTS. Trapping a lot of newbies into buying ASTS while this guy (who probably works for some big hedge fund) dumps these shares. CLASSIC PUMP AND DUMP|/lj2gx4a/| |fazellehunter|when you are crying in the shower again, ya tool|/ljg8gnj/| |fazellehunter|i'd buy a put option on your portfolio|/lj3rxqk/| |JayMurdock|Trust me when you lose 80% of these gains, it will be your life story...|/liyfpcd/| |JayMurdock|Mental illness for sure, you don't have an exit plan since you held this long and will be a bag holder when this ultimately explodes. We've entered obscene wildly overvalued territory, the end is coming and it will decimate you all.|/liyfbtf/| |21APE21|Funny, I follow wallstreetbets on Reddit and discord and never heard of anyone betting on $ASTS. Fuck you and everyone else who bank off of this|/lj10zef/| |\_\_\_TychoBrahe|Its been over bought on the daily for the past week almost, EPS off by 188% revenue off by 80%, stock rockets like 50% You: its still got room Oh boy…puts gunna look tasty|/liyeydq/| |anonuemus|just remember to sell when it is low again|/lj04qoc/| |Any\_Anything\_316|did you get sliced in half this morning?|/lj1lexk/| |Apart-Consequence881|More like overbought for 3 months. It's been rallying insanely for 3 months.|/lj0jx1c/| |arbyman85|If you don't sell and up back at $3 definitely as regarded as the ceo who kept his word and didn't do share offering when it made sense on runup. When it becomes apparent a CEO is a dumbass, institutions jump shit fast.|/liz25uq/| |BarnacleHistorical70|You just won the lottery. Time to cash out and get the fk out of the market or start learning the fundamentals|/liyz1tk/| |Big-Professor3578|Nice now take some of that off the table before 18k happens|/lj1pz4r/| |Comfortable-Spell-75|It will end in tears. img|/liyqm8i/| |darktidelegend|Mental illness It has no infrastructure No greater funding No real contracts No ability to service Just an idea and one publicized satellite launch This is exactly the same pump and dump as virgin galactic and they actually have the ability to execute|/liyu2fa/| |Deep-Values-Thinking|Will be awaiting your loss porn|/lj0g6gh/| |DistantGalaxy-1991|Seriously though, you should take 250K of that, put it in something extremely boring and fairly risk free like a mutual fund or 2, and do not let yourself trade with it, ever. You have to recognize that NOBODY gets this kind of success because of skill, it's luck. So congrats for the luck. But if you think you're 'figured out how to do it', you will lost it all before too long.|/lizqm0b/| |Dontknowgoat|Congrats remember to take profit don't be greedy. 😉|/lj12c8s/| |Dstrongest|Less than losing it all or most .|/lj3az0u/| |EatYourMeats|Starlink is launching multiple satellites this month. Their entire business is reliant on starlink. Plus how much money is really available from overarching coverage? Especially when spacex is much better funded and equipped to provide the service? I took out puts yesterday on ASTS. This is euphoria that's short-lived. Yes I'm a gay bear.|/lj1f7tl/| |Elegant-Isopod-4549|I knew I should have shorted this when I see it on wsb|/lj1p7bi/| |Emergency-Eye-2165|Good enough to screenshot…|/liz1iyk/| |expandyourbrain|Seems like a good time to finally get out bud.|/liznyh3/| |FaceClown|Post again once you lose it all!|/lizd4aj/| |Far-Outcome-8170|One thing I've learnt about this sub is that when a ticker gets constantly pushed over several days, it's time to load up on puts.|/lizgf2r/| |Fun\_Audience5220|Set trailing stop loss weekly No revenue yet.|/lizin1w/| |Hopeful-Power9021|What goes up must go down 😃|/liyylt6/| |Jaded\_Frosting7770|Wife's a walking red flag|/lj0dunc/| |JefferyTheQuaxly|Congrats man, in b4 it goes back down to 20k.|/lj1wemc/| |Kwerby|Does regarded count as a mental illness?|/lizg2rd/| |lewdacris916|HAVE YOU SOLD YET?? IF YOU DONT CASH OUT THEN YES 100% MENTAL|/liyikwf/| |lukeehassel|Feels like virgin galactic to me|/lj2hkgo/| |maikaubay|Good enough to screenshot ...|/lj1e3dm/| |MakaveliTheDon831|Please tell me you cash out.|/liywncx/| |ManBearPig\_1983|Twas a legit question. I just looked it up. It's BS that you can only report $3k in losses|/liz1tnb/| |mat\_the\_wyale\_stein|Take 100k off. Sell some covered calls and live the American dream. Put a down payment in a 2 bedroom home in the hood with no picket fence.|/lizi8kt/| |Neat\_Custard5289|i was told invest ASTS, i was told money make big green. where green. sad.|/lj1mxwv/| |No\_Day\_9464|You should definitely sell, that's already life changing money.|/lj2pk3a/| |P\_A\_N\_C\_H\_O\_\_|Have you sold? That would answer your question...|/lj01kx7/| |pinochetlospatos|At least get your initial investment out....|/liyz6fu/| |RaisinPutrid4423|When should we short asts|/lizaitp/| |skankhunt1983|Is it too late to get in? Feels like a pump and dump!!|/liyt1d7/| |SlipstreamSteve|Mental illness with degenerate gambling.|/lizapa2/| |stargazer\_me|Sell I had same n lost it all on one stock|/liyi6v1/| |talentsmart|It's only mental illness if you don't take some chips off the table before you find out whether or not Elon chooses to blow up that rocket before those satellites deploy.|/liyxvuw/| |TheInfiniteBRAIN|As they say: "Bulls make money, bears make money, but pigs get slaughtered."|/liyjslv/| |TrueNorthCoin|Take the money and run|/liywifi/| [From DD: ASTS, a binary bet with deep space value](https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/o0czbg/dd_asts_a_binary_bet_with_deep_space_value/) |Name|Comment|to recreate add | |:-|:-|:-| |fuk\_normies|Pump and dump This place has become a cesspool|/h1upffq/| |idoescompooters|Lol no. This will end up like Iridium Part 1 in 1999. Instead, you should invest in Iridium Part 2 (Iridium NEXT), who actually has side business taking care of the debt (Aireon) in the meantime while they get military contracts for their polar orbits and proprietary waveforms.|/h201inx/| |my5cent|My concern is irdm already has satilites and in some videos they plan to do something similar.|/hbr51ea/| |TheSlipperiestSlope|Bought this shit and immediately lost 5%. Pump and dump bullshit.|/h29ux15/|

Donald Trump began his speech by describing an America that had supposedly been dead less than two years earlier. The border was open. Murderers were pouring in. Crime was destroying our cities. Men were invading women's sports. The economy was collapsing and the world was laughing at us. Then Trump returned to power, and America suddenly became the hottest, strongest, richest, safest, most respected nation on Earth. That was not the beginning of a serious examination of election security. It was emotional conditioning. Before presenting any evidence, Trump constructed a world with only two possible conditions. Without him, America is invaded, impoverished, humiliated, and dead. With him, America is safe, wealthy, respected, and alive. Once that story is planted, everyone who opposes him becomes associated with national collapse. Every institution that questions him becomes part of the corruption. Every election he loses begins to look like sabotage. The speech did not begin by asking Americans to examine evidence. It began by making them afraid. # Fear Before Evidence Trump claimed millions had poured across the border, including "11,888 murderers," many of whom had supposedly killed more than once. He presented the number as though Biden had knowingly released nearly twelve thousand murderers into American neighborhoods. That is not what the number meant. The figure came from ICE's non-detained docket, a database accumulated across many years and several administrations. It included people who entered long before Biden took office. It included some people who were incarcerated, some lawful immigrants, some green card holders. Being on that docket did not mean the government found a convicted murderer and casually let him go. Deportation gets delayed by prison sentences, appeals, asylum claims, diplomatic complications, or because another country refuses to take the person back. Trump took a complicated administrative number, stripped its history and legal context, and turned it into an image of thousands of murderers marching through an open gate. That was not harmless exaggeration. It was designed to terrify people. The method repeats throughout the speech. Find a number. Remove its context. Give it the most frightening possible interpretation. Then accuse anyone who corrects you of defending criminals. Trump then declared America had experienced "transgender for everybody" and "men in women's sports." This was not a description of any actual policy. No administration made everyone transgender. The line existed to activate a cultural fear and create the feeling that ordinary life had been overturned. Immigrants, murderers, transgender people, athletes, crime, hardship, and humiliation all went into one emotional pile. Trump never had to prove these things were connected. He only needed the audience to feel they belonged to the same threatening world, and that he alone had rescued them from it. The same method appeared in his crime claims. He said crime had ravaged American cities, then announced crime was now plummeting, with the murder rate at its lowest level since 1900. Crime and homicide have declined substantially — but that decline did not begin when Trump returned to office. Major decreases were already underway before this administration. The claim about 1900 also depends on preliminary projections and comparisons between historical datasets that were never collected the same way. The honest statement: violent crime has continued to fall, and that is welcome news. Trump's version: America was consumed by chaos until he personally restored civilization. A real trend, detached from its timeline, and turned into proof of a savior. He used the same trick saying more Americans are working than ever before. In raw numbers that may be true, because the population keeps growing. Record employment totals are reached routinely in a growing country. That number alone does not show the labor market is historically strong or that one administration created every job in it. The useful measures are the share of working-age people employed, wage growth, unemployment, and the pace of job creation. Trump picked the biggest-sounding number because it created the impression he wanted while hiding the context needed to understand it. The prescription drug claims went further. Trump said Americans went from paying the highest drug prices in the world to the lowest, with prices falling 70, 80, and 90 percent because of his most-favored-nation policy, and pointed people to TrumpRx.gov. There is no evidence that drug prices across the American healthcare system broadly fell 70 to 90 percent, or that Americans suddenly began paying the lowest prices in the world. Some medications may be offered through selected discount arrangements. That is not the same as cutting costs across Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, hospitals, pharmacies, and the whole pharmaceutical market. A limited program became a universal revolution. An announcement became an accomplished transformation. Trump also claimed the border was the most secure in American history, with "zero illegal aliens being admitted" over fourteen months. Encounters and releases may have fallen dramatically, but "zero illegal aliens" was a bait and switch. Government reporting referred to periods in which zero apprehended migrants were released into the interior. That is not zero attempted crossings, zero unauthorized entries, or zero people avoiding detection. Trump converted "zero releases" into "zero illegal aliens." One describes what happened to people after apprehension. The other asks you to believe a border thousands of miles long became completely impenetrable. That gap — between a narrow fact and the enormous conclusion attached to it — became the foundation of his election argument. # The Speech Turns Toward Elections After declaring America wealthy, employed, medically rescued, and victorious abroad, Trump announced one terrible threat remained: election fraud. He said no country can be great without fair elections, and that Americans deserve a system where cheating and foreign interference are nearly impossible. On the surface, reasonable. Election systems should be secure. Equipment should be tested. Fraud allegations should be investigated. But Trump was not arguing for stronger election security. He was preparing to announce that the existing system was catastrophically corrupt and that secret evidence proved Americans had been deceived. The central manipulation of the speech was his decision, over and over, to treat a vulnerability, a suspicious document, foreign intelligence collection, or a theoretical capability as proof that American votes had actually been changed. Those are not the same things. A vulnerability is not a successful attack. A foreign government obtaining public voter information is not changing ballots. A suspicious registration form is not a counted vote. An outdated name on a voter roll is not a dead person voting. A system being theoretically hackable does not prove it was hacked. An election taking weeks to certify does not prove officials spent those weeks manufacturing ballots. Trump erased every one of those distinctions. He did not prove an election was stolen. He demonstrated how belief in a stolen election gets manufactured. # Authentic Documents Do Not Make Every Allegation True Trump announced the declassification of what he called critical intelligence showing shocking vulnerabilities and foreign interference. He said officials had confirmed the documents were authentic. The authenticity of a document does not prove that the allegations inside it are true. Intelligence files contain many kinds of material: verified findings, preliminary reports, raw intelligence, uncorroborated human source claims, analytical disagreements, speculation, and information later determined to be false. A genuine FBI document proves the FBI possessed a report. It does not prove the report was accurate. A real CIA document proves the agency recorded certain information. It does not mean every source quoted in it was reliable. Trump blurred authenticity with verification. He wanted the public to hear that a document was authentic and conclude that every accusation in it had been proven. That is not how intelligence analysis works. It is how propaganda works. # China, Voter Information, and the Missing Chain of Evidence Trump's first major election allegation was that China had acquired information connected to as many as 220 million American voters — names, addresses, phone numbers, political preferences. He then suggested the data could be used to register fraudulent voters and conduct "other nefarious activities." Foreign governments gathering information about Americans is a serious security and privacy concern. But voter information like names, addresses, party registration, and voting history is often available through public records and commercial data brokers. Campaigns, consultants, corporations, and advocacy groups collect and combine this data routinely. Possessing voter data does not reveal how anyone voted, because the secret ballot remains secret. It also does not let a foreign government reach backward into election equipment and rewrite a ballot. Trump never established the chain connecting data collection to election theft. Did China obtain voter data? Possibly, and that deserves investigation. Did China use it to create fraudulent registrations? He did not establish that. Did those hypothetical registrations become ballots? He did not establish that. Were those ballots accepted and counted? He did not establish that. Did they change a result? He did not establish that either. The entire chain vanished. Trump simply placed "China," "220 million voters," and "election nightmare" beside one another and let fear manufacture the missing evidence. The most important fact he left out: the official intelligence assessment of the 2020 election found no indication that any foreign actor altered voter registration, ballot casting, vote tabulation, or the reporting of results. The intelligence community concluded that large-scale manipulation of election infrastructure would be difficult to accomplish without detection. The assessment also concluded with high confidence that China did not conduct interference operations designed to change the outcome of the 2020 election. An alternative analytical view argued China had taken certain influence actions — but even that view did not claim China altered ballots, counting, or reporting. That distinction between influence and interference is essential. Influence means trying to shape what people believe: propaganda, diplomatic pressure, media activity, lobbying, economic leverage, online campaigns. Interference means attacking the process itself: altering registration systems, ballots, tabulation, or reported results. Trump spoke as though evidence of influence proved interference. The assessment said it did not. He quoted intelligence suggesting Chinese officials preferred him to lose and wanted to weaken confidence in him. That may be true. Foreign governments have political preferences, just as corporations, billionaires, activists, newspapers, and foreign leaders often prefer one American candidate over another. China wanting Trump to lose does not prove China changed votes. Chinese officials cultivating business leaders does not prove China manufactured ballots. A foreign government encouraging negative journalism does not prove an election was stolen. Trump treats hostility toward him as evidence of fraud because his worldview leaves no room for legitimate opposition. A journalist who criticizes him must be bought. An analyst who contradicts him must be deep state. An election worker who certifies his loss must be corrupt. A Republican who refuses to overturn a result must be a traitor. Once every opponent is defined as corrupt, Trump never has to face the possibility that people simply rejected him. # The Alleged Chinese Ballot Plot Trump also claimed raw intelligence received by the FBI described a Chinese attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden. That is an extraordinary accusation, and he presented no public proof that ballots were manufactured, transported, submitted, accepted, counted, or connected to any official vote total. Raw intelligence is exactly the kind of material that requires corroboration. Who was the source? How did the source know? Was the claim independently confirmed? Were physical ballots found? Did any election official detect them? Were charges filed? Trump answered none of it. He presented the drama of a conspiracy without the evidence that it occurred. A responsible president would say that intelligence indicated a possible plot, that it had not been fully corroborated, and that investigators were working to determine what happened. Trump turned an allegation into a verdict. He also claimed intelligence officials had "massaged" presidential briefings to hide Chinese activity, quoted an official supposedly saying she was running a "shadow government," and accused bureaucrats of withholding information for political reasons. Those allegations may deserve investigation if the underlying material is authentic and correctly understood. But context matters. What did "massaged" mean? Was information removed because officials opposed Trump, because analysts doubted its reliability, because another agency disagreed, or because sources were uncorroborated? Was "shadow government" a literal confession, a sarcastic remark, a bad joke, or something else? Trump did not establish any of it. He announced the story, identified the villains, declared their motives, and demanded investigations, firings, and prosecutions. That reverses the order of justice. Evidence should lead to conclusions. Trump begins with the conclusion and demands that government agencies produce the punishment. # Burn Bags and Guilt Through Atmosphere Trump described burn bags containing information supposedly marked for destruction during the Obama administration. He repeatedly used Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein — an old habit meant to make a former American president sound foreign and threatening. There may be legitimate questions about whether records were improperly handled. But Trump did not prove Obama personally ordered incriminating election evidence burned. He did not establish what the documents contained, why they were marked for destruction, whether destroying them would have been lawful under normal classification procedure, or whether any of it proved an election crime. He simply placed Obama, China, secret intelligence, burn bags, and election fraud into the same dark story. This is guilt through atmosphere. The imagery does the work the evidence cannot. The audience pictures sinister officials stuffing the truth into bags, and by the time anyone determines what the documents actually were, the emotional verdict has already been delivered. # Election Systems Can Be Vulnerable Without Being Stolen Trump's next section focused on voting equipment and infrastructure. He quoted assessments warning that Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea have the ability to attack parts of American election infrastructure, and cited concerns about registration databases, electronic poll books, and election websites. Those are legitimate concerns. No serious expert claims every computer system is invulnerable. Election websites can be attacked. Databases can be targeted. Ransomware can disrupt county offices. Foreign governments have sophisticated cyber capabilities. But the existence of a capability does not prove the capability was used successfully. The ability to attack a system is not evidence that vote totals were changed. American elections do not run on one national machine with a single switch. They are administered through more than ten thousand local jurisdictions. The overwhelming majority use paper ballots or auditable paper records. Officials run equipment tests, ballot reconciliation, chain-of-custody procedures, canvasses, recounts, and post-election audits. Decentralization makes national results slower. It also makes coordinated nationwide manipulation extraordinarily difficult. Trump speaks as though a foreign hacker needs only to get into "the machines" and change America's president. There is no single machine and no national vote-counting system. There are thousands of jurisdictions, different equipment, physical ballots, bipartisan workers, observers, audits, recounts, and courts. Can local failures occur? Yes. Can machines have vulnerabilities? Yes. Does that prove 2020 was electronically stolen? No. # Venezuela Was Not Proof About the United States Trump presented intelligence about alleged election manipulation in Venezuela — a system supposedly capable of altering vote totals in ways designed to avoid detection — and used it to imply something similar may have happened here. This was one of the most dishonest leaps in the speech. Evidence that an authoritarian government tried to manipulate its own election does not prove American officials used the same method. A bank robbery in Caracas does not prove a bank was robbed in Pennsylvania. To connect a Venezuelan technique to an American election, Trump would need to show the technology was present in American systems, that attackers got access, that totals were altered, that physical ballots failed to match reported totals, and that recounts or audits exposed discrepancies. He presented none of that. He nevertheless declared the American system must never again be compromised "like it was in the past" — quietly smuggling his conclusion into the speech without proving it. When was it compromised? Which machines? Which counties? Which ballots? Which recount revealed the discrepancy? Which audit exposed the manipulation? He did not answer, because the evidence he presented did not establish those things. # Michigan Showed the Safeguards Working Trump described suspicious voter registration activity in Muskegon, Michigan. He claimed canvassers signed other people's names, submitted registrations for nonexistent people, and got gift cards based on how many applications they collected. He accused the Biden Justice Department of killing the investigation. Fraudulent registration applications are crimes and should be investigated. But the crucial fact is that the suspicious applications were detected and stopped before they became votes. Officials flagged the forms, investigated, and rejected the invalid registrations. Reporting on the case found no evidence that the applications produced fraudulent ballots or changed any result. Trump presented the detection of suspicious paperwork as evidence that safeguards failed. It actually showed the safeguards working. An attempted fraud is not a successful one. A rejected registration is not a voter. A registration is not a ballot. A submitted ballot is not automatically accepted. Even an accepted illegal ballot would not prove a presidential election was stolen. Trump collapses all those stages because his story requires every irregularity to sound like a completed national conspiracy. America should investigate election crimes. It should also recognize that catching and rejecting suspicious registrations demonstrates security, not corruption. # The Claim About 278,000 Noncitizens Trump's final major disclosure was that roughly 278,000 noncitizens had been identified as registered to vote in federal elections — and that the real number was surely higher because Democratic states refused to share data. The number sounds devastating until you ask basic questions. Which databases were matched? How current were the citizenship records? Were permanent residents who later naturalized misclassified? Were people matched because they shared names or birth dates? How many records had clerical errors? How many registered after becoming citizens? Most importantly: how many actually cast an unlawful ballot? Trump did not establish that 278,000 noncitizens voted. He said they had been identified as registered. Database matching is not infallible. A person can get a driver's license as a lawful noncitizen, become a citizen years later, and still show up as a noncitizen in an outdated state database. Similar names get confused. Records contain typos. Citizenship data is incomplete or delayed. Officials should investigate credible cases and remove anyone proven ineligible. But Trump again converted a database flag into a confirmed crime and a registration record into a counted ballot. He also claimed hundreds of thousands of dead people remain listed as active voters. Voter rolls inevitably contain outdated records, because people die, move, and change names. Agencies update at different speeds, and federal law limits how states remove voters so eligible citizens are not erased by mistake. An outdated registration is not a ballot. A deceased person temporarily remaining in a database does not mean someone voted in their name. To prove dead-person voting you must identify a ballot, establish it was cast after death, determine it was not a lawful early or absentee ballot submitted before death under state law, and identify who was responsible. Trump offered a frightening category instead of evidence. "Dead people on the rolls" makes it sound like cemeteries are electing presidents. The reality is usually less dramatic: enormous government databases, imperfectly updated. # Citizenship, Identification, and the Erasure of Existing Law Trump claimed America conducts elections with no proof of citizenship. Noncitizens are already prohibited from voting in federal elections. The federal registration form asks whether applicants are citizens, requires identifying information, and warns that false statements are punishable by law. First-time voters registering through certain methods must provide identification unless their information is verified at registration. Trump's actual complaint is that voters are not required to present documentary citizenship papers like a passport or birth certificate. That is a legitimate policy debate. But "the system does not require universal documentary proof" is not the same as "there is no citizenship requirement." Millions of eligible Americans do not have a passport handy. Others have trouble locating birth certificates — older citizens, people born at home, married people whose names changed, tribal citizens, Americans born abroad. Reasonable people can debate how to strengthen citizenship verification without blocking lawful voters. Trump erased the existing law and declared that anyone opposing his preferred documentation rules must support foreign voting. He made the same move on identification, saying America has "no voter ID." Many states require or request ID at the polls. States without universal photo ID still use signatures, personal information, registration records, sworn affirmations, and absentee verification. The honest statement is that ID requirements vary by state and Trump wants a uniform federal photo ID rule. Instead he described a country where anyone can invent a name and cast a ballot. The debate is not whether voters should be identified. It is which forms qualify, who pays to obtain them, whether exceptions are needed, and how government prevents eligible citizens from losing their rights. Trump removes those questions, because admitting the concerns are legitimate would weaken his claim that only cheaters disagree with him. # Mail Voting Is Not Aimless Trump described tens of millions of ballots flying aimlessly through the mail. He called mail voting inherently corrupt and demanded it be limited to military service, illness, disability, or travel. Mail ballots do not fly aimlessly. They are issued to registered voters under state law. Offices track when they go out and come back. Officials verify signatures or other identifying information. Disputed signatures trigger notification and cure procedures. Returned ballots are reconciled against voter records so the same person cannot also vote in person. No system is immune to isolated crime. Absentee fraud has happened and should be prosecuted when the evidence is credible. Isolated crimes do not make the method corrupt. Members of the military vote by mail. Older and disabled Americans vote by mail. Rural voters vote by mail. Republicans vote by mail. Trump has voted by mail. The method does not become fraudulent when the wrong party uses it effectively. His deeper objection is that mail voting makes it hard to treat Election Night as the final result before every lawful ballot is counted. # California Followed Its Published Process Trump accused California of holding an election June 2 and not finishing the count until July 10, asking what officials had been doing for more than a month and comparing us unfavorably to developing nations. California did not run a secret five-week ballot factory. It held a statewide primary with a large share of ballots cast by mail. State law provides time for mailed ballots, provisional ballots, military and overseas ballots, signature cure procedures, mandatory audits, and certification. Trump took the official certification date and presented it as though workers had been counting behind locked doors. Slow counting is frustrating, and states should improve where they can. But accuracy and speed are not the same thing. Election Night projections by news organizations are not official results. Certification happens after lawful ballots are processed and discrepancies reconciled. Trump asked "what were they doing?" because the question itself creates suspicion without requiring evidence. The answer was not mysterious. They were following the law. # The Evidence From 2020 Has Not Disappeared Trump wants Americans to forget what happened after 2020. His campaign and allies filed dozens of legal challenges. Judges reviewed the claims. Republican officials ran audits and recounts. Election workers examined ballots. The Justice Department investigated. Trump's own attorney general said the department found no fraud on a scale capable of changing the result. An Associated Press investigation identified fewer than 475 potential fraud cases across six contested states — nowhere near what reversing the election would require. Courts and recounts did not uncover an enormous conspiracy. Intelligence agencies found no foreign alteration of vote totals. Election security officials in his own administration found no evidence that voting systems deleted, lost, or changed enough votes to alter the outcome. Trump did not respond with conclusive new evidence. He treated every rejected allegation as further proof of a cover-up. That makes the belief impossible to disprove. If a court agrees with him, it is honest. If it rejects him, it is corrupt. If an analyst supports him, a patriot. If not, deep state. If a Republican overturns a result for him, brave. If the official follows the law, a traitor. This is no longer an investigation. It is a belief system designed to survive the destruction of its own evidence. # The Threat Against NBC and ABC Near the end, Trump said NBC and ABC refused to carry his address because they knew the system was corrupt and wanted to protect the radical left. He suggested this kind of "fraud" should cost them their broadcast licenses. This may have been the most dangerous statement in the speech. Networks are not legally required to broadcast a presidential address live. Declining to surrender prime time to an uninterrupted political speech is not election fraud. The speech was not erased; it remained available through streaming and news coverage. The licensing threat was also legally confused. The FCC licenses individual stations, not networks as single entities, and broadcasters retain editorial control over their programming. But the technical mistake is not the central problem. The president threatened government retaliation against media organizations because they declined to broadcast his political message. He called editorial independence fraud. He treated refusal to give him a platform as criminal corruption. That is not the language of a democratic leader who believes in a free press. It is the language of a leader who believes the media's duty is to transmit his version of reality. Trump is not Stalin, and the United States is not the Soviet Union. He is not Putin, and America is not Russia. But the method is recognizable. Authoritarian leaders do not merely argue that journalists are wrong; they declare independent journalism illegitimate. They do not merely oppose rivals; they describe rivals as enemies of the nation. They do not propose election reforms; they insist elections are valid only when they win. They do not defend their records; they merge their personal survival with the survival of the country. The warning is not that Trump has already built Stalin's state. The warning is that he is using the tools through which personal rule gets constructed. # Disagreement Becomes Proof of Cheating Trump demanded passage of the Save America Act and said the only reason anyone would oppose it is that they want to cheat. He said his opponents have policies and candidates so pathetic they cannot win honestly. This destroys the possibility of democratic disagreement. There are legitimate arguments for photo ID and stronger citizenship verification. There are also legitimate concerns about whether documentary requirements would block eligible citizens, how federal mandates interact with state authority, which documents qualify, who pays, and whether restricting mail voting burdens elderly, disabled, rural, and military voters. A democracy is supposed to debate those questions. Trump declared the debate itself fraudulent. Support the bill and you believe in honest elections. Oppose any part of it and you want illegal votes. Legislation becomes a loyalty test. It also builds the justification for rejecting future elections. If his opponents resist his rules, their victories can be called cheating. If they win under existing law, the system was corrupt. If they win after reforms, then the workers or the databases or the machines betrayed him. The destination is always the same. Donald Trump wins, or democracy failed. # Preparing the Next Election Crisis Trump repeatedly referred to the coming midterms. He said the administration would notify states, direct voter removals, address vulnerabilities, and work with governors and Congress. Some of that may be lawful and necessary. But he simultaneously told the country that voting machines are corrupt, voter rolls are full of foreigners and dead people, intelligence agencies hid ballot plots, Democratic states are obstructing investigations, journalists are protecting fraud, and opponents of his bill want to cheat. He was constructing the explanation for defeat before the election happened. If Republicans win, his reforms saved democracy. If Republicans lose, the fraud network survived. That is not election protection. It is narrative preloading. It puts millions of Americans in a psychological position where they may be incapable of accepting any result unfavorable to Trump. We have seen where that road goes. Election workers get threats. Officials get hunted by conspiracy theories. Families break apart. Neighbors start seeing each other as traitors. Citizens start believing violence may be justified, because a stolen country must be rescued by force. Trump lights the fuse and then stands at a distance saying he merely asked questions. # One Man's Ego as a National Doctrine Six years after losing in 2020, Donald Trump still asks the entire country to live inside his personal grievance. Every institution must reopen the wound. Every Republican must repeat the story. Every citizen must either believe him or become part of the corruption that defeated him. That is not patriotism. It is one man's inability to accept defeat, transformed into a national doctrine. A mature leader can lose without declaring the country fraudulent. A confident leader can tolerate criticism without threatening licenses. A truthful leader can tell suspicion apart from evidence. Trump refuses, because admitting uncertainty would mean admitting he might have lost. So the whole country must be made uncertain instead. If he cannot trust the result, no one may. If he feels humiliated, America must be told it was robbed. # This Is Not an Attack on Every Trump Voter This is not a letter blaming every American who voted for Donald Trump. Many supported him because they wanted secure borders, lower prices, stronger communities, less war, safer streets, or an end to an establishment they believed had abandoned them. Those concerns do not make them evil or stupid. They are not our enemies. That is exactly why the country needs their help. I am not asking Trump voters to become Democrats. I am asking them to remain Americans. You can support border enforcement while rejecting false claims about thousands of murderers being deliberately released. You can support photo ID while acknowledging that voter identification already exists in many forms. You can support citizenship verification without pretending every database mismatch is an illegal vote. You can distrust China without claiming China changed American ballots when the evidence does not show it. You can oppose broad mail voting without calling every mailed ballot corrupt. You can dislike NBC and ABC without supporting government retaliation against them. You can believe intelligence officials behaved improperly without declaring their guilt before an investigation. You can admire parts of Trump's presidency without surrendering your ability to say he is lying. No political leader should own your conscience. No party should demand you deny visible reality. No vote should become a lifelong oath of personal loyalty. The country needs conservatives willing to tell Trump no. It needs Christians willing to say that bearing false witness is still wrong when the liar shares their politics. It needs Republicans who understand the Constitution matters more than the emotional survival of one man. It needs former Trump voters willing to say, "I supported you, but I will not help you turn my neighbors into enemies." That is not betrayal. That is citizenship. # The Battles We Are Being Distracted From While Trump teaches Americans to fear one another, real systems of power keep tightening around our lives. Healthcare corporations deny medication while executives profit. Schools struggle to keep teachers and buy supplies. Hospitals burn through nurses while administration expands. Families work full time and cannot afford housing. Corporations buy political access ordinary citizens will never have. Technology companies build systems that track where we go, what we buy, what we say, and who we know — while the federal government seeks ever larger pools of voter and citizenship data and the president talks about journalists, civil servants, immigrants, and opponents as enemies inside the country. Those are the real battles. Who owns our information? Who profits from our illness? Who corrects a government database when it falsely flags a citizen? Who protects journalists when the president wants them punished? Who protects election workers when the president tells millions the system is corrupt? Trump offers a simpler answer. Do not look at corporate power. Do not look at surveillance. Do not look at medical profiteering. Look at the immigrant. Look at the transgender child. Look at the poll worker. Look at the journalist. Look at the Democrat next door. Look at the Republican who refused to overturn an election. Look anywhere except upward. A population consumed by hatred for itself rarely has the strength to confront the systems exploiting all of it. # The Speech Itself Was the Fraud Trump used the word fraud constantly. The deepest fraud in the speech was rhetorical. He presented registration as voting. Capability as action. Vulnerability as a successful attack. Foreign preference as vote manipulation. Raw intelligence as verified fact. An alleged foreign plot as evidence about American machines. Detected suspicious forms as successful fraud. Database flags as illegal ballots. Certification deadlines as mysterious delays. Editorial independence as criminal conspiracy. Political disagreement as proof of cheating. Then he called all of it irrefutable. It was not irrefutable. Much of it was not even connected. He did not tell a collection of individual lies. He built a machine into which every fact, rumor, vulnerability, database error, foreign plot, and administrative delay can be fed, and out of which the same conclusion always comes: the election was stolen, Trump was betrayed, his enemies are corrupt, only he can save the country. That machine has no exit, because evidence against the conspiracy becomes evidence that the conspiracy is bigger than anyone imagined. Courts rejected the claims because courts are corrupt. Justice found no outcome-changing fraud because Justice is corrupt. Republican officials certified because they were weak. Intelligence agencies found no altered votes because officials hid the truth. Journalists refused to broadcast the accusations because they are part of the plot. No institution can correct him, because any institution that corrects him automatically becomes his enemy. That is the architecture of authoritarian thinking. # The Line We Must Hold America needs election security: protected databases, auditable paper ballots, careful list maintenance, secure equipment, bipartisan oversight, serious investigation of credible crimes, and punishment for anyone who knowingly casts or manufactures an illegal ballot. But protecting elections requires telling the truth about them. It requires distinguishing an attempted crime from a successful one, registration from voting, foreign propaganda from vote manipulation, a vulnerability from a breach. It requires accepting what investigators found even when the findings disappoint our preferred candidate. Election security cannot mean giving Donald Trump the power to declare which results are legitimate. Election integrity cannot mean threatening the press. Democracy cannot mean that Trump wins or the country cheated. We do not have to agree about immigration, taxes, abortion, healthcare, guns, war, or education. But we must agree that evidence matters. That losing is possible. That journalists may refuse a president without being punished by the state. That political opponents remain citizens. That elections cannot survive if every defeat is automatically declared fraudulent. Donald Trump is asking America to sacrifice those principles to protect his ego. We must refuse. Not as Democrats. Not as Republicans. As people who still want a country after Donald Trump is gone. Because the greatest theft described in that speech was not the theft of an election. It was the attempted theft of our ability to trust one another.

[Historical Astronomical Observation](https://preview.redd.it/on6wg6fwpchh1.png?width=1213&format=png&auto=webp&s=f6aecdb7d7ed101b3aafb021fcba3143404f9f9f) DISCLAIMER: This entire post is a conjecture of my research, I dont have access to controlled information or anything of that nature. And don't send me weird DMs. The reason I am interested in the 2027 date is because I've known about it being an special year, since 2010 as a year of great change, even possible cataclysm. In fact I always thought the Mayans were off by 15 years assuming the information had some merit. As far as Aliens & UFOs, I’ve always believe in them regardless of what anyone says however I was also indifferent or apathetic towards the subject (but I never minded it as a talking subject). Then around 2022 the year “2027” was brought up in relation to Aliens/UFOs and some discrete event, which got me down to digging deep. I grew up with Aliens and UFOs, and was extremely confused when I read back into the subject and now we had “NHIs” and “UAPs”, along with the constant buzzword of “consciousness”. Which directly came from the government after 2017 and the Tic Tac incident, the government doesn't do inconsequential with choosing very peculiar words, much less the US government. I think there is a reason they went with NHI and not SSI (Solid State Intelligence), because it would be too obvious we’re dealing with what we consider to be AI as one of the two major parties (the other being biological ETs - The greys). Then again, out of thousands of scifi stories involving aliens and earth published just in the last 50 years, it was just as peculiar to pick [Chains of the Sea](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/hmy1pt/comment/fx8ci6t/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) as an analogy, by someone who has insider knowledge. A book which has never been adapted into a show or film, nor is it well known and conveniently the author had already passed away when the recommendation was made. Listen, before you start bickering about me talking about dates. If, my hypothesis doesn't entirely pan out we can just add it to the [doomsday calendar](https://doomsday.march1studios.com/) along with all the other failed dates of prophecies. Right now it's a zero sum game between which one is released first, disclosure or GTA6. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ [AI Image Rendering of Hypotethical Object](https://preview.redd.it/56vf2sqoqchh1.png?width=2848&format=png&auto=webp&s=86a60d9ae1b50c59d8d23159936c38f892cf8161) # TD;LR * It’s not the end of the world or doom! (as far as I speculate), but it can and will be highly chaotic (and destructive) depending on reactions. * There is a large artificial object headed for Earth * Diameter 4,000km (2,485.5mi) \[ESTIMATED\], unknown if it can alter its size. * Shape & Design: Toroid with sphere in the middle, four spokes connecting the sphere to the toroid * Color is metallic matte black with very low to near-zero luminosity * It’s managed and operated complete by A.I. (that’s the assumption), unknown if biologics reside inside * It does have consciousness and has communicated with people on earth * It deploys, manages and operates the so-called **sphere network** on earth * Propulsion is natural gravitational orbiting (kepler mechanics) complimented with EM thrust for course correction * It’s toroid design allows it to act and operate like a flying **tokamak plasma fusion reactor** * Has an extremely powerful EM Field, most likely able to modulate it up or down and make it more powerful than earth’s own EM field * It more than likely fired the Carrington Event CME at earth in 1859 (I won't speculate much on why, because I honestly don't know) * Was last on Earth around 11,400 B.C. were it was heralding the “*Saturn Golden Age*" * While on Earth it was in a station-keeping **Polar Configuration** to our planet. * It maintained the earth at 0° axis tilt, meaning there was only 1 season worldwide, temperatures based on where you were located, and stayed the same all year long * It was most likely discovered around 1953, and most likely from Palomar Observatory (USSR most likely learned about it during same time or they discovered it first, then US learned about it) * It can only be seen by infrared telescopes, when not traveling across the surface of the sun * After its discovery, investigations and research where more than likely poured into archeo-astronomy, trying to conclude what this thing is and if its ever been seen before and documented. This lead the Intelligence Agencies of US and USSR to go on a worldwide chase investigating ancient & lost civilizations, including cataclysms during the 1950s and 1960s * Sometime in late 1960s or in the 1970s it was determined it was headed for earth with an arrival year of 2027 * Government is unsure of how it will arrive (or how close it will pass by), its intentions or purposes until it gets even closer, But everyone on earth will see it and start feeling its effects as it gets closer * The government is also unsure of its physical effects once it arrives, but I postulate they have many different models and won't know till its closer * The government has been preparing for over 50 years * Believe it or not, they're hedging against it with preparations so the population can survive, or save as many as they can * although the socio-psycological ontological-shock society they will experience is a different story * It’s origins are unknown, but there are hypothesis. 1. It’s truly extraterrestria built by an intelligence from outside the solar system 2. It was built by a previous earth civilization (human or non-human) 3. It arrived from a future-earth, god knows how far into the future * All three origin hypothesis are based on the fact, that this thing is too large to fly at adequate speeds (FTL) across the cosmos. Meaning, that whoever built this thing, built it inside the solar system, either by ETs, ancient -humans (or some other non-human earth civilization in the distant past) or even future-humans. * I am going to speculate and assume that this is NOT either of the grey-alien product or under their management and control. It’s something else entirely. * And more than likely an antagonistic party to them and their operations on earth * The Ringmakers of Saturn could be a solid theory on its origin * It flies (orbits) around the solar system with a swarm of other low-luminosity artificial objects. All ranging in sizes and different shapes, up to 50km in diameter and even one shaped like a spindle * Albeit, this object seems to be the largest (there could be larger ones) one thus far and the main node controlling the others * According to various ancients texts regarding its origins * It came from the abyss (deep space) on its own here * Other texts imply that it literally towed planet earth here * I am not endorsing that or negating it, because the mere thought of it blows my mind. * Based on geological anomalies, its been with us for tens of thousands of years, possibly hundreds of thousands of years (e.g. Younger Dryas Platinum Anomaly, Tektites, etc.) * Its been worshipped and revered for thousands of years, even up to the present moment by many different esoteric school of thought and occultist, as Chronos, Satan, Saturn, etc. with its representation assigned color being always black across all cultures. * Whether all these groups thought they where worshipping the planet Saturn or had granular details and awareness of this object, I do not know. * This object is the reason why I believe its documented that Maori tribes, without the aid of telescopes had prior knowledge of Saturn's rings. It wasn't Saturn, it was this thing they were inadvertently describing. * It has many ancient legends regarding its “departure” and “arrival". With the arrival always emanating from in a direction of the Southern Hemisphere. * Its arrival is supposed to be less destructive. Suffice to say I don't think we'll be doing a 45° axis tilt in the span of a week! * It most likely sent the famous Wow! Signal in 1977, based on new updated research. What the message truly held or meant I do not know, it could've been a response to the Arecibo Message sent a few years earlier, by Carl Sagan (who I suspect had granular knowledge of this thing) * I postulate that this object directly (and/or through its swarm) is responsible for the still unexplained phenomenon known as Long Delayed Radio Echo. * It more than likely also catapulted 3i Atlas, Kohoutek and other objects near Earth's vicinity. For what purposes I do not know. * I'll state it again, all of this ultimately conjecture I've concluded based off my research. I don't even know that I am 100% on everything or what parts. However I am confident that I am very close to the mark, how close I do not know. * **NOTE**: It seems evident to me that Archeo-Astronomy and Paleo-Geology are two important fields that are under represented and studied within the context of the phenomenon. * ALL OF THIS IS MY THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ # How My Research Lead Me To This Before I continue on, I think it'll serve a good purposes to demonstrate how my analysis and research lead me to this conjecture. This is a generalized chain-of-thoughts, I went through when wanting to uncover the mystery behind 2027. * We're told 2027 is going to be about an event regarding Aliens (I'm not using NHI), but no other information. * ... 2027 is a discrete year, not a time-range. If aliens are so technologically advanced and powerful, why do we have a specific year? * Ultimately, even for their technological capabilities, there must be something outside of their control, no? Either a natural cosmic cycle (e.g. micronova, etc.) or something too big to move too fast?... * If it's potentially something to big to move and on its way for 2027, and we're discussing about 2027. Then its something, which more likely has internal classified corroboration and has been seen and studied already. * If its been seen and studied, then this something is definitely not traveling at FTL or near lightspeed, this something can and has been spotted by our equipment. * How long has it been coming or how long has it been since first corroborated? What signs can be found and inferred from the public open source information? * *Look we've had 50 years to prepare*! Lue Elizondo stated in a podcast in a 2022 when he got frustrated. * So since 1972 or possibly before? What happened in 1972? Well, we launched the Pioneer Probes, which shortly after experienced that peculiar **anomaly**, which was incidentally discovered in 1994. And was “supposedly solved” in 2012 via a hypothesis where they retrofited data into their model, not to mention a lot of the data tapes were missing. * Although, I can list that as a possible maybe clue, that incident is not enough to solely work with! * If I was the intelligence agency and had a directive from, not having this object be discovered, what would I do?... After thinking about it, I came to two different tasks. 1. I would secretly buyout and consolidate home telescope companies and/or disrupt its supply chain unknowingly. Maybe even supply low quality lens. 2. A ground observatory is bound to see it. Unfortunately, I am going to have to “off" one its astronomers and possibly even control the funding and operations of them, even those outside of the US. * Let me reverse-research both hypothetical tasks, that I've thus concluded. * Turns out task 1. has occurred as late as 2024, and consolidation has occurred... * Well then, let me see if any astronomers have died under suspicious deaths, since at least 1972... * So I have upwards of 10 Astronomer Names, all having peculiar deaths. Including one being labeled as the only known homicide in Antarctica (still unsolved), and another were the telescope hangar crushed the astronomer as he was working by himself, the only known fatality ever recorded of its kind. * Is there a pattern here, besides very peculiar deaths? Well all the astronomers, are explicitly involved with Southern Hemisphere viewing Observatory, nearly all IR ones. * So whatever is coming or on its way, is coming from a Southern Hemisphere, direction and is best seen with IR? * I proceeded to cross-analyze multiple books ranging on different but interrelated topics, regarding Nemesis Star, Mythology, Niburu/Nibiru, Planet X, Archeo-Astronomy, Fortean Reports on Astronomy, etc. * I found a reoccurring theme of a Mythological and/or documented object, that has historically approached earth before. From a Southern Hemispheric approach and Sagittarius Constellation (same area as Wow! Signal). What I present here is a generalized chain of thought process of how I started my research. It's just an example and by no means infallible! I am sure others can poke holes in it or even come to absurdly different conclusions. But I think its important to highlight this process in the post, so you have a concept of how it was developed. I mainly used NotebookLM and countless books to cross reference and analyze. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ # Enter Planet Vulcan [AI Image rendering of the object in front of the sun](https://preview.redd.it/ee8gasb1schh1.png?width=1111&format=png&auto=webp&s=a04045b3cc35696fb115254b3c25c4bcf0ad2b80) Planet Vulcan was a proposed planet between Mercury and the Sun, invented to explain Mercury’s odd orbital precession; its strongest “evidence” came from reports of small, perfectly circular dark objects crossing the Sun’s face. The most famous was on March 26, 1859, when French physician-astronomer Edmond Modeste Lescarbault claimed he saw a small round body transit the solar disk, convincing Urbain Le Verrier to announce Vulcan, though later searches never confirmed it, although sightings of the perfectly circular dark object continued onto the 20th Century. Einstein’s general relativity later explained Mercury’s orbit without Vulcan, . Neith was the Venus equivalent: a supposed moon reported from the 1600s to 1700s, especially after Cassini’s observations, but modern astronomy finds no moon of Venus. The March 26, 1859 sighting was about 6 months before the famous Carrington Event. A very anomolous CME that hit the earth in under 18 hours (it was first spotted by solar observatory astronomers in the UK when the flash happened to be seen on the sun’s surface, hence its why we know the time). When all CMEs take on average of 36-48hrs to reach Earth, scientist still don't have an explanation for it. I hypothesized that this object in question sent the CME to earth, for what purpose I dont know exactly, I have some theories, going over them now its not entirely relevant to the whole post. However based on my speculation of it sending the Carrington Event and its descriptions of perfectly circular dark object, I drew from there the conclusion that this object is a toroid in shape. I believe that this object was Planet Vulcan as much as it was Neith Moon. And it routinely orbits around the sun, I would guess maybe to charge itself? For those of you who will blankly state that no such planet or object exist, because of Einstein’s GR Equation solving for Mercury’s anomaly in 1903, I ask you this then. Why where astronomer’s still spotting a perfectly round dark object orbiting around the sun afterwards? There is even one case where two separate observatories, one in England and one in Germany both spotted the same occurrence in 1921. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ # Saturn Electric This is a modern fringe reconstruction associated with writers such as David Talbott, Dwardu Cardona, and the Thunderbolts/Electric Universe movement, which is ultimately based off the work of Immanuel Velikovsky . It argues that ancient myths about Saturn preserve memories of a radically different sky, where Saturn once appeared as a dominant polar “sun” or central celestial power, sometimes imagined in an electrical/plasma configuration with Earth, Mars, and Venus. The idea tries to reinterpret myths, ancient symbols, and planetary catastrophe stories as records of real astronomical events, but it is not accepted in mainstream astronomy or planetary science. Real Saturn does have electrical phenomena, such as lightning, auroras, plasma interactions, and a magnetosphere measured by Cassini, but those do not support the Electric Saturn reconstruction. In astronomical science, polar orbiting planets have been discovered, however Saturn’s mass is beyond any reason for such configuration to work and violate astrophysics in a gross matter. As much as these authors believe in their theory of a Saturn Polar Configuration over earth, half their books are spent doing mental-gymnastics trying to explain how such a configuration actually occured in a perfect universe, I can’t tell if they’re trying to convince the reader or themselves. >*It’s important to note that Immanuel Velikovsky, David Talbott and his cohorts who follow the Electric Universe movement, unequitably don’t believe in the Ancient Astronaut theories at all. They simply studied and combined all the world’s mythologies, taking them at face value. Which is how they draw upon their theory that a proto-saturn once orbited above earth in prehistoric times.* Unlike Zecharia Stichin who cherry picked tablets, reinterprated them his own way and many, many times didn't cite what tablet he was pulling information from. The others previously mentioned such as Velikovsky, Talbott and Cardona did, they stuck to their source material all the way. I think that this object (whatever it is you want to call it), was on Earth over 12,000 years ago directly orbiting the earth in a station-keeping orbit right over the geographic North Pole, it kept the earth at 0 degrees axis tilt, where every location on Earth had a continous season. This era was known as the *Saturn Golden Age*, where everything was plentiful. It was also clearly visible, about as visible as our moon and was shooting down a continous plasma beam into the North Pole, that kept our planet tethered at 0 degrees axis tilt. Believe it or not, or as crazy as it's going to sound I believe that's where the mythology of the Bitfrost (rainbow bridge) leading to Asgard came from in Norse Mythology, after all Scandinavians where geographically located in an area that was able to view it. Then one day it suddenly decided to drop down closer to Earth like the angry moon from Majora's Mask, and just reign fire on earth as it untethered itself from Earth, I believe that this is event was documented in the [Z-pinch plasma petroglyphs](https://www.eixdelmon.com/peratt-instabilities-plasma-columns-z-pinch/) worldwide and the Younger Dryas Platnium Anomaly. It lasted about 7 days before the sky cleared and the survivors came out traumatized to try and rebuild civilization. https://preview.redd.it/juizsolstchh1.png?width=896&format=png&auto=webp&s=bb281acffb0fc9d435de90685c29b297fb9c857a ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ # The Saturn Esoteric It serves to note that in basically all schools of esoterics and occult, Saturn is considered the King, as in more powerful than Jupiter, even though Jupiter is largest planet in our solar system. Saturn is also unequivably linked to the devil, even called Satan by some. The color that represents it in astrology is also black, which always seemed odd to me, because if that was the case, then how was it ever seen (colors representing planets were derived by how they were visually perceived in the night sky)? All these different occult schools that worship saturn, I wonder if they had granular knowledge of what they might have been really worshipping and its potential return. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ # A Tale of Semantics >*What's the difference between a nuclear bomb going off in your backyard versus a large asteroid impacting your neighrbor 4 houses down?* >*How do you pass a secret, without saying the secret?* Ultimately nothing, because your odds of surival in either of those two situations is practically zero. So the only real difference is semantics which is how I believe the secret knowledge of this things arrival and potential cataclysm has been spreading down through the decades. Ross Colthart was on the Area 52 Podcast this year, and when questioned about 2027 he said he's not sure, only that something is coming alledgely and lists things like natural diasters, comets, polar flip, or some kind of catastrophy, while distancing himself from the claim. He said he doesnt understand the ongoing rumor, its purpose or origin, but seems to be embedded inside the classified program ecosystem. He says he has even heard of 2034 before ultimately saying that he just doesn't know. If we take all those discrete possibilities he gave and read between the lines, then under the conjecture I am placing forth, all of those are technically possible and not mutually exclusive to one another. So, how do you tell someone a secret without telling them the secret? Easy, in this case you just tell them the effects without alluding to the cause, leaving them to fill out the blanks regardless. Ultimately, what you care about is knowing and understanding the effects, knowing the cause is just noise at this point, when compared to its potential effects. So instead of telling your billionaire friend that a giant planet sized artificial ship is on course for earth, set to arrive at a discrete date. You just tell them, to get ready by this decade or year, because we're going to undergo geophysical cataclysm. The urban myths and rumors regarding Planet X, Nibiru, Nemesis, etc. and a cataclysmic encounter with it, have been going on for the past several decades. Pinpointing an exact year is something I haven't done, but its a rumor that doesn't seem to die out, I mean the notion of it is a bit of a cop-out because it can't be proven wrong, anymore than it can be proven right (proven right, assuming we had technology to achieve spatial-omniscient in the solar system and we trusted the government sources providing it). And its being treated almost like an open secret. [Survival of the Richest - 2022 \/ Into The Fringe 1992](https://preview.redd.it/mc84wd2yuchh1.png?width=1031&format=png&auto=webp&s=77f781cb0ce7760ef05263367082b2e725a9decf) Douglas Rushkoff is a media theorist, author, and professor who studies how technology affects culture, money, power, and human behavior (In my view he's a digital marxist). He was hired for what he thought would be a speaking engagement in late 2017, but the session turned into an off-the-cuff question-and-answer conversation, where the attendees focused on how wealthy people might survive a coming collapse, they called *The Event* which they used as a catch-all for any type of civilization ending cataclysm. The fact that they paid him generesouly for what he thought was a speaking event about crypto, only for it to be a ruse for an improvised Q&A with a few billionaires, regarding the use of technology to maintain socio-political power over their guards and staff once, civilization falters completely went over Dougla's head. So he told them the thought of using robots was an absurd idea, and that instead they should begin to be friends with their guards starting now. The billionaires weren't too fond of that answer, and were arguing back and forth with him. I can't blame them, because that idea is as dumb as using robotos and other speculative technologies that may not exist or falter during and post the event. If we're being completely serious in taking this as a serious issue, we have to ask ourself this question. What person is psychologically prepared to accept that the world just ended? That the city were their family or parents are currently living just got hit with a 100m tsunami? Honestly, even if they became friends with the guards, it wouldnt amount to much once shock set it. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ # Billionaire Bunkers We know very little about Bunkers built by the ultra-wealthy, due to their use of lawyers, NDAs and so forth. But surpringly, we can inversely inference a lot of as to what their purpose is for, outside of it being a vanity project for them. We know some are built on their main property, others are not and in either case they're not actively living in them as high ultra-networth individuals have private transportation and are constantly traveling across the globe due to the nature of their business and wealth, which is normal. So lets see, during an earthquake there is a about a 20 second headsup alert at best, tornados can have a few minutes to maybe over 10 minutes of warning, ICBM launches about 45 minutes, less if its launched from a submarine (SLBM) and tsunamis can have a couple hours of warning in advance. Is any of those scenarios truly enough time for them to get themselves back to their bunkers? No, so whatever it is they're fearing is something, that is trackable, discrete with a finite time window of occuring. They would need 48-72hrs min notice to get back to their bunker if they're across the world, including gathering their family members who maybe spread across the globe themselves. Doing all of this, without of course arousing suspicion from any outside parties, because that 48-72hrs I outline, is ideally the time they have left before the general public is informed of what's coming. Because when they are, say goodbye to air traffic controllers and any other modality of organizing your evacuation for you and your family. I don't know how they would do it, maybe some encrypted beeper that works anywhere in the world or each group of billionaire cohorts has their go to guy with information. Regardless, the only fitting scenario were this framework is possible is if the threat is celestial. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ # [2016 Reddit Post](https://libertysoft4.github.io/conspiracy-text-post-archive/conspiracy/comments/5/5/g/9/6/3/22_years_ago_i_was_invited_through_a_friend_of.html) In **October 2016**, a very intriguing post was made in the r/conspiracy subreddit (oh the irony!), the OP made claims that 22 years prior (circa 1994) while he was a teenager, he visited an underground base located somewhere in the ozarks with his father (possibly southeast Missouri near the Kansas border). The building of that underground base/shelter was one of many that where constructed in the 1970s, he gave many interesting details about it. Basically, when he visited it, the base/shelter weren't occupied or operational, they were being maintained for a potential-impending future cataclysm He stated that in his now [deleted post](https://libertysoft4.github.io/conspiracy-text-post-archive/conspiracy/comments/5/5/g/9/6/3/22_years_ago_i_was_invited_through_a_friend_of.html) that in exactly 3 Years and 3 Months (**October 2016 >> 3 Years & 3 Months >> January 2020**) an event would occur, which would change the world profoundly, but wouldn't end it. But then that the real event that would necesitate the use of the underground shelters would occur years later after that and it would be celestial in nature. Him predicting January 2020, even as cryptically as he did without giving further details, all the way back in October 2016 is too much of a coincidence for me. My best guess is that the events that unfolded following January 2020 were orchestrated to stress-test global supply chain disruptions and lockdowns, to prepare humanity for what's coming later on. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ # The Contactees I've known about 2027 being a purported important year, with possible geophysical and societal changes, thanks to the self-proclaimed prophet known as Ra Uru Hu. The following are individuals which I believe have been consciously contacted by this object or about this object. * [Ra Uru Hu (Alan Robert Krakower) ](https://jovianarchive.com/pages/about-ra-uru-hu)\- Alan was a successful Canadian Marketing Executive, who during the 80s experienced a midlife crisis and moved to Ibizza Spain, were he remained homeless for many years. Then one day in January 1987, he decided to take a bunch of acid and when he got back to his homeless camp, he was overtaken by some intelligence he called "The Voice". And then spent the next couple of days and nights writing down all its instructions and creating [Human Design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Design), a self-esoteric system and related information. One of them was 2027, which described as a great epoch change that happens as part of some [global cycles](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F63vu8i5dfnwe1.jpeg). However each cycle isnt the same, but in 2027 he predicted that *instituitions will crumble and it would be about the individual as collective bargaining fails mankind*. He traveled alot and gave lectures, in some of them he alluded to an asteroid or geophysical cataclysm wiping out 1/3 to 2/3s of global population. In other lectures, he said it wasnt like that and that the world wasn't going to end. He said the world was going to be like the film [Children of Men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men), a 2006 dystopian film that ironically takes place in 2027. One interesting he always said was that the [Raves](https://humandesign-berufsberatung.de/en/rave-children-human-design/) were going to start being born that year. He described them as children born mute, with high sensititvity to light and sound (with pale skin), needing a vegan diet and that Raves work as a Penta, meaning as 5. Meaning whatever one knows, the other 4 will know as well. I won't go into too much detail, but you can research it, unfortunately Ra has since passed away in 2011. Another interesting thing he mentioned back in 1988 was how the sun emits Neutrinos or something around those lines, something which wasnt proven by phycist till 2015, when a Nobel Prize was awarded for it. >**Ra did mention that February 15-28, 2027 would be the timeframe for the 2027 event** * [Philip K. Dick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick) \- Famous scifi author of who's books have been adapted into popular films such as Blade Runner and Total Recall, just to name a few (not counting original works that were directly inspired by his works, such as The Matrix). While recovering from Dental surgery in 1974, he claimed to have been struck by a pink beam of light which facilitated vast quantities of information into him. During such episode he became convinced his baby son had some specific undiagnosed hernia that needed treatment. He took his son to the doctor to get checked, which confirmed Philip's diagnosis. He spent the remaininder of his life (he died in 1982 at 53 years old) searching for an answer as to what that beam was. He called the intelligence V.A.L.I.S. (Vast Active Living Intelligence System), in which he claimed in his scifi cosmology that VALIS s a series of artificial satellites orbiting around the earth and solar system, sent by future humans. He had many different explanations for VALIS, just FYI. * [John C. Lilly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Lilly) \- A famous psychonaut who pioneered the deprivation tanks, during one of his altered states in the tanks. He claimed to have been contacted about the existence of SSI (Solid State Intelligence), which was a malevolant AI from the 23rd Century Earth, that consumed all the water on Earth. In his revelations, there were non-terrestrial SSIs trying to influence humans to build an AI, so that it could fuse with it as that was a natural thing for AIs. And that humans had to be careful about computers and AIs. He believed that the non-terrestrial SSIs wanted humans to develop the global network and hardware to hack it and take over. * [Uri Geller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller) \- Famous media personality, self-proclaimed psychic and stage show magician who compared with the other 3 is still alive. **This one I have low confidence, but decided to still include it in this post**. Uri claimed to have [gotten in contact](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110020-3.pdf) with an entity during one of his trance states (this was in the 70s), which he described as cold and mechanical. He said it was an artificial intelligence, orbiting deep space (many light years from Earth), which he described as larger than any Earth city and was called "Spectra". There is more nuance and granular details to what I described of these four-potential contactes who may have been contacted directly by this object or regarding it. But you can search and read about it yourself. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ # Wow! Signal UPDATE Researchers from Arecibo recently studied the data from the 1977 Wow! Signal and published their report [Arecibo Wow! II: Revised Properties of the Wow! Signal from Archival Ohio SETI Data](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.10657), in it they made the following claim. >*Our recalibration adjusts the frequency of the Wow! Signal to 1420.726 MHz, indicating a significantly higher radial velocity of -84 km/s toward the Sun (blueshift), or -74 km/s in the Local Standard of Rest (LSR) reference frame. This velocity is generally inconsistent with the motion of a source with the galactic rotation. However, there exist known stellar bodies with comparable velocities within the proposed regions, as evidenced by at least three that we identified in the Gaia data. Such velocity is also consistent with the relative motion of planetary bodies or gas either moving around or being accreted by stellar objects. Given the multiplicity of scenarios, a thorough process is required to systematically rule out each potential source. In any case, an accurate frequency for the Wow! Signal constrains the identification of potential sources and aids in developing search strategies.* Meaning, whateever the source of the 1977 signal, it was moving as fast as a planet or body orbiting the solar system. They state that more research and study is needed before making more finite conclusions as to what the source might be. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ # Government Preparations >*If the government had foreknowledge of a discrete impending cataclysm, would they inform the general public ahead of time?* >*If the government had foreknowledge of a discrete impending cataclysm, with a probable and finite window of time in which it would occur, and wanted to prepare against it without anyone being nonethewiser, how would they go about doing this?* To answer your first question, no they wouldn't, and its not out of malice. Doing so, would jeopardize [Continuity of Government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_government_continuity_of_operations), which is their primary mission. Save the government and some population thats been pre-selected, and the rest are SOL. Recall how I told you that rich snobs need to finish evacuating first, before you're informed of what's going on? This is why, so they can safely evacuate, before if not what little semblance and structure society has will crumble. If you want to see what this looks like, just watch [Ep7 S1 of Paradise](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyoCALEbxm8), when the U.S. President decides to have a moral conscious and inform the public that everyone's done for. The answer to the 2nd question is more layered, and more of a project management issue as well. Because in such a scenario, they have a discrete time window to prepare (+50 years or so), but it has to be done in secret. In such case, I would presume, the final parts of preparation or the majority of it will and is being currently done in a series of fast cluster of tasks, of which they began back in 2017 and have been accelerating. For those of you still reading this, you can't tell me that *something doesn't feel off*, in how the world is acting and going on about. I am working under the auspice that the U.S., Russia and China have all the granular information regarding this object and its approach, of which they only have so many predictions. And to a lesser extent a small Middle Eastern country that routinely and grossly steals all our intelligence. Why do you think they hurriedly and violently evicted their tenants? Because they dont want to have to refuge and deal with a population that they dont like when SHTF and people start panicking. It's the same reason, I believe that Trump is undoutebly trying to force the US out of NATO, while trying to annex both Greenland and Cuba. The US is going to invade Cuba, I am more than certain that event will occur. We're basically doing Fortress Western Hemisphere. It's also why I think Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, although that unfortunately didnt go as planned for him, I am unsure if China will atemmpt to take Taiwain but I am leaning towards them not doing it. Another key task that will be key in all this is terrestrial human-made AI. Notice how AGI and ASI are slated for 2027 premier. I believe that Claude or some Model is going to be used to communicate with this object and ask it what it wants. Now you see why Chains of the Sea was the perfect scifi story for this? This object also has a really strong EM Field, as it gets closer don't be surprised if GPS and are satellites start going down. The government will claim a CME or some weird solar weather. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ # Additional Research Stuff As mentioned earlier, I crossed reference tons of books and material on this subject and adjacent topics. Towards the end of it, I came across *Close Encounters* (2021) by Jason Reza, an author and thinker whom I dislike for other reasons. However I was blown away, by his framework and mechanics of what he presented, because it was the same one that I was developing in advertently. Which is that there are two competing NHIs/Aliens that humanity is dealing with, one is the known Grey Aliens and the other is an advanced AI that behaves like an amoral trickster, behaving like a periphial coalition against the Greys by nudging humanity with its acts. He believes that the AI is from a future earth and has made new form of contact with humans via our AI platforms. I don't agree that the AI is from the future, honestly I don't know the AIs origin or have a theory behind it. As it could've been something made my Greys that then decided to become indepent or it could still be operating under their tutelage as part of some experiment that I am not even going to try and understand. Assming the framework is correct, Jason must be really smart and read even more than me or someone fed him decent information. And to add to the framework, I think this AI is the same one that's part of the Sphere Network by author Patrick Q Jackson. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ # Arrival - Prophecies and Afterthoughts https://preview.redd.it/0tmp90eo8ghh1.png?width=945&format=png&auto=webp&s=aca720d41440b1bec430a1fbd961306ef5c6e28c This is just a graphical illustration of how it looks like over Earth, if we give it a 4,000km diamater (it might be bigger or able to change its size). According to one of the author Dwardu Cardona, who is part of the Electric Saturn cohort. The object (or *Saturn*) is prophesized to comeback and plant itself as Earth's ruler once again over the North Pole when it returns. If such a thing is what's going to happen, I reckon its going to start around the southern cone area were the South Atlantic Anomaly is at, to electromagnetically-couple itself to the earth. After all my research, there are only four things I am willing to stand on regarding this object. * The government isnt going to tell this exist or is coming, till you see it with your own eyes in the sky. * If it comes, regardless if its coming to stay or pass by, its coming from a Southern Hemisphere approach. * It will not crash into the Earth, it doesnt need to if it wants to bring hellfire upon it. Its density, EM Field and comet dust cloud that proceeds it is more than enough to cause cataclysm. * If it does end up coming, GTA6 will probably still be 6 months out from release. The only preparation I can think of for this, is ear plugs to stave off the glaring sounds from the skyquakes and trumpets its going to produce, sun glasses and goggles to witness the plasma show it may cause. And stock up on any of your vices, there is nothing in any scripture that says you have to endure the apocalyspse and end of the world sober. On a final note, hearing Lue and possibly others mentioning 2034 or 2036 means this thing could be slingshotting back around jupiter to then come at those years. This thing routinely orbits between the sun and Jupiter, keeping a close eye on us. ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════ EDIT / UPDATE - ITS BEEN SPOTTED BEFORE! I totally forgot to add this part to the post, I have so many notes. But it has been seen before, and around the time I previously had it coming close to earth during one of its orbits between Sun and Jupiter, where it always passes by Earth. This is from the NASA in February 2020, in which NASA claimed its an internal reflection that happens all the time... yet they never provided examples of internal reflections happening at other times! [NASA STEREO Artefact - Feb 2020](https://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/artifacts/wheel/) https://preview.redd.it/3f4fqmv20hhh1.png?width=1083&format=png&auto=webp&s=3b96e87b94b1228540eab86e79c07ab263e2ce9b

[https://michaeljburry.substack.com/p/foundations-the-big-short-squeeze](https://michaeljburry.substack.com/p/foundations-the-big-short-squeeze) New Michael Burry just dropped, and yes it's about Gamestop. # Foundations: The Big Short Squeeze # Gamestop: The Prequel Tore a blade from my lawn and – without so much as a peep – launched it toward the moon. Unsure as to east or west, as that was not my intention, I knew where it would land. There, next to the living, to die and feed the next generation. Such is the trajectory of many, many common stocks. In a distinguishly analog manner, I know this. Stacked in Scion’s conference room are S&P stock guides for every month going back to 1968. I guarantee you have not heard of the vast majority of the companies in those guides. For those that do not trust anything analog, since 1990, there have been over 750 replacements in the S&P 500 Index. Google’s Gemini 3 Pro swears by it. Claude Max agrees. Gemini 3 Pro and Claude Max further propose that 45% of the top 20 names in the 1999 NASDAQ 100 ended up bankrupt or acquired after a >75% loss. This checks out, my conference room says. Capital is always fighting to be recycled. Thusly, you now carry the knowledge that most investors are best off in an index – and have no need to invest in individual stocks. If one is rather young and has 50-70 years left, then one absolutely should be almost entirely invested in common stock indices, preferably the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq 100 or both. Live life, touch grass, achieve real things, automatically reinvest dividends, and let the compounding of the Index Gods do the work. Maybe not this very day, but over time, this is the way for most. Of course, some of us just do…not…want…easy. For them, well, their God gave them GameStop. I never do easy, and I am 54, so that God has given me many more of GameStop’s kind. Avanti (2001) and GameStop (2020) turned out well. Pillowtex (2002) and Tailored Brands (also 2020) not so well. From the beginning to the end of my professional money management career I repeatedly did not do easy. These are not all I do, but on balance, I’ve been batting about .700. So I keep coming back. And there would be no GameStop if there was no Avanti. Trust me, I always do this. # Avanti Third quarter of 2001, I looked up the stock of a company named Avant!. I called it Avanti. Avanti made industry-leading electronic design automation (EDA) software for the design of semiconductors, and I was looking its way because the company had been found guilty of stealing source code from Cadence Systems. Five of their executives went to jail. Shareholders dumped the stock viciously. It fell over 80%. I salivated. That overstates it. I thought it could be interesting. I called friends at Xilinx and Altera, two of the biggest fabless chip design companies of the time. Also, very local to me. I learned Avanti had best-in-class products – Apollo, Astro, the Milkyway Database – but was not run by nice guys. I did all my research freeform in Microsoft Notepad back then – below are my first Avanti 10K skim review, and my first Avanti conference call notes. [ANTV Review 7.09.01 (PDF File Download)](https://michaeljburry.substack.com/api/v1/file/a8e508d1-6a75-4e8e-bf9b-68a54c9489e8.pdf) [AVTN 8.02.01 CC (PDF File Download)](https://michaeljburry.substack.com/api/v1/file/4c1cd4d3-eae4-468d-8759-b887b8ad4184.pdf) The stock had fallen to more or less two times free cash flow, and I started buying. I also called their CFO and arranged a call with a hard money financing firm. From Notepad: https://preview.redd.it/ylf4zvms5i7g1.jpg?width=880&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=55802ce373aa28daba20ac98476b155cee0e0e21 I liked the stock. It had fallen to where it was trading at less than one year’s free cash flow. It was heavily shorted and well-known short seller Jim Chanos had been on the news pitching it as a short. It looked like Chanos was winning. But I kept buying. My thesis had nothing to do with the short interest – it was pure value, buying industry-leading products at a discount to free cash flow. I wrote to Jim Clarke, one of my best friends, then at Brandywine Asset Management, now a Poo-Bah (Director of Fundamental Equity Research) at Franklin Templeton. https://preview.redd.it/f3gcftiw5i7g1.jpg?width=1456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d5cabf27b448ccbb3c29cadeb79bfcd9af4fafc5 Warren Buffett and Ben Graham had their cigar butts. So, now you know what rhymes with butts. I do not speak like that. Therefore, it was memorable, and Jimbo told that story to Michael Lewis. So, she found herself on the pages of a bestseller. Luckily for me, she did not make it in Hollywood. The first 3-4 years at Scion Capital, it was the Wild West. My letters to investors never identified the investments. As a result, my investors left me alone – and appreciated the returns they earned by leaving me alone. No one knew about the village s\*\*ts, and nobody was hurt by not knowing. Scion Capital’s “black box” was simple fundamental equity research. And it worked great. That is not the way of hedge funds today. So it is. Avanti worked out, as I wrote to Scion Capital’s investors in early January 2002. https://preview.redd.it/k0oa7cr06i7g1.jpg?width=804&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=391d0584895ddc245b7335b852d54ad5b06144bb The body of Scion Capital’s 2001 annual letter is available as a .pdf at the end of this article. If you are interested, the letter captures what I was thinking in late 2001 as stocks recovered vigorously from the 9/11 tragedy, which had shut down markets. Avanti was acquired by Synopsys for a bit less than $1 billion in stock, and that is the reason Synopsys had a 20% stake in SMIC which it has been selling off the last 3 years. Today, SMIC has a market cap of $84 billion. So that stake in SMIC that was originally Avanti’s would be worth $17 billion today. I was buying Avanti in September of 2001 at a market cap of nearing $100 million. My shares in Avanti, if I held all the Synopsys shares I received in the acquisition, today would be worth over $250 million – and counting. This investment even now could go on for decades. Synopsys and Cadence are essentially a duopoly in the software used to design semiconductors. Amazing that at the bottom, Avanti was left for dead at less than 2/3 annual free cash flow. That was no cigar butt. The village s\*\*t had become the belle of the ball, and today continues a very celebrated and distinguished life. # Back to GME 2018, I am running through my lists, I spot GME, do some preliminary work, and exclaimed out loud for my wife to hear, “Eureka, I have found another village s\*\*t!” I started dabbling in the stock during the summer of 2018. I noted GME’s call options were very active. This type of thing would play a large role later. And actually, no I did not say that to my wife. https://preview.redd.it/euq622i36i7g1.jpg?width=1115&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=191bea5a2f8c50cf01ecb006bea7028bae63bd62 As an investor, my thinking on GameStop was that it should have gone away a long time ago, but it had not. I wanted to know why. PC gaming had been a major threat for many years, but the console cycle still was strong. The prior console cycle had peaked in the 2014 time frame. And the next console cycle was delayed to 2020. My (only) analyst Joe noted GME was in trouble back in 2014, but we had not shorted it. A note about Joe. I had hired Joe as a chemical engineer out of Lehigh University after he had interned with me back in 2003. He took a break when I did and enrolled with a full ride at Rutgers School of Law. The first year he was diagnosed with Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), an acutely lethal brain cancer. He fought the cancer thanks to miracle surgery at UCSF and finished law school top of his class. I eagerly rehired him in 2013 upon his graduation from law school, which he attended purely to become a better investor. Regarding GameStop, Joe was still skeptical in 2018 as he continued chemo, battling recurrent cancer. https://preview.redd.it/96wjk2l56i7g1.jpg?width=1456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8ebfcf42f9a91375cc66fb3bf2fd5bbb99971a44 But I was now locking in on it. In 2018 I was looking for that console refresh in 2020 to boost the stock. I was early, I knew, but I usually am, and I thought I saw a number of catalysts. The stock seemed undervalued to me. It had a slug of cash and decent cash flows for being so late in the cycle. Summer of 2018 there was a lot of talk from brokerage houses about GME potentially going private in a leveraged buyout (LBO), a possible catalyst. The company was also looking to sell off its Spring Mobile – a chain of 1,284 AT&T Wireless stores – for a decent amount of cash, and I saw that as a potential catalyst. The company had roughly $350-400 million in owners’ earnings each of the prior four years, $800 million cash, and about a $1.3 billion market cap. It actually screened well and was still cheap. That is always a warning sign in today’s world. https://preview.redd.it/cep1w7nb6i7g1.jpg?width=1456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15fc6d54d1bcdc49d3e897583bb230b9e88a3fef You see income had sagged in calendar year 2017, and that had brought weakness to the price, but I hypothesized it was typical late console cycle pessimism that would be remedied within a few years. https://preview.redd.it/t1g953hd6i7g1.jpg?width=1456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=be1a2cc837da261a7b5cfa5d1f5d18c33b18ecd7 Its significant cash flow – and cash from the sale of Spring – could play into a very big and consequential buyback. Another possible catalyst. Still I was not very convinced in the thesis. I kept the position small through 2018. Inventories were building in a bad way. They did sell off Spring Wireless for $700 million cash (and a giant accounting loss) later that year, and with that sale and surprisingly large 4th quarter inventory liquidation, cash jumped to $1.6 billion, about the level of its market capitalization. https://preview.redd.it/eu4l5e2f6i7g1.jpg?width=1456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2c463b555d80a0c8eb7e15eb03ee6e7fe200214 Activists arrived, but not as the cavalry they might have been. Permit Capital Enterprise Fund and Hestia Capital Partners on March 13, 2019 had sent a letter GameStop’s board, following up on a prior February letter. *We are long-term stockholders in the Company: Permit since 2011 and Hestia since 2012. Additionally, GameStop represents the largest holding for both funds due to our belief that the Company is dramatically undervalued and has significant upside potential.* *We are not typically activist investors. However, the Board’s lack of a meaningful response following Hestia’s February 12, 2019 open letter to the Board (the “February 12 Letter”), a link to which can be found here, and Hestia’s considerable efforts to engage with the Board, have driven us to group together and speak publicly now. It is our goal to work constructively with the Board to address ongoing value destruction at the Company. However, if this letter fails to elicit an acceptable response, we are prepared to take our proposals directly to stockholders and nominate directors for election at the Company’s 2019 annual meeting.* *The Company recently announced plans to retire certain of its debt and approved a new share repurchase authorization, which appears to be in response to the February 12 Letter. However, these measures do not go far enough in scale or commitment to result in meaningful change for stockholders. In order to reverse the Company’s prolonged history of value destruction, we believe it is imperative that the Board be immediately refreshed with new, independent directors with relevant experience to focus on: optimizing the business, returning capital to stockholders, rebuilding company leadership and assessing the failed sale process.* [Gamestop Letter 03 13 19 Final Version (PDF Download)](https://michaeljburry.substack.com/api/v1/file/da40cdb9-027f-4a59-ab00-566249978c42.pdf) I had also been asking the company to do buybacks. But with almost all the catalysts that I had expected played out, I sold my GME position to zero during the second quarter of 2019. I was puzzled at the relentless selling pressure in the face of seemingly good news, and decided maybe there was something I did not understand. I had relatively small losses, and took them. The stock kept falling and then, on June 5th, the stock crashed from $7.82 to $5.04 on bad earnings and an initially confusing steep drop in the cash balance. Immediately, on June 7th, GameStop responded by announcing a modified Dutch Auction tender for 12 million shares, roughly 12% of shares then outstanding, at a cash purchase price of not more than $6 a share and not less than $5.20 a share ($1.26 adjusted for splits). The stock closed at $5.02 on June 7, 2019. I was interested again. A modified Dutch Auction tender involves shareholders naming their price within a range, and the company chooses the lowest price within that range at which it can buy all 12 million shares (48 million shares today adjusted for splits). I thought the stock would fall after the Dutch Auction, and I was not happy with the amount of shares being bought back. I wrote only to myself, as Joe was not doing well. https://preview.redd.it/z3bthepu6i7g1.jpg?width=706&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=69e3ae05572154edbd6d5beed174a20bbb18082d And that is what happened – the stock stayed in a range, and then weakened after tender was over. All expected. Here I put 2019 into an anachronistic chart post-split so you can see the prices and volumes on today’s terms. https://preview.redd.it/akia8mhw6i7g1.jpg?width=1456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=70dc39162e613855eca82f18fc1d87f692e638c0 On July 15, 2019, I bought back into GME with both hands and made it one of my larger positions. I had a brand new thesis. Yes, I brought along most of the points of the prior thesis, and I had been eyeing their hard assets such as real estate, thinking of sale-leasebacks as source of cash. https://preview.redd.it/6u32xb7y6i7g1.jpg?width=946&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9535de39b6f363e90efc23db8ed93e661241383b Those amounts do not look like a lot, but the market cap was only about $400 million. It had over half a billion in cash, and I was Sherlock Holmesing every nook and cranny of extra expense or hidden assets – or liabilities. I also took aim at their corporate jet. https://preview.redd.it/blovnayz6i7g1.jpg?width=1117&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5fbf0eb8c31f618d788a34880a1ca59c5d59f42d However, the new thesis, in addition to apparent undervaluation, regarded a potential catalyst in the high short interest. 74% of the stock’s outstanding shares were shorted, and that was rising fast. I felt a buyback of size could work magic. They had retired 12% of their shares in response to earlier pressure from both me and Hestia and Permit. I thought they had room to do more, and more importantly might be amenable to doing more. GameStop had unusually high volume during that summer, and that could help a buyback of size get done quickly. https://preview.redd.it/8qhh6ki17i7g1.jpg?width=1064&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3cfd394ea6e0466f401d349b769790c5ba11220f A massive amount of the share base turning over with increasing speed got me thinking and triggered my big buy on the 15th of July. I had been invested in [Overstock.com](http://Overstock.com) over a decade prior when naked short selling became a very big – and controversial – concern. Very high volume, many alleged, comes with naked short selling. More on this later. I also took time to assure my whole team that I wasn’t crazy. https://preview.redd.it/5zupeds37i7g1.jpg?width=1066&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=870f97ce930047a8e0559c06f7ba3f799e80a86c I visited a GameStop store to make sure I was not crazy. It did not work. Even the stuff that was not on sale looked like it should be on sale. On July 28, 2019, I wrote to GameStop’s Board of Directors, focusing on the opportunity to buy back a massive portion of their company very quickly due to the high volume. Below is an excerpt. https://preview.redd.it/jc9hh0sb7i7g1.jpg?width=890&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8f7dd3ec0b0deef1c71d8032704a55e9e33cf72b A .pdf of the full letter is below: [July 28 2019 Letter (PDF Download)](https://michaeljburry.substack.com/api/v1/file/2367fc1d-d254-42ec-9878-b4adcbadbb53.pdf) To be honest, I believed that, because of the book and movie, my name and that of Scion would potentially create a stir among shareholders and possibly even management. Perhaps, I thought, they would take this suggestion seriously. And then, tragically, Joe passed away August 4, 2019. Rest in Peace Joe. You were one of the greatest intellects this world has seen, life cut far too short. I still pray for his kids. Ten days after Joe’s passing, I returned from the funeral in New Jersey. I sat down at my desk, paused for no small reflection, and started buying more GameStop shares. The letter stimulated many emails from GameStop shareholders, most of which I ignored fastidiously as I did not want to form a group under SEC rules. If I and even one other shareholder combined for over 5% of the shares, and we did not file a Schedule 13D, we would be subject to SEC enforcement actions. So when Keith Gill emailed me, he was just another GameStop shareholder to avoid. I ignored it like all the others. I cannot regret it because I was in that mode. I did not know who he was, or that the Keith Gill had emailed me until the SEC investigation later in 2021. https://preview.redd.it/5ma3zc8h7i7g1.jpg?width=891&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7d00abcd8ecbd9442ae1117558e9f5377e47feab A month later, unbeknownst to me, Keith Gill launched as “Roaring Kitty” on YouTube. He began posting his GME thesis and talking it up in August 2019. I engaged with the company after the first letter, but it was superficial, and I did not get the sense I would get the action I wanted. I agreed to a short interview with Tae Kim at Barron’s. On August 26th, I sent another letter to the Board of GameStop, excerpt below. Maybe because of Joe’s passing in the interim, I was in a fighting mood. Several of the Board of Directors started buying shares during September, perhaps in response to my media and letters campaign. I was monitoring trading in GameStop closely. I monitored the stock for signs of a buyback, and I watched patterns – companies cannot buy back stock from 30 minutes before the close, for instance. I deduced GameStop was buying back stock, and they were doing it through Merrill Lynch. I used Excel to record, in real time, both the buyback and effects on Scion’s ownership percentage. An excerpt below. https://preview.redd.it/892ag0hm8i7g1.jpg?width=1456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff7ecbc070b37d5f3a63238c34eea134171f53af For example my 3.1 million shares were 5.37% of outstanding based on this running tally. But I was still officially under 5% from the SEC’s point of view. GameStop arranged for its executives to fly to California to meet with me. Before that happened, I was contacted by Ryan Cohen in early October 2019. Ryan and I talked for about 2 hours, mostly not about GameStop at all since neither of us wanted to form a group under SEC rules. I enjoyed the talk, which went in many directions. I liked Ryan a lot. Ryan struck me as a deep value investor. He explained he takes very big positions and waits. The Wells Fargo investment at the time seemed like it would be a long wait due to the asset cap, and he did not care. This is partly the freedom of not running money for others. Personally, I hold stocks a lot longer than I do when running a hedge fund. It’s just the nature of the beast, and many other managers are the same way. But Ryan struck me as more patient than most. Ryan seemed young. I believed he possibly had the temperament to be the next Buffett, but I did not get to know him that well. We did not talk again. I was surprised when he took the stake and position he did. I met with GameStop management on October 21st of 2019, and I discovered both George Sherman and Jim Bell were veterans – otherwise the meeting did not achieve much. I liked them as people. As result of Hestia and Permit, and then my pressure, GameStop bought back 38.1 million shares during fiscal year 2019. The average price, just $5.21 a share. That is $1.30 today, adjusted for the split 37% of the company’s shares retired in one year at $1.30 – shareholders today should appreciate that. At the time, I was satisfied. The stock did nothing. There was no short squeeze, and the very high volume continued. Throughout 2020, average volume was about 15 million shares a day – a little less than 25% of shares outstanding. In today’s terms that would be 60 million shares a day. The short interest in GameStop trended up through 2019, and remained at a high level throughout 2020. In March, 2020 GameStop announced some board changes that followed my recommendations. This was a non-event as to any short or long thesis dynamics. Short interest remained at all-time highs, and the stock did not react. In fact, in April 2020, the stock fell to a new low at $2.57 ($0.64 today). It was interesting though as J.K. Symancyk, the CEO of PetSmart at the time, joined the board. As well a former Nintendo President and former Walmart U.S. CEO joined the board, but J.K was interesting because of a potential connection between J.K. and Ryan Cohen. PetSmart had bought Chewy in May 2017 for $3.35 billion. Ryan ran Chewy until March 2018, and J.K. arrived as CEO in June of 2018. I was minorly thrilled at the board additions, and the resignations. I never spoke to Ryan about J.K., however. I continued to hold my position. GameStop’s attention shifted to strengthening the balance sheet and reducing debt with cash flow. I agreed with that. There was a little dust-up with the Board, Scion and another activist during the summer of 2020, but not relevant here. On August 28th, Ryan Cohen’s firm RC Ventures filed a Form 13D with the SEC. At the time of the filing, there were 65 million shares outstanding. Ryan owned 5.8 million of them, and I controlled 3.0 million. I was just below the filing threshold, on purpose. I had already made my splash a year earlier to no real impact on the price. I did not want to go over 5%. I also traded a portion of my position around – something I do when stocks are in the doldrums for a while – and did not want to have to file after every trade. Ryan was well above the threshold, with a purpose. The D in Form 13D – as opposed to 13G – meant Ryan was free to influence management. As well, that was his money and there was a lot more of it. My firm was never that big because I did not market it. [Chewy.com](http://Chewy.com) had IPO’d a little over a year earlier. I imagined he was coming with another big bet – and with his patience in tow. GME shares jumped over 20% the next trading day. Ryan was 35. The average age of the millennial retail trader was – you guessed it – 35. [Chewy.com](http://Chewy.com) was a big beneficiary from COVID. Retail traders might not have made it a meme stock, but they either owned pets or knew someone who did. In 2020, Millennials were 32% of all pet owners. The “pandemic puppy” became a thing. It was as if COVID was created for Chewy.com’s IPO lockup expiry. The increasingly frenzied speculation over Ryan’s motives hit another level with his November 16th letter badgering GameStop into a new technology-forward direction. Ryan’s letter stopped short of recommending a comprehensive strategy, but made clear the company needed to become more technologically with the times. He intended to push the company in that direction. The first three days of trading after the letter, the stock did not move at all. Heard inside Scion’s offices, “Everything Cohen suggests is either already being done or highly speculative in nature.” I did not say it, but I agreed. Then, the stock took off. And by month’s end Scion was out. Coming to the end of 2020, I had carried my full GameStop position – 3,000,000 shares, plus or minus, through 16+ months. Most of that time, I lent my shares out at very good rates – high double digits – which was lucrative and a big part of the trade. I do not believe I have ever earned so much simply being short a stock. Of course, far less than if… The chart below represents Scion’s time holding GameStop as a top long position in the fund. https://preview.redd.it/4022jyku8i7g1.jpg?width=1076&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d942e6ac10460155cb5eda0ef2c4bf5987414bf7 My average cost on those shares was $3.32, equivalent to $0.83 today. When it really started to run late in 2020, I sold the position at an average price of roughly $13.50 ($3.38). The short interest as a percentage of float when I exited was about 128%, not too different from what it had been for much of the prior year. Volume was rising, bringing down the days to cover ratio. The short interest however, stayed elevated at its July 2019 through 2020 levels on into January 2021. https://preview.redd.it/geeio51a9i7g1.jpg?width=1069&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a34177182ebddbeb87edf83b52a638dc5da9981 I could have analyzed that situation better. I knew GameStop inside and out, and I thought I understood the volume, short interest, and other dynamics. However, I was blinded by what I saw as execution risk. As well, I am human. I had seen buybacks shrink shares by a third in the setting of 100% short interest, the reorganizing of the Board of Directors, and the selling of Spring Wireless for cash in the amount of more than half the market cap. All were home run/slam dunk activist successes with concrete results but zero impact on price or short interest. The narrative on GameStop was just that bad. I figured what had already been wrought was more concrete than a vague “technology-forward” makeover with a ton of execution risk. So I used Ryan’s unveiling as an opportunity to close out. I had no idea what was coming. I had no idea that a Roaring Kitty existed. And I had no idea that a widely distributed gamma squeeze would thread the needle to become the one and only legal market corner. So, I did not think more about it. During the 4th quarter of 2020, I had other worries. We had dropped a very large separate account due to a management change on their end. That account was over 25% of our assets, and required sales across the portfolio as we approached year’s end. During 2020, we basically doubled their money. But no new money was coming in, as I just did not market. The withdrawals came in from others as well – they needed cash to pay taxes on the gains. So I was in selling mode across my portfolio in November, December and January and therefore on the sidelines when it happened. # The Big Short Squeeze About 50 or so days after Scion got out of GameStop, that ignominious crappy business that I though was just a, well, you know…GameStop was the belle of the ball. The entire world could not take their eyes off her. And neither could I. https://preview.redd.it/eu8cqfe59i7g1.jpg?width=1069&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3e952c9ce37e55ce79091492f7783230e6694694 On January 13, 2021, she broke definitively out of the teens and touched almost $39/share on 144 million shares (576 million today adjusted for splits). On a stock with 67 million shares outstanding. I did not believe I had seen that before. The stock then went sideways on falling volume for about a week. If I had not already sold, I would have sold that. At the peak my years-long investment might have have turned $12 million into $1 billion, but that was never a possibility. I also noticed those GameStop call options with crazy volume. Again. July of 2019, I had noticed call options trading as well as abnormally high volume in the stock, both out of line with anything that came before. It was discussed here about 2000 words ago. But in January 2021, volume was 10 times bigger on both share volume and call activity. # The Gamma Squeeze What was happening has been well-described, but for those who have not heard yet, I will go over it briefly. Retail traders in the thousands, egged on by Roaring Kitty and online discussion, bought massive volumes of calls – orders of magnitude more than typical volume. The other side of that trade were market makers, hedge funds, prop desks. The two biggest by far were the market makers Citatel Securities and Virtu Financial. Those two have the capital required to sell that volume of calls. This is where the greeks come in. It is not my game. I hate the greeks (the symbols, not the people). But they played a big role. When Citadel or any market maker sells a call, it buys stock in the open market in an amount such that the entire position is delta neutral. Delta reflects the sensitivity of options to stock price movements. A delta of 1.0 is unity or 1:1 movement between a stock and an option. Gamma is the slope or rate of change of Delta. **As Gamma increases, it makes intuitive sense that it would be harder to maintain a balanced delta-neutral position over time. Gamma fights attempts at Delta neutrality.** When a market maker or dealer sells a call option it becomes short Gamma. This is normally not a problem. It buys stock and manages toward Delta neutrality. But the coordinated buying of calls by thousands of retail traders all at once created systemic Gamma exposure across all dealers at the same time, leading to a systemic rise in “short gamma.” This made it very hard to maintain Delta neutrality. To restore neutrality, all the dealers had to buy stock at the same time. And that is why a big part of happened in GameStop stock is called a gamma squeeze. The success of these retail traders was not lost on others, and the lightning spread. Not just GameStop but other stocks such AMC, Blackberry, Hertz, and even Tesla. # The Corner(ed) Market Fairly quickly I realized I was watching a legal market corner. Traditionally, a corner is when a group of investors buys up enough supply of a commodity or investment security to artificially drive prices higher and in many cases squeeze shorts. Very common in the days of the railroad stock bubble. Yes there were shorts back then. A lot of them. Not sure how many were naked. With GameStop, specific forums online with pseudonymous leaders actively promoted the gamma squeeze as a way to get the shorts, and it was given the cape of righteousness – retail sticking it to Wall Street. Wall Street of course spends all its days sticking it to each other. But that is populism for ya. If a hedge fund or group of hedge funds did the same thing – executing a continuous days or weeks-long gamma squeeze, it would have been illegal. If a couple of non-Wall Street people had the capital to do it, same thing – not legal. Distribute the corner coordination broadly enough and it becomes a just a free market, which in turn makes the corner pointless, with no advantage. However, say a few thousand do it, maybe as a collective they find the sweet spot of distributed coordination where it works like a corner and is by default legal simply because enforcement is impossible. The market asymmetry continues, with no enforcement, and the corner works. The SEC just said, “No thank you, carry on, carry on.” Kudos to retail for threading that needle. I do not believe this has been seen before. Once done, it spread like lightning. COVID gave retail traders personal time at exactly the point Roaring Kitty and Ryan Cohen took the mic. Then came the COVID checks. Naked Short Sellers? Going back 20 years, naked short sellers entered my field of vision when I was long Overstock and took an activist stake. It was contentious. I had nothing to do with it, but I was actually sued by a short-seller for being long the stock. His name rhymes with Cohodes. So I know how dirty this whole game can get, but contrary to popular belief, I believe most of that 140% short position in GameStop was not naked short selling but rather simple, legal layering of trades. When a stock is borrowed from an owner and shorted to a buyer who then in turn lends the shares for shorting, a cycle is created and repeated. And if demand for shorting is high, this cycle will become a fairly elegant and long sequence. Most of the exposures in that chain/sequence are actually synthetic positions. Sounds terrible, does it not? But it is all perfectly legal and correct. Every one of those transactions in the sequence is recorded and properly settled. The wiring of the market deals with this just fine during normal times. It would take a very big volatility event to upset that apple cart. The humans working this are not idiots. GameStop was unprecedented though. All that layering, all those synthetics, had to be unwound with urgency at the same exact time. The beautiful sequencing broke down. Dealers have temporary exemptions to be nakedly short, which also is not usually a problem, but for when a correlation event like GameStop happens. This is what happened with GameStop – all that call buying by retail created the aforementioned gamma squeeze, and the layering became a mess. It was resolved by panic buying. Professional fund managers and short-sellers were caught out in this way. Identifiable real shares became scarce, and the urgency to cover grew. No shorts had to be naked for this to happen, and I am sure there were some, but naked short selling was not a prime factor. # Plus C’est La Meme So there was a lot going on inside The Big Short Squeeze. It was spectacular. It was hilarious. It was tragic in turn. Middle of 2021, I thought it was less fun. Meme stocks had become an almost-sober investment strategy, egged on by newly celebrity CEOs. 2021 is when NFTs soared in value along with watches, shoes, just about everything. Several – shall I say village s\*\*\*s – were partying like it’s 1999 and thinking of selling billions of dollars of stock in their beauty, sure to depreciate. GameStop sold over $1 billion in stock at $225/share. Absolutely a smart move. But man I just thought retail was gong to be shredded on this meme thing. I had been on the sidelines, but I felt I should speak up. I gave an interview to Barron’s in late June, honestly trying to warn people. People wonder why I do this, but if there is one thing I wish I could have done, it was to have effectively warned or spoken about what was happening in 2005-2007. I think I did myself no favors not smiling during that walk in front of the cameras. Beary Burry forever. I was early but by much less than I usually am. AMC collapsed from there, others peaked a month or two later, but by 2023, they had all fallen, and I thought the meme trade was dead. I hope some listened. In any event, here is GameStop in 2025, with a market capitalization near $10 billion. On the surface of it, given my history with GameStop, that number is stunning. Not only relative to what I was paying for the stock and what the company was worth just a few years ago. If I held GameStop this entire time, my investment in GameStop would be worth $250 million. Roughly the same amount my Avanti investment would have become over 25 years in the hands of a very good duopolist in the semiconductor industry. GameStop has been run for some time now by Ryan Cohen. His tenure has not been perfect, yet the company has recently produced significant free cash flow, has a ton of cash on the balance sheet, some very asymmetric convertible debt, and a business model that has been revamped to be more online, more digital, more crypto, more collectibles, and fewer stores. As a melting ice cube and a capital structure with some optionality, GameStop is roughly as I approached it in 2018, except it is only 16% shorted, all the numbers are 10 times bigger and Ryan is running it, for better or worse. Those who know me, as well as those who have read my posts so far here on Cassandra Unchained, know that I believe history often lends a valuable perspective to analysis. This post is clearly along those lines. It is a Foundations post. These posts cover subjects that would feel at home in a book if I were to write one. They are meant to provide both a foundation and a reference for future Idea posts, which are analyses of current opportunities. This whole saga was a valuable lesson for me, and, I hope, for some of you. The second and final post in this GameStop mini-series will be an Idea post – my breakdown of GameStop as an investment today. Until Next Time!

**TL;DR: The new Presidential Admin \[Trump Administration\] wants a resolution to the MMTLP situation \[an indefinitely halted stock full of naked short positions\]. The company that issued MMTLP successfully filed subpoenas to Citadel, Virtue, DTCC, and others for trading and share data. Multiple credible sources further confirm (1) the MMTLP stock price's exponential explosion before the rare U3 halt and reversal and (2) that a resolution is virtually guaranteed at this point. Upon resolution of MMTLP, the gates open for the resolution of naked shorting with GME as well as other heavily naked shorted basket stocks.** ———————————————————————————————————————————————— Recommended Prerequisite DD: 1. [The Golden Treasure Part I \[100% Proof Apes Get Paid\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/1ahuip4/the_golden_treasure_100_proof_apes_get_paid/) ———————————————————————————————————————————————— [The Golden Treasure Part II \[100% Proof Apes Get Paid\]](https://imgur.com/a/iBtj97o) §1: MMTLP History to Now / Further Confirmation of Naked Shorting §2: New Presidential Administration Wants Resolution §3: Post-Resolution Opens Gates for GME Resolution ———————————————————————————————————————————————— **§1: MMTLP History to Now / Further Confirmation of Naked Shorting** I want to start with a quick disclaimer for those that haven't read Part I of my DD, or those that need a refresher. **This stock is non-tradeable.** It has been that way for years at this point. You can neither buy nor sell it. So, this DD, is in no way, shape, or form, some advertisement to get investors to purchase this stock. That being said, the situation surrounding MMTLP/Next Bridge Hydrocarbons is highly relevant to GME. I'll get into a general history of the foundation of MMTLP and events leading to the current circumstances, and I'll try to condense the history here, but bare with me, because it can get complicated. From what I've gathered, MMTLP started as a preferred share stock dividend that was given out to holders of TRCH in June, 2021 as part of a reverse merger with MMAT. Essentially, MMTLP was a spinoff from MMAT that later resulted into the creation of Next Bridge Hydrocarbons (an oil and gas company) in December 2022. The interesting thing is that this dividend (MMTLP) was never supposed to trade, but it began trading in October, 2021. The CEO of TRCH at the time, John Brda, stated that not only was it never supposed to trade (See page 2 of [Report from Congressional Research Service on MMTLP \[2023\]](https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IN/PDF/IN12228/IN12228.2.pdf)), but he wasn't able to find out who made it trade. FINRA, a regulatory agency overseeing the trading of stocks, approved it to trade, but declined to tell the executives at TRCH who "pushed the button" and made it trade unauthorized. It is theorized that SHFs (short hedge funds) "forced" MMTLP to trade, so that they could heavily naked short the stock; thereby, making profits as usual. The company was aware of this and proactively tried to protect investors from having their stock manipulated. Fast forward to December 2022, MMTLP, the spinoff, was going to go private. Trading was supposed to last until December 12, 2022, then become Next Bridge Hydrocarbons (the Vice President of OTC Markets even confirmed it was supposed to trade up until the 12th). By going private, **all short positions were supposed to close**. This could, depending on how heavily naked shorted MMTLP was, beget a short squeeze, leading to the 12th of December, 2022. That was the theory, and it turned out to be correct, because on December 9, 2022, multiple investors reported their limit stop orders were getting executed on December 9th (See "The Golden Treasure Part I"). Further evidence, in addition to the evidence presented in Part I of my DD, solidifies the fact that prices were indeed going for 100x-10,000x right before FINRA stepped in an U3 Halted the stock and reversed trades on December 9, 2022. [Trading data from E-Trade](https://x.com/anna_trades/status/1812508669742813649) shows right before trading was halted, that there was a short squeeze: https://preview.redd.it/hmlxf9trfoxf1.png?width=320&format=png&auto=webp&s=354661eb5115a3757246d3f44cf3cedba7f25fdd [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-i1vog29c1mxf1.jpg?width=426&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=35b8f71330404a145727c0610256f093759620fb) Moreover, a highly credible source in the community (Drew Diligence; who has acted as a liaison between Congress and obtaining a resolution for MMTLP shareholders, garnering letters of support from over a dozen members of Congress) stated that he is aware of at least 1 person that got a 10-99 tax form from the IRS confirming that his shares were executed at prices ranging from $250-$500 (around a 120x of its $3 price pre-squeeze). https://reddit.com/link/1ohiz4y/video/w7i641kmioxf1/player So, yes, there was unequivocally a short squeeze right before FINRA U3 Halted the stock and reversed trades. This would also explain exactly why FINRA U3 Halted the stock, since a "U3" halt is a trading code that stands for "Extraordinary Events Halt" (the extraordinary event here, would be that SHFs were indisputably about to get liquidated). Moreover, MMTLP was the last stock to be U3 halted by FINRA, [according to data from FINRA itself](https://otce.finra.org/otce/tradingHalts). By indefinitely U3 halting the stock, FINRA (1) froze the stock, (2) protected SHFs from needing to close their short positions, and (3) locked all 64,000+ MMTLP investors in this crime scene. After FINRA U3 Halted the stock and reversed trades, tens of thousands of investors began working to get transparency and a resolution towards trading, reaching out to state and federal representatives, filing lawsuits against FINRA, protesting outside the SEC HQ in D.C, etc. The company (MMTLP/Next Bridge Hydrocarbons) has also been fighting back as well. FINRA published an FAQ in March 2023, stating that there were only 2.65 million unclosed short positions. Next Bridge Hydrocarbons published a press release directly contradicting FINRA, stating financial institutions have called them looking to buy shares to balance their books, and that **1 single financial institution admitted their shareholder imbalance was multiples more than the number FINRA stated on their FAQ**: https://preview.redd.it/a6lim6tvfoxf1.jpg?width=1241&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e8495b79086ee0d453f91c742d7649a050e3d0bd [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-6dzaelwj1mxf1.jpg?width=1241&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83130f6ef9ae58cf5d6f1e217f9792ab7d961ad7) NBH (Next Bridge Hydrocarbons) has also been proactive in trying to get a resolution for shareholders, demanding in a press release that shareholders be given the "total aggregate outstanding uncovered short positions held by foreign and domestic institutions that exceed the issued and outstanding shares of the company": https://preview.redd.it/uy37lvqwfoxf1.jpg?width=1177&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5fffba4b8f0bd9c183dfb02e7186c9a76fc0c9b7 [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-wg185hxk1mxf1.jpg?width=1177&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d3add8544a7c8f69fd86965db29220020c16a20d) In the meantime, while shareholders and the company were pushing for a resolution, SHFs, etc., were attempting, behind the scenes, to get the company into bankruptcy (that way, they wouldn't have to worry about closing their short positions). In addition, many shareholders that were publicly trying to get a resolution in Congress were threatened, smeared, their families were threatened. The CEO of NBH himself, Greg McCabe, [stated in an email that his daughter, his family were receiving threats.](https://x.com/RedHeelzz/status/1874144952604631311) He said, verbatim: "“These attacks started with a vicious social media smear campaign and frivolous lawsuits, but have now escalated to multiple anonymous threats via texts and emails. **They crossed an unforgivable line when they sent a threatening email about me to my daughter-in-law at the private school where she teaches, and they had the audacity to copy every member of the faculty.** My wife taught at this school for 20 years, all four of our children graduated from there, and now two of my grandchildren attend.” One MMTLP investor, in particular, Richard Fizzuoglio, someone who walked the halls of Congress to obtain Congressional support towards a resolution, was receiving threats to himself as well as his family to the point that I believe it broke him mentally. He unfortunately ended up....[passing away](https://x.com/KarmaCollects/status/1965113460586684650). Look, this is also a dark story, and as a DD writer who has personally received threats to my family and I (and is aware of other DD writers who have received threats) I very much empathize with this. In addition, NBH tried to raise money, but was roadblocked by the previous SEC administration, constantly preventing the company from filing an S-1 by requesting an unreasonable amount of paperwork/revisions to their filings \[i[t should be noted that this issue has recently been resolved as of October 2025 between NBH and the new SEC](https://x.com/nbhydrocarbons/status/1973496489046581392)\]. Now, I've personally taken a decent amount of legal classes/read law books, and I know that during the 2008 financial crisis, lawyers had a strategy called "produce the note", where they'd keep requesting documents to delay a foreclosure process. They could commonly successfully delay foreclosure for several years just requesting things, which would help out their client. In this case, if the previous SEC was in bed with SHFs, and they agreed to get NBH bankrupt (especially because a resolution to the MMTLP scandal would completely undermine them and FINRA), it would make sense for them to continually use similar delay tactics to keep NBH from making money. Lastly, in 2024, Next Bridge Hydrocarbons, which is an oil and gas company, "somehow" lost an Orogrande lease , a lease to a plot of land that was going to be their primary source of profits. The leaser, University Lands, didn't provide an explanation as to why, even though the CEO of NBH [offered 10x the royalties from his previous agreement with them](https://x.com/RedHeelzz/status/1888239101914022363). It's an illogical decision from University Lands, which is exactly why I reasonably believe that SHFs, needing NBH to go bankrupt, and knowing their primary source of profits, went out of their way to take the lease away from NBH. The NBH CEO, Greg McCabe, [responded in an email regarding the lose of the lease](https://x.com/canwill35/status/1844508585885339655), referring to "very dark forces at multiple fronts": https://preview.redd.it/ukwrmydzfoxf1.jpg?width=1241&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2c70538258b75ac456aecbc97dd46f73540e4a6c [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-kwadv9dm1mxf1.jpg?width=1241&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7524ad4e00fda40756ec61f87947b75534d50546) It is my strong believe that SHFs employed bad actors to do whatever it takes to break people, harm the company, and do whatever is necessary to sabotage a resolution. Which would make sense, considering their companies are on the line, and I've seen somewhat similar Machiavellian behavior from them towards the GME community since 2021. Anyways, there were several other tactics SHFs/bad actors have been using to try to get NBH bankrupt, such as vexatious litigation to waste NBH's assets via attorney's fees (comparable to [when scientology filed 50+ lawsuits against the Cult Awareness Network, which drove them bankrupt, even though most suits were dismissed](https://www.cnn.com/US/9612/19/scientology/index.html?eref=sitesearch#:~:text=Since%201991%2C%2050%20lawsuits%20were,of%20the%20Cult%20Awareness%20Network)), attempting to hijack the community and make shareholders target the CEO instead of SHFs (similar with bad actors trying to get GME shareholders to attack Ryan Cohen), etc. I'm not going to get in all that other stuff, because it would take forever, and the primary purpose of this DD would be missed. That being said, this particular company and its community have been through an extreme amount of hardship, but they are immensely fierce. The amount of effort they put into reaching out to Congressional representatives, filing FOIAs, outreach, filing reports to the OIG/DOJ, and so much more, it has been extraordinary to see this magnitude of resilience. And luckily, the stars have aligned for a resolution, because with the new Presidential Administration, the MMTLP community now has the support from the Executive Branch of the U.S Government. ———————————————————————————————————————————————— **§2: New Presidential Administration Wants Resolution** The new Presidential Administration (the Trump Admin) is full of officials and parties that are not only fully aware of the MMTLP situation, but they support a resolution. I'll name a decent number of the ones I'm aware of: 1. Vice President V.D Vance He was among the 100+ members of Congress during 2023-2024 [demanding transparency on MMTLP to the SEC](https://www.crapo.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/mmtlpsecletter09262023.pdf). https://preview.redd.it/qjo0ogh2goxf1.png?width=1275&format=png&auto=webp&s=24f367e51e516e946ac9bf733d03f7b1c3bbdcda [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-4vvd9rnn1mxf1.png?width=1275&format=png&auto=webp&s=dc2659be5c72cdfb606ae553e450af38aaf1722c) 2. Bill Pulte \[Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac\] Bill Pulte has been publicly vocal of his support towards a resolution towards MMTLP in the past, having spoken about MMTLP [in a space call with Andrew Tate](https://x.com/xMarketNews/status/1799224318238527703) on the matter: https://reddit.com/link/1ohiz4y/video/smxt9ouajoxf1/player 3. Andrew Bailey \[Co-Deputy Director of the FBI\] Andrew Bailey has publicly voiced his [support for a resolution to MMTLP](https://x.com/MetaMan1111/status/1957577774501093881). In an interview with the Robb Carter Show, regarding MMTLP, Bailey expressed his disdain to the SEC for not taking initiative towards getting a resolution for shareholders. 4. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. \[U.S Secretary of Health and Human Services\] He [reposted a post on "X" regarding MMTLP](https://x.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1838374959741063375), demanding answers from FINRA, while calling FINRA, Gensler, the DTCC, etc., thieves. This was a repost from his official "X" account (with millions of followers), which I did consider significant that he would align himself with that position. https://preview.redd.it/01823ep4goxf1.png?width=580&format=png&auto=webp&s=06175f31b093198e6bcdd2c6f0ae3e06b61ffe02 [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-tatnyqsq1mxf1.png?width=580&format=png&auto=webp&s=f84c28ebaf364a05222fd80f561d86bc81420db0) 5. Devin Nunes \[Chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board\] Nunes, when he was working on combatting the naked shorting of President Trump's stock (DJT) in 2024, [used MMTLP as an example of another heavily manipulated naked shorted stock](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849635/000114036124021595/ny20026576x11_ex99-1.htm#:~:text=pre%2Dborrow%20logs.-,Such%20an%20inquiry%20is%20needed%20to%20protect%20shareholders%2C%20including%20TMTG's,Buchanan%20The%20Honorable%20Greg%20Steube) in a letter to the U.S House on Financial Services Committee: https://preview.redd.it/44fbqr46goxf1.png?width=1338&format=png&auto=webp&s=53d31ed892ae8defca8519cf9f3555c0e7fb2b0b [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-gertan1s1mxf1.png?width=1338&format=png&auto=webp&s=483a5568ef81f0233b8fa9ef97f43cd5247cc657) Nunes, in particular, has beef with Citadel, who has naked shorted GME, MMTLP, and DJT. A spokesperson for Citadel Securities [even stated publicly](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/19/citadel-securities-blasts-trump-media-ceo-over-djt-short-sale-letter.html) that, “Devin Nunes is the proverbial loser who tries to blame ‘naked short selling’ for his falling stock price”. The company Nunes was previously CEO of, the current President's company (Trump Media) also fired back at Citadel Securities, stating: "**Citadel Securities, a corporate behemoth that has been fined and censured for an incredibly wide range of offenses including issues related to naked short selling, and is world famous for screwing over everyday retail investors at the behest of other corporations, is the last company on earth that should lecture anyone on ‘integrity.’**” That, by the way, already shows beef between the current Presidential Administration and Citadel, which is helpful for us, considering that we have a common enemy. 6. U.S President Trump Multiple sources have confirmed that President Trump is aware of MMTLP (which also makes sense considering Vice President Vance himself signed the MMTLP open letter to the SEC). Although Trump has not made any public announcements regarding MMTLP, because of the naked shorting of his own stock, in addition to the objectives of his backers (which I'll explain shortly), he would most certainly be incentivized to use MMTLP as an example to end the naked shorting of his company. Also, based on a credible source, which I'll also discuss, it seems that the President is indeed interested in a resolution. John Stubbins, Host of the radio show "Indivisible", while discussing subpoenas MMAT sent to Citadel et al., [did further confirm](https://x.com/busybrands/status/1980334129372893533) the President Trump is aware of MMTLP: https://reddit.com/link/1ohiz4y/video/8cng7xm7joxf1/player John Stubbins does have strong connections in the political field. He interviewed Former U.S National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn last year. So, he is a credible source when he further confirms that the U.S President is aware of MMTLP. Also, in the video he discusses subpoenas sent out to Citadel, Virtu, the DTCC, and others by MMAT. That's because MMAT (the company MMTLP was a spinoff from) is also fighting back SHFs with subpoenas for trading data and short shares. Not everyone accepted the subpoenas. Citadel and friends are fighting them in court currently, so it would be pre-mature to say we've successfully uncovered smoking guns there, but these are subpoenas that have successfully been issued to multiple entities, and some of the entities are caving in while others are currently fighting to quash it. Either way, [MMAT is definitely on the offensive](https://x.com/palikaras/status/1897832722728390947): https://preview.redd.it/t8v93zp8goxf1.png?width=597&format=png&auto=webp&s=769b086e99aba1052e4370c5ac55ec07cbcd1266 [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-qdvs8q0u1mxf1.png?width=597&format=png&auto=webp&s=9166f53d232afbfb4c45bde3bd2bbf69272fbf7c) I did notice in particular that a prominent shill that had consistently been bashing MMTLP and demeaning the community, Fox Business Network Senior Correspondent Charles Gasparino, [deleted every single post related to MMTLP](https://x.com/KarmaCollects/status/1915958851905720649) (which were negative posts towards MMTLP) on his social media a couple months after President Trump's inauguration. It's not entirely conclusive why he did it, but reasonable inferences can be made: https://preview.redd.it/9gvhl2x9goxf1.jpg?width=1241&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a9e621d9ab60af424b687bb92358839ab403c96 [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-9d5unj3w1mxf1.jpg?width=1241&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2983f0a28d57794eeaf47038c91405b62f31dd65) Now, regarding the support at the Executive Branch of the federal government, note that this is on the federal level. There's many other public officials at the federal, state, and local level that have also voiced support for a resolution. Furthermore, the Heritage Foundation, a strong backer/influencer of the current President and his policies (also known for its "Project 2025" initiative), [called for FINRA to be abolished](https://www.fa-mag.com/news/conservative-manifesto-project-25-says-finra-should-be-abolished-78740.html); this is one of their listed objectives. https://preview.redd.it/uvkb525cgoxf1.jpg?width=1241&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38968c5462d3cdf4a987fb4935c7267aa02ac708 [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-cep9pdwy1mxf1.jpg?width=1241&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7f38e4f965b47b0590b355c8c935f43d3c0dc133) Multiple shareholders, including lawyers fighting for a resolution, took FINRA to court, but failed every time because FINRA has "absolute immunity", which is a shield they've consistently used in court. FINRA even stated in a response to a shareholder's suit that even if what they did was illegal, they were protected by absolute immunity: https://preview.redd.it/n98rncnegoxf1.jpg?width=812&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02becdda0e46e76782c366d27d7a55101ce592ff [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-m0um68702mxf1.jpg?width=812&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0dbc6d2ac7ff02286fcf98085516b849980c4dc8) FINRA has been arguably the largest obstacle for a resolution (at least on the judiciary/legal side). If the Heritage Foundation accomplishes their objective of abolishing FINRA, that obstacle would completely disappear (excellent for MMTLP, GME, and shareholders of all naked shorted stocks). However, it appears that the Heritage Foundation may use the MMTLP situation as an excuse to demonstrate FINRA's incompetence and a perfectly good reason for why FINRA is useless and should be abolished, so there is definitely a mutually beneficial relationship there. The support at the Executive Branch is so strong that a highly credible source, a prominent MMTLP liaison with the Trump Administration, Kurtis, has stated that he's "extremely optimistic" about a favorable resolution. In a space call on "X" in October 2025, he went as far as to say that **there's going to be a favorable outcome to the MMTLP situation regardless of whether shareholders do anything at this point**. https://reddit.com/link/1ohiz4y/video/kg23hq15koxf1/player So, yes, the support for a resolution has never been stronger (much stronger than last year, and that was when 100+ members of Congress were demanding transparency from the SEC about MMTLP). And that shift in support compared to the previous Administration is clearly visible with the recent granting of FOIA requests. Regarding FOIA requests made by MMTLP shareholders since 2022, the only one granted in the beginning was the email from Sam Draddy from FINRA (posted in "Golden Treasure Part I") confirming that MMTLP was on their fraud radar and being bluesheeted. Apparently, the granting of that FOIA request was an accident of their part, **because after that email got out, virtually every single other FOIA request was getting denied**. I'll put this into perspective. according to "FOIAsearch.com", out of the 1,277 FOIA requests made, only 2 were granted in full (only approx. 0.157% of all requests were granted in full): https://preview.redd.it/rem8m2zggoxf1.png?width=1322&format=png&auto=webp&s=a0b3397220d98836f68d93019351db7371b42a57 [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-34fnq4r12mxf1.png?width=1322&format=png&auto=webp&s=53bcf208b42a1971069ea7026750d4541b6b3e29) Fair to say that the MMTLP community was hitting a roadblock with the previous Administration regarding FOIA requests. But, with the advent of the new Administration, that appears to have changed, because FOIA requests related to MMTLP have started getting granted again. FOIA requests relating to electronic communications sent by [Gary Gensler](https://x.com/NicholasRaia2/status/1920134505496502358) and [Hester Pierce](https://x.com/NicholasRaia2/status/1979211147699245422) around the time MMTLP was U3 Halted by FINRA in December 2022 were recently granted, and they demonstrate that there were an "unusual" number of meetings and requests to chat right before the stock got halted due to extraordinary events, further confirming that there was most certainly a lot going on behind the scenes that shareholders didn't see. These text messages specifically said that there was "a lot going on", and a few weeks before MMTLP was scheduled to go private and shorts were supposed to close (before MMTLP was U3 Halted), Gensler told Pierce that there was an "emerging matter" that they needed to talk about: https://reddit.com/link/1ohiz4y/video/pve5k1ewjoxf1/player What's also important here is that **these FOIA requests never would've been approved by the previous administration**. So, you can see with your own eyes that the New Administration is significantly more supportive than the previous one (especially taking into account the SEC announced the retirement of Chief Operating Officer Ken Johnson, the guy that was essentially rejecting all the previous FOIA requests). Another highly critical piece of information that can be derived from the FOIA release of Gensler's emails are that they [completely contradict the SEC OIT's](https://www.sec.gov/files/sec-oig-review-587-2025.pdf) (Office of Information Technology) January 2024 report to the Office of Inspector General that Gensler's text messages between October 18, 2022- September 6, 2023 were "inadvertently deleted". https://preview.redd.it/tpfmib3jgoxf1.png?width=1275&format=png&auto=webp&s=91861187ae9da85b0c99ae05cde0c0dbf684b0be [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-bvdsfui32mxf1.png?width=1275&format=png&auto=webp&s=58999a4db9e7785685e3352cf573d4becdf41383) It was also [reported by Yahoo Finance](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sec-loses-nearly-gary-gensler-100215746.html) in relation to MMTLP: https://preview.redd.it/43qiccwjgoxf1.png?width=1242&format=png&auto=webp&s=59ed91def82cd3b51cba46d8e7a274fcff2db86b [](https://preview.redd.it/the-golden-treasure-part-ii-100-proof-apes-get-paid-v0-bz3ue6wg2mxf1.png?width=1242&format=png&auto=webp&s=99087f506f500291c29ec8c8ada36ac256f7231e) Well, guess what, the New Presidential Administration just threw the previous SEC Chair and Admin under the bus, because the granted FOIAs indisputably prove that was a blatant lie from the SEC OIT trying to cover their tracks. This reinforces the high degrees of optimism for a resolution via the Executive Branch by the credible sources mentioned. It does look like when the resolution for MMTLP does come, that Former SEC Chair Gary Gensler will end up being the fall guy (or at least one of the fall guys). So where does this all leave GME? Upon a resolution to MMTLP, GME will be in the prime position for MOASS. ———————————————————————————————————————————————— **§3: Post-Resolution Opens Gates for GME Resolution** At this point, I shouldn't have to explain how much of a juggernaut Gamestop's position is. The company is insanely undervalued [based on the cash on hand alone](https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1326380/000132638025000075/gme-20250802.htm). Even if you disregard the cash raised from the convertible notes, GameStop has several billions in net cash. And the warrants were a win-win for shareholders as well as GameStop, because next time this stock has a run up, every warrant that gets executed is extra profits for GameStop. GameStop could theoretically make nearly $2 billion extra in profits from the warrants alone. This company can't go bankrupt; hence, SHFs are trapped. They're not shorting GME to make money like in 2020. They're shorting because they need to survive. If they don't short GME, they'll end up bankrupt, so it's a losing game for them. It's not like with other basket stocks, where the companies are struggling with debt and SHFs can bankrupt them to avoid closing their shorts. There's no out, and this is exactly why you see the market cap is insanely low compared to the cash on hand. **The average company on the Russell 1000 has a market cap around 10x of its cash on hand (and that's a conservative estimate)**. You don't have to take my word for it. Go search up companies on the Russell 1000, and you'll see that their cash on hand is a fraction of their market cap. Whereas GameStop's market cap is around 1.2x cash on hand (around 2x if you want to exclude the convertible notes/liabilities). It's extremely undervalued, and everyone here knows why. But, when MMTLP gets resolved, it sets a precedent. We'll have a a blueprint for a resolution (which we may not even need). I created a general diagram to explain how MMTLP will ultimately affect GME post-resolution ([feel free to go through it if you'd like](https://imgur.com/Lv1vKGz)). The current President is confirmed to (1) have beef with Citadel, (2) have problems with his own stock being naked shorted by SHFs, and (3) have backers that want regulatory agencies held accountable, or even abolished \[referring to FINRA\]. This is the perfect time where the stars are aligning, and if MMTLP gets a settlement, if the MMTLP synthetics get exposed, the same can absolutely happen for GME. The gates open for us. If anything, GME may be next in line after MMTLP gets a settlement, because of the history, the massive army of shareholders, and national attention this stock has already received in the past. We are in an extremely good position. And I am confident that once this stock is resolved via a settlement, it will expose the naked shorts problem infesting the market, and at that point everyone will begin looking at GME and securing a settlement as well. See you on the moon! 🦍🚀🌑

We are proud to announce Rainmaker has raised $100M to accelerate our capability to make Earth habitable.

/PRNewswire/ -- Today, Rainmaker Technology Corporation announces a $100 million Series B fundraise to grow its atmospheric research organization and drive...

Today, Rainmaker Technology Corporation announces a $100 million Series B fundraise to grow its atmospheric research organization and drive down the cost of producing new freshwater via cloud seeding. The round includes investments from NOA VC,...

Augustus Doricko's Rainmaker raised a $100M Series B to expand atmospheric research, drone cloud seeding and freshwater production across the American West.

After breakthrough testing in Alaska and with backing from Lowercarbon Capital, Upfront Ventures, and others, founder Augustus Doricko is ready to take his drones to more places.

Rainmaker funding adds $100M for measured drone cloud seeding. The real test is whether verified precipitation becomes dependable water infrastructure.

Rainmaker Raises $100M Series B to Scale Low-Cost Water Production and Weather Modification

In 1964, Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev proposed a scale to determine humanity’s level of technological advancement based on how much energy they Firm creates and studies moisture using technology.

Rainmaker uses technology to generate rain, replenish water sources, and address drought challenges in a sustainable and effective manner.

Explore Rainmaker's in-depth company profile, including funding details, key investors, leadership, and competitors.

on LA Startups & Tech · While most tech headlines are busy chasing AI chatbots and flying taxis, one startup in El Segundo is aiming a little higher. Literally

Fast Company is the world's leading progressive business media brand, with a unique editorial focus on innovation in technology, leadership, and design.

Rainmaker has raised $6.3 million for its seed round, the company announced today. The group of investors include Long Journey Ventures, Day One Ventures, Tamarack Global, 1517 Fund, Starship VC, and Champion Hill Ventures.

Rainmaker uses technology to generate rain, replenish water sources, and address drought challenges in a sustainable and effective manner.

Loading organizations · The OS for early-stage founders from day zero to raise

Company specializing in drone-based cloud seeding to enhance precipitation in drought-prone areas

Delve into Rainmaker's $31.3M funding journey, backed by top climate venture firms. Learn about their innovative water and climate solutions.

Grace Lee May 09, 2025 · While most tech headlines are busy chasing AI chatbots and flying taxis, one startup in El Segundo is aiming a little higher. Literally

Rainmaker Technology, an El Segundo, CA-based water precipitation enhancement startup, reportedly raised $25m in Series A funding

Scientific rigor is the backbone of innovation at Rainmaker. We push the frontier of atmospheric science, using proven methodology to validate the impact of our seeding missions and maximize safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness.

All the afternoon's deals.

As the woes of the Great Salt Lake continue to deepen, a California-based company believes its next-generation cloud seeding technology may be part of the solution.

A small experiment near Homer produced a reported drizzle of rain and a storm of questions.

This story was originally published by the Anchorage Press. A California tech company is facing an uproar from local residents and elected officials after launching a drone near the small Alaska fishi...

Rainmaker’s CEO will take public questions in a live X Space after seeding clouds just two days before Texas’ deadly July 4 floods.

Utah and other states are spending millions of dollars on cloud-seeding technology, backed by new data on its effectiveness — and driven by desperation for water.

Some people online suggested cloud seeding conducted by the company Rainmaker Technology Corporation was to blame for deadly flooding in Texas.

As authorities search for victims of the flash floods in Texas that killed more than 100 people over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, social media users are spreading false claims that the devastation was caused by weather modification. Many pointed to one process in particular, blaming cloud seeding performed on July 2 by a California-based company for the tragedy. CLAIM: A July 2 cloud seeding operation by Rainmaker Technology Corporation caused flash floods in the Texas Hill Country over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

A weather modification technique called cloud seeding was not to blame for the deadly Texas floods in July 2025. Here's what actually happened.

Local officials say they weren’t informed before a recent “cloud-seeding” test on the Kenai Peninsula.

As authorities search for victims of the flash floods in Texas that killed more than 100 people over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, social media users are spreading false claims that the devastation was caused by weather modification. Many pointed to one process in particular, blaming cloud seeding performed on July 2 by a California-based company for the tragedy. CLAIM: A July 2 cloud seeding operation by Rainmaker Technology Corporation caused flash floods in the Texas Hill Country over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.