Inflation Comes In Hot (Again), Nation State AI Propaganda Here Now, New 2026 Battlefield Emerging

Trump, Hegseth, Witkoff, and Kushner Are All Up Schitt's Creek

Morning all. We start the day with more evidence of how badly Trump’s economic program has failed us. The Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation, Personal Consumption Expenditures, came in hot again. The “core” result, minus food and energy, rose 0.4% in January, the second straight month of a 0.4% (5% annualized) gain. Over the last twelve months core PCE has risen 3.1%, more than 50% above the Fed’s target of 2%. With Claude’s help here’s the core PCE trendline. Note the increase since the tariffs were illegally levied:

Another inflation gauge, PPI, showed a similar upward trend in January:

The third inflation gauge, CPI, was released earlier this week, and it too came in above the Fed target:

Trump’s policies have pushed inflation to an unacceptable level, which is helping slow economic growth too. We lost jobs last month, the 5th time we’ve lost jobs in the last 9 months (since the tariffs):

And we got a revised GDP number today showing that in that in q4 GDP growth was just 0.7%, down from an initial estimate of 1.4%. So not only are we seeing job loss, not gains, the economy barely grew at all in the fourth quarter, and came in much slower in 2025 than 2023 or 2024:

Again, all this data is from before the war. Trump went to war with an American economy slowing and inflation rising - and now we have soaring gas and other commodity (incl fertilizer) prices which will both drive prices higher and further slow an economy already teetering on recession. A new CNN report helps explain why the Trump regime was willing to take this extraordinary risk with our economy and our economic lives - they didn’t think Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz. Okey-Dokey!

Gird yourself from historic levels of dangerous Trumpian incompetency:

Top Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers during recent classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the strait in response to strikes, according to three sources familiar with the closed-door session.

The reason, multiple sources said, was administration officials believed closing the strait would hurt Iran more than the US — a view that was bolstered by Iran’s empty threats to act in the strait after US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last summer……

….The reality in the strait has left diplomatic counterparts, former US economic and energy officials and industry executives who spoke with CNN in a state of confusion and disbelief.

“Planning around preventing this exact scenario — impossible as it has long seemed — has been a bedrock principle of US national security policy for decades,” a former US official who served in Republican and Democratic administrations said. “I’m dumbfounded.”

…The Pentagon and National Security Council significantly underestimated Iran’s willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to US military strikes while planning the ongoing operation, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

President Donald Trump’s national security team failed to fully account for the potential consequences of what some officials have described as a worst-case scenario now facing the administration, the sources said.

While key officials from the Departments of Energy and Treasury were present for some of the official planning meetings about the operation before it started, sources said, the agency analysis and forecasts that would be integral elements of the decision-making process in past administrations were secondary considerations.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Energy Secretary Chris Wright have been key players throughout the planning and execution stages of the conflict, the sources acknowledged. But Trump’s preference of leaning on a tight circle of close advisers in his national security decision making had the effect of sidelining interagency debate over the potential economic fallout if Iran were to respond to US-Israeli strikes by closing the strait.

And now it may be weeks before the administration’s efforts to alleviate the intensifying economic fallout take hold, officials said Thursday, including high-risk naval escorts of oil tankers through the strait that the Pentagon believes are currently too dangerous to conduct. The president, meanwhile, has continued to downplay the tumult in energy markets and the danger. He told Fox News in an interview airing Friday that oil tanker crews should “show some guts” and go through the strait.

This morning the thin-skinned Fox News Host running the Pentagon lashed out at CNN for their reporting, claiming the war wasn’t “widening” but “shrinking.” Really……

Yes, all of this is further confirmation that Trump is a titanic, vainglorious fuck up.

In most countries the Trump government would have fallen by now. Consider:

• Trump is leading a wildly illegal cover up of global sex trafficking ring led by his “best friend,” and there are now credible reports of him raping and beating a thirteen year old girl

• His tariffs that did so much damage to our economy, and our standing in the world, were declared illegal by the Supreme Court. Those original tariffs were in my mind the greatest abuse of Presidential power in US history. And rather than accepting the Court’s judgement, and that of Congress’ where each chamber voted to rescind the tariffs, he defiantly, illegally, recklessly both levied new tariffs to replace the ones struck down by the Court and has refused to pay back the hundreds of billions he owes to Americans. Seriously WTF……

• Trump unleashed an illegal, unconstitutional paramilitary force to terrorize communities across the country, illegally detain many thousands of people, and kill Americans in cold blood on the streets of our cities. Noem has fallen for this. Miller should follow.

• The ridiculous Iran war. This is now the greatest abuse of Presidential power in our history, outstripping the tariffs; and also perhaps the greatest policy mistake our great country has ever seen. The Trumpian incompetence the entire world is experiencing now - incompetence magnified by his extraordinary malevolence and stunning recklessness - should cause the immediate departure of Hegseth, Witkoff, and Kushner.

Trump is an historic fuck up who has done jawdropping levels of damage to America and the world. It’s incredible that our political system is allowing him to remain in power. It’s why we have to working as hard as we can all.

Foreign Nation State AI Propaganda Has Arrived, And Our Discourse Enters A New Era - We knew it was coming, and it is now here……

Here’s media released yesterday by the Chinese Embassy to the US (with Spanish, English and Chinese subtitles, sound is in English):

Here’s a new video from the government of Iran - Lego figures, Epstein and Trump together, dead school kids - and this one amplified, by RT, the Russian propaganda network:

Iran has been posting stuff like this in English for days now:

Iran has also successfully launched a massive cyberattack against a US health care company:

AI videos, cyber attacks, domestic terror attacks - it’s all part of that “new battlefield” that I’ve been talking about. This election is not going to be like any other mid-term any of us has ever experienced. The idiotic Trump regime has disabled America’s cyber and mis/disinfo defenses, and largely shuttered our global propaganda agencies - essentially inviting global bad actors into the country this year. AI has arrived, creating a whole new set of information challenges. After his failed war, failed economic program, failed government, plummeting approval rating and metastasizing Epstein scandal he will grow more desperate, and his various ways of illicitly staying in power will become more central to him and his allies.

As I said in my talk yesterday, we must win this election on the conventional battlefield of American politics, be loud and go on offense; and prepare for how the battlefield is and will change this year, working together to develop strategies to ensure we prevail in this emergent battlefield too.

AI slop, a Republican Party no longer bound by rule of law, foreign nation states already engaging - this is going to be a mid-term like no other we’ve seen, and we must adjust to these new realities, together, if we are to have the election that we all want to have this year.

The first and most important step in this process is ensuring that our candidates our party committees have the resources they need to staff up and communicate loudly in the info wars to come. Head here to help our warriors head into battle with the tools required to win, and take other actions that will help us win this year.

Keep working hard all. Proud every day to be in this battle with all of you - Simon