Here's One October Surprise, Anyway...

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Clusterfuck Nation,

"The Left has always preferred the ashes of its own making to the inheritance of better men." - Celina101 on X

By now, everybody and his uncle interested in public matters has probably read that a claque of current-and-former agency officials, ex-USAID busybodies, military officers, activist academics, Democratic Party paladins, and freelance communist jihadis has been exposed plotting the overthrow of the US government. The plot was reported by the diligent "X" blogger Jennica Pounds under her nom-de-plume "Data Republican," who lately received an enormous document-and-recording dump courtesy of careless color revolutionaries who recorded themselves and saved doc files against orders, the dumb bunnies.

Erica Chenoweth of Harvard (They / Them?) Master Color Revolutionary

Ms. Pounds, an experienced software engineer turned political detective, came to public attention early in 2025 when she assisted Elon Musk's DOGE operation in building a database of NGO money trails emanating from the colossal USAID grant matrix - after which her identity was "doxed" by Rolling Stone and she underwent a harassment campaign.

Of course, USAID was abolished early in the Trump 2.0 admin, and a lot of the "activists" defenestrated from it moved into scores of NGOs, with their salaries switched from taxpayer funding to the bank accounts of George Soros-connected orgs and sundry other shady characters like Shanghai-based Neville Roy Singham. These are the NGOs forever puling about "our democracy," meaning their drive to punish, persecute, and push around Americans who demur from a communist future. Data Republican says her reporting so far is "only the beginning" of much more detailed and alarming disclosures.

Coincidentally this week, their cover was also blown by Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI and former CIA analyst), who told an audience at the U. of Chicago that the Democrats intend to go after and wreck any young person who might think about working in the current administration. Ms. Slotkin, you might recall, was in that video put out a year ago - with five other US lawmakers - telling military officers they should-and-must refuse "illegal" orders. Sedition-lite, it looked like at the time.

Before we get into the meat of their playbook for us, and what might happen in response, let's just dox a few of the characters involved. You should know who they are (and maybe the DOJ should, too). They are not necessarily the usual suspects you've read about before like the omnipresent lawfare ninjas, Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, Mary McCord, et al., so busy filing frivolous lawsuits in the federal courts.

For instance (as reported by one Eric Schwalm on "X"), there's Erica Chenoweth, the transvestite professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of government who acts as chief strategist and hub for the "color revolution" planned by the United Democracy Alliance cabal she is associated with. Ms. (or Mr.?) Chenoweth's big contribution to Jacobin thought is "the 3.5 rule" which says that if you can get that percentage of people out on the streets making a ruckus, you can successfully overthrow a government.

Then there's Danielle Reiff, former USAID, now co-founder of the Democracy Renewal Group, Renew American Democracy, and Renew to Thrive orgs. . . very verbal on video laying out the exact procedures for the US color revolution. And there's Rear Admiral Michael E. Smith (Ret.) who runs a network of over a thousand retired military officers called National Security Leaders for America. He's in charge of "role-playing" exercises in preparation for post-election hijinks. Then there's Julia Roig, founder of the Horizons Project who is responsible for "building relational infrastructure so that disparate groups can act in concert without a single hierarchical command." Then there's Maria Stephan, co-author, with Erica Chenoweth, of the sedition tract Why Civil Resistance Works. Then there's Brenden Halloran, former USAID, now with the Renew to Thrive org, responsible for "accountability ecosystems, overcoming fragmentation among groups, and long-term sequencing of reforms." Then there's Walt Roberts, also on the Renew to Thrive team, plus the Mediators Foundation and the Inter-Movement Impact Project. Then there's Laura Adams, also former USAID, now in Renew to Thrive and PACT, whose mission is to turn strategy papers into operational plans. Then there's Zoe Marks, also in Harvard's Kennedy School, a "scenario-planner" for Horizons and United Democracy Alliance. Then there's "cohesion" strategist Paul Zeitz, co-founder of UnifyUSA, partner with Danielle Reiff on Renew to Thrive, and active in NGOs Renew to Thrive and National Security Leaders for America. There's the bunch. Now you know.

Top row: Reiff, Smith, Roig; Center row: Roberts, Halloran, Adams; Bottom Row: Stephan, Slotkin, Chenoweth

As to the coup playbook, here goes: The idea is to turn out massive street actions (protests and riots) in the blue cities, based on rumors that President Trump has somehow "interfered" in the election, and create enough chaos so that Mr. Trump would be tempted to invoke the Insurrection Act or some-such national emergency measure. The coupsters mentioned above, and their cohorts and underlings, have been quietly confabbing with blue state attorneys general and governors. These officials would unite to declare that Mr. Trump's actions make him illegitimate, and would set in-motion procedures for said governors to declare the president a tyrant and an outlaw and themselves as the "new governing authority." They would move from that to a new constitutional convention and bring about all the heralded revolutionary changes chattered about for months such as abolishing the electoral college and Senate, changing-up the Supreme Court, etc. Voila! Trump and his government are out! The Democratic Party (and their new DSA commissars) would take over and the punishments would begin. . . .

But. . . what if President Trump doesn't play along? What if he insists that the blue state governors must ask (or beg) for federal troops to be sent in to control the street violence in their cities before he commits to anything? Then the onus would be theirs, wouldn't it? They will have asked for help? Mr. Trump will have obliged. How does that make him a tyrant? (It doesn't, of course.) Or. . . the blue state governors might not ask for federal help and Mr. Trump could just watch their cities burn down. That would kind of be on the blue governors, too, wouldn't it - hey, they didn't ask for federal troops and their own feckless police couldn't get the job done because: previous "de-funding" and all that nonsense.

Then, how about Mr. Trump moves to arrest said blue state governors for sedition and treason (especially if they entertained any collusion with foreign operators, such as CCP-connected Neville Roy Singham's NGO network or any of Soros's overseas outfits)? And how about arresting and likewise charging many of those aforementioned NGO strategists, along with the governors? (And while you're at it, throw in the lawfare ninjas who have assisted in all this mischief.) And how about after accomplishing that, the president then and only then declares the Insurrection Act, sends in federal troops to quell the street chaos, and moves to indict and try said seditionists and traitors in the military tribunal apparatus? There it is! Just some suggestions. . . .

* * *

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/23/2026 - 16:20
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Here's One October Surprise, Anyway...

Republicans Face Losing Senate Seat They've Held for 107 Years, And It All Comes Down To One Thing

Republicans are confronting an increasingly concerning political situation in Kansas, where a Senate seat the party has held for more than a century has become unexpectedly competitive.

Republican Sen. Roger Marshall and Democratic nominee Adam Hamilton debated in Kansas City, discussing the Iran war, fuel prices, and campaign attack ads as Election Day approaches. SOURCE: Associated Press

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) is facing Democrat Adam Hamilton in a reelection contest that recent polling suggests is within single digits, despite the Sunflower State not having elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932.

During an appearance on Fox Business Network's Big Money, Marshall was pressed about why the race remains so close.

"Well, no, I think it's the price of gasoline," Marshall declared. "It's that simple, and I'm not sure it's as close as what the national polls are showing. Six years ago, I was an open seat. The poll showed the same thing, and we won by 11 points. Now, I don't think we're going to win by 11 points right now."

Marshall also blamed negative media coverage of President Donald Trump for shaping perceptions of the economy.

"The national media, the legacy media has just beat the heck out of President Trump now for, what, 10 years, and despite what's really a pretty strong economy here in Kansas, the legacy media is just telling you the sky is falling," the senator said.

The national polling shows why the senator's worried.

An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos survey found that 71% of Americans consider gasoline unaffordable, compared with 28% in February. Additionally, a Pew Research Center survey found that 74% of Americans are very concerned about gasoline and energy prices, up from 43% in January.

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Republicans Face Losing Senate Seat They've Held for 107 Years, And It All Comes Down To One Thing

"Polished But Rough": First Major Review Casts Doubt On Foldable iPhone Duo's Mass Adoption

Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, who has more than 21 million subscribers, offered a mixed first take on Apple's foldable iPhone Duo ahead of its Friday release, describing the device as "very polished around the edges, but kind of rough in the middle."

Brownlee's review of Apple's first foldable iPhone may present a hurdle to adoption. At more than $2,000, the Duo's first-generation shortcomings could make buyers reluctant to pay the hefty premium, prompting some to wait for a second generation.

"It's $2,000 to get an iPad mini that can fit in your pocket. 120 Hz iPad Mini OLED fits in your pocket. Have you ever wanted that? They made it. They did it. Great. This is the first generation. It's made for you. But also, yeah, it is it is polished but rough," Brownlee noted.

The Duo is slightly thicker and heavier than the latest Samsung Galaxy Z Fold, a difference Brownlee said "makes a big difference in daily use."

After testing the Duo for a week, he said, "you would be happy if it were 20% lighter."

Brownlee pointed out that the battery capacity is about 4,900 mAh, split across the two halves. With typical mixed use (roughly 75% closed and 25% open), Brownlee called it a "very efficient phone" and "an all-day phone and then some," regularly finishing the day with more than 30% battery remaining.

The dual rear cameras (48 MP main and ultra-wide) are "right on par with the rest of the foldables" and "solid" most of the time, though the smaller main sensor gets noisier in weaker light and there is no optical zoom, he explained.

He continued, "The app situation on the iPhone Duo is its biggest downside right now."

"I think after the learning curve and getting used to not having Face ID, this is a really fun phone to use," he added.

Brownlee's verdict is mixed:

If you are the iPhone filmmaker who wants the absolute best cameras to go shoot their next thing, no. Uh if you're the type of person who breaks your phone every like nine months cuz you drop it all the time, yep, probably no. But if the $2,000 or the difference between 35 and 55 bucks a month doesn't mean much to you and you just kind of like the idea and want to jump in, I think after the learning curve and and getting used to not having Face ID, this is a really fun phone to use.

And it's really just cuz that polish, that polish around the edges goes a long way towards the fun factor. So, the awesome animations, the incredible hinge, the wonderful inside display, like all of that is just really nice and it hides a little bit of the rough core. Like, it will feel a little heavy sometimes and not all your favorite apps will be updated right out the box, but it is fun.

Apple can't completely engineer their way around the compromises of this form factor, like the slightly worse battery and the slightly worse speakers and the slightly worse cameras. Like, that's just physics. But what they have done is an admirable job with their first generation. Now, I'm just going to have to cross my fingers that second generation actually listens to some of that core feedback cuz that could be an amazing phone.

Watch The Duo Review Here Before Buying

Last Friday, when preorders for the Duo opened, we pointed out the incredible initial demand as delivery estimates slipped further and further beyond this Friday by the minute.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Duo's estimated delivery date is January 22.

The question remains whether the Duo, at a base price of $2,000, can achieve mass adoption, given that Tim Cook's $3,400 Vision Pro was a total disaster. Now it's John Ternus' turn to prove to investors that Apple still has demand for its premium products.

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"Polished But Rough": First Major Review Casts Doubt On Foldable iPhone Duo's Mass Adoption

1% Of Companies Account For 80% Of OpenAI And Anthropic Spending - And It Just Stalled

Just 1% of companies account for 80% of all business spending on OpenAI and Anthropic, according to corporate card giant Ramp, which tracks payments across more than 70,000 U.S. businesses. Ramp lead economist Ara Kharazian, who flagged the figure in early September, noted that spending on the two AI labs is more concentrated than in any other software category the firm tracks.

Per capita, the biggest spenders are overwhelmingly venture-backed. According to Ramp's summer report, the median VC-backed startup spent $76 per employee per month on AI - more than ten times the $7 spent at private equity-backed firms.

That top-heavy dynamic mirrors what YipitData uncovered at Anthropic specifically: the lab's top 1% of customers generated 46% of its revenue in August, nearly doubling from 25% a year earlier. How many of those whale customers, we asked at the time, are funded by the very same VCs backing Anthropic?

Anthropic's IPO prospectus - the updated version of which we dissected yesterday - confirms the concentration at the very top: just two unnamed customers generated nearly a quarter of its 2025 revenue, according to Reuters. Their identities aren't hard to guess. Last year, two AI coding tools - Cursor and Microsoft's GitHub Copilot - drove roughly $1.2 billion of Anthropic's $5 billion annualized revenue run-rate, as VentureBeat reported.

Follow the money. Cursor's parent company, Anysphere, raised $2.3 billion at a $29.3 billion valuation last November in a round co-led by Accel and Coatue, alongside Thrive Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, and Google. Three months later, Coatue and Singapore's GIC led Anthropic's massive $30 billion Series G, with Nvidia again participating. Coatue's cash flows into Cursor, Cursor spends it on Claude tokens, those tokens book as Anthropic revenue, and that revenue underwrites the markups on Coatue's Anthropic stake.

Even the scorekeeper is inside the loop. Ramp itself raised $1.85 billion at a $60 billion valuation last week in a round led by Dragoneer, Thrive, Founders Fund, Sands Capital, and Avenir Growth. Its cap table also features Coatue, D1, ICONIQ, GIC, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, General Catalyst, and Lightspeed - every single one of which, alongside Dragoneer and Founders Fund, backed Anthropic's Series G.

Volumes Up, Dollars Flat

Yet it is Ramp's own economist who is documenting the cracks in the facade. In his October AI Index - pointedly titled "Cracks in the AI Thesis Part 3" - Kharazian reported that the top 1% of AI-spending firms shelled out $9,568 per employee in September. While that was up 11.7% from August, it remained 3.1% below July's peak of $9,873.

Across the broader cohort, the stall is even starker. In August and September, Ramp recorded "two straight months of virtually no growth in token spend," even as raw token volumes continued to climb.

Total dollar spend did eke out a new high in early October, but cleared its previous August peak by a paltry 1.5%.

Source: Ramp Rate

The culprit, according to Kharazian, is deflation: "the main driver is price declines at the frontier, in addition to efficiency and quality improvements for models across intelligence levels, that are driving the blended price per million tokens down."

Source: Ramp Rate

Nor have the AI labs been able to lock in their biggest customers. Asked whether OpenAI and Anthropic are using enterprise contracts to guarantee revenue, Kharazian noted that buyers hold all the leverage. Enterprise deals are rarely signed on the assumption of higher-than-normal spend, and when they are, "the labs are willing to provide concessions in the form of discounts on models from the sticker price." His takeaway: "These contracts could contribute to price cuts without driving additional volume."

The customer base isn't widening much, either. Paid AI adoption across Ramp's corporate network nudged up just 0.62 percentage points to 55.9% in September. "It feels like we're at the top of the S-curve," Kharazian wrote, "where the growth in the market will have to come from more intense adoption rather than more customers."

Source: Ramp Rate

Anthropic Joins The Price War

Meanwhile, Anthropic's realized token price has been cut in half in just a month. The Ornn Anthropic Token Price Index - which measures the actual dollars customers pay per token consumed - has cratered to $0.83 per million tokens from over $1.70 in mid-September, marking a record low since the benchmark launched in June.

Even after that plunge, Anthropic remains pricier than OpenAI, whose index sits at $0.45. OpenAI's realized pricing collapsed in late July after it slashed rates on its GPT-5.6 Luna and Terra models by up to 80% - just three days after Chinese lab Moonshot released the open weights for Kimi K3, the model blamed for sending chip stocks into a bear market earlier that month. OpenAI has since reportedly leaned toward delaying its IPO until 2027.

Jevons Isn't Riding To The Rescue

Jevon is an offset and total demand is rising... until it hits physical constraints of hundreds of delayed or canceled data centers. https://t.co/BqONarz80n

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 14, 2026

The bulls' reflex answer to relentless price cuts is Jevons paradox: make tokens cheap enough, and usage will explode so fast that total revenue rises anyway. The data isn't cooperating. In a Sept. 25 note, Goldman Sachs warned that "token demand growth will need to outpace declining token prices to support continued growth in investment spending," noting that while "frontier models are currently a key source of demand for hyperscaler compute," cheap open-source rivals are rapidly gaining ground. By Goldman's estimate - built on Anera and OpenRouter data - total token demand has surged roughly 18-fold since December, but demand for high-margin frontier models has grown only half as fast.

That margin squeeze is now flowing directly upstream to the companies building the data centers. Goldman calculates that realized return on invested capital (ROIC) across Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle has fallen from 40% to 25% - the lowest reading in its dataset going back to 2016.

On Tuesday - the same day Citadel's Ken Griffin told Bloomberg that markets are "almost certainly" in an AI bubble - Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok diagnosed the underlying demand problem. "Silicon Valley operates on the premise that compute demand is unlimited, yet the recent slowdown in token spending growth suggests that this appetite may exist only when compute is effectively free," Slok wrote, citing Ramp's figures. Instead of inelastic hunger, compute faces "a flat, highly price-sensitive demand curve, where even modest changes in token prices can drive buyers to throttle usage or substitute cheap open-source alternatives."

"Ultimately, the number-one variable governing the viability of data center construction models is not physical capacity or power; it is the actual price users are willing to pay for the compute being built," Slok concluded. Corporate buyers will only pay a premium if they can translate tokens into "higher top-line growth, bigger profit margins or substantial cost savings, little of which is showing up at scale yet. Maybe that will come in the future. Maybe not."

Back in June, Ramp product director Adam Sommer boasted to a New York panel that "our largest AI spenders at Ramp are seeing their spend double month-over-month for the last several months." Three months later, the top 1% were spending less per employee than they had in July.

 

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1% Of Companies Account For 80% Of OpenAI And Anthropic Spending - And It Just Stalled

Pollster Cited By NY Times, Other Outlets Admits It's Fake

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

A purported company whose polls were listed by a slew of outlets, including The New York Times, has said that all but one of its surveys were not real.

Wedgewood Polling said in a statement on Oct. 20 that it was developed by people who previously worked in the poll sector and wondered how easy it would be for a fabricated polling firm to gain traction, be taken seriously, and "expose how little scrutinization exists in media and public commentary."

The entity said that its surveys often did not have any real data behind them, but they were nonetheless included in poll averages by the NY Times and some other outlets.

"Our fabricated numbers were given instant credibility across national media platforms - including being cited on air and in reporting by outlets such as MS Now," Wedgewood Polling said. "The ease with which unverified figures were absorbed into mainstream political narratives highlights a systemic breakdown in media vetting and data aggregation."

The surveys largely favored Democrats, including having Democrat candidate Abdul El-Sayed ahead of Republican candidate Mike Rogers in the race for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan.

Wedgewood Polling conducted a single legitimate poll, in Nebraska, that served as a baseline to compare against fake data.

Wedgewood Polling said it did not intend to mislead the public or sway an election, and that the purpose was to spark changes in the polling and media industries.

Decision Desk HQ said on X on Wednesday that it removed 17 polls from Wedgewood Polling in light of the company's admission.

"As polling and averages are a component of our forecast model, we have rerun the model and all of our forecasts now reflect the removal of the fraudulent data," Decision Desk said. "The removal of these polls has not changed the projected seat totals or chamber control probabilities in the Senate or House."

Zachary Donnini, head of data science at VoteHub, another poll aggregator, said on X on Tuesday that he contacted Wedgewood Polling's head pollster after the company first appeared, and that the individual said he was a college student who had experience in the polling space. The conversation led to VoteHub including polls from the company on its website.

"A few years ago, I was a college student following politics as a hobby myself, so I try to give people in that position the benefit of the doubt," Donnini said. "It's disappointing to see how this has unfolded, because it's going to be a ... lot harder for the next college kid who's actually well-intentioned and super into politics to break into the space after this."

FiftyPlusOne, which had also included Wedgewood Polling surveys, said on Tuesday that it had sent questions about the polls to the company prior to the admission that most of its polls were fake. It said the questions prompted the disclosure.

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Pollster Cited By NY Times, Other Outlets Admits It's Fake

The Simpsons Brings Back Apu As Irritable, Loud, And Unlikeable

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

The Simpsons has finally let the the Indian character Apu speak again after nearly a decade of silence prompted by previous accusations of 'racist stereotyping' levelled at the show all stemming from the fact that a white actor voiced the character.

However, what has now transpired perfectly illustrates what happens when producers cave to activist pressure and then overcorrect.

The once happy, lovable Kwik-E-Mart owner is now irritable, loud and unlikable, according to viewers reacting to Sunday's episode "The Revengening."

Removes Indian immigrant character who was happy and lovable because of claims of racist stereotyping. Bring character back after hiring authentic Indian immigrants to write and voice character. He is now irritable, loud, and unlikable. What did the producers mean by this?

— Magills (@magills_) October 19, 2026

The character last spoke in the October 2017 episode "The Serfsons." He continued to appear in the background as a mute figure while the show grappled with complaints over voice actor Hank Azaria affecting an Indian accent.

Azaria told a podcast at the time that he had spoken at his son's school and encountered a 17-year-old Indian student who had never watched the show yet treated "Apu" as a slur.

"It's practically a slur at this point," Azaria said. "All he knows is that is how his people are thought of and represented to many people in this country." He continued: "I really do apologise. I know you weren't asking for that but it's important. I apologise for my part in creating that and participating in that. Part of me feels like I need to go around to every single Indian person in this country and personally apologise."

Plenty of Indian viewers rejected that framing at the time.

No Indian was ever offended by Apu apart from that failed comedian Hari Kondabolu.
Most Indians loved Apu.
So take your concepts of cancel culture and cultural appropriation and stick it where the sun don't shine.

— Raj (@rsn) April 13, 2021

Why do people keep listening to a small percentage of outraged marxist mobs on the internet ????

— s?? ???????? ???? ? (@SamChenkual) April 13, 2021

The pressure that produced the apology originated with Kondabolu's 2017 documentary The Problem With Apu. The film argued that the convenience-store clerk character rested on harmful stereotypes. The show made a glancing reference to the complaints in 2018, then largely parked the character.

Azaria later described the decision to stop as a collective one the production team felt was "the right thing." He continued voicing other Springfield residents while Apu stayed quiet.

Sunday's Halloween-themed episode treated the long absence as plot. A mysterious killer in a "Daft Monk" costume (a Daft Punk helmet plus monastic robe) is repeatedly killed by Springfield residents, survives, and returns a year later seeking revenge. He summons the town to City Hall, removes the helmet, and reveals himself as Apu. "I am the man you left for dead. I am the one you pretended never existed," he declares.

The character is now voiced by India-born, U.S.-raised actor Sunil Malhotra, known for animation work including The Legend of Korra and The Legend of Vox Machina.

In the episode, Apu recounts being dumped on the Island of Forgotten Garbage, healed by Dr. Nick, returning home to find his family and the Kwik-E-Mart gone, and then being ignored by everyone in town as if invisible.

Marge steps in with language that tracks the show's own earlier hesitation: "Apu, we're so sorry we left you for dead. Believe me, we wanted to do the right thing." Bart adds, "But we were so scared, and just didn't know what to do."

Homer offers a penance that doubles as a reminder of the character's previous place in town life: "You were on our bowling teams, our barbershop quartets, our dad rock cover bands. We took you for granted. I took you for granted." The sequence turns out to be a nightmare; Apu wakes in the Kwik-E-Mart with Manjula (now voiced by Janina Gavankar) and agrees to attend a Halloween party.

Showrunner Matt Selman described the approach as deliberate. "We love this character, and wanted to bring him back in a smart, 'Simpsons'-y way that allowed him to evolve," he told Variety. "We're excited by what Sunil has already brought to the role, and look forward to seeing more of Apu in the future."

Viewers who watched the episode did not share that enthusiasm. Reactions on X described the new voice as try-hard and the character as louder and much less appealing than the version that had been retired.

@DiscussingFilm This seems more racist then the first voice

— I hear you (@Seriously_try) October 19, 2026

@DiscussingFilm Leftism and political correctness ruins everything. This shit is ass.

— holysmokes (@holysmokes_84) October 19, 2026

@DiscussingFilm Sounds like a shittier version of what his voice was before

— Cozy Autumn Groyper (@thatgroyper2) October 19, 2026

@DiscussingFilm This actually sounds way more offensive because he is trying to emulate the original

— Karim Jovian (@KJovian) October 19, 2026

@DiscussingFilm id rather have him silent than this. honestly, just end the show already.

— ?? (@1c0pnq) October 19, 2026

@DiscussingFilm That voice is fucking garbage. Insulting to fans. Just end the show. The Simpsons, as great as it was its heyday, is now an anachronism that cannot exist in today’s hypersensitive culture. It is now something else, so just end the show and create something else, FFS.

— William Sullivan (@WillyJSullivan) October 19, 2026

This is what happens when a show that once thrived on sharp, boundary-pushing satire decides every joke must first clear a committee of the professionally aggrieved.

The Simpsons built its appeal on equal-opportunity exaggeration, the willingness to mock everyone and everything without pausing to check who might claim injury on behalf of someone else.

That edge is gone. What remains is a cautious, self-flagellating version of the same program, rewritten to soothe activists who treat other people's cultures as props for their own moral status.

The result is not progress. It is a shambling remnant of the original, kept on air by people more interested in signalling their virtue than in telling a funny story.

* * *

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The Simpsons Brings Back Apu As Irritable, Loud, And Unlikeable

Intifada For All...

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via kunstler.com,

"The Dems are a total mess of cluster B psychopathology. They will continue to humiliate themselves & alienate the normal population."

- JD Haltigan on X

Looks like the punishments will continue across the pond until morale improves. France on fire in the "mostly peaceful" riots - according to the BBC - this past weekend could yet ignite a final, furious, Globalist-Jacobin bid to wreck Western Civ as populist nationalism looms ever larger to defeat them. That is, whatever the demonic coalition of desperate Euro elites backed by the Soros NGO empire, the WEF, the UN bureaucracy, possibly the British Crown, and the EU, can induce their Lefty-left useful idiots to act out intifada-style against the people and their culture.

A Nice Bordeaux with Your Intifada?

President Macron stepped up Sunday to ask, "How can French people do this to France?" as the ancient tower of the Limoges city hall collapsed in flames. Somebody please inform him that the parties responsible for all the fiery chaos are not necessarily French people. Any way you cut it, this has got to be the end-of-pretend that flooding Europe with jihadis for two decades was a grand and noble idea. Where's that whiff of grapeshot when you really need it?

You also must wonder whether the American Lefty-left has riot-envy. Their handlers in the Democratic Party and its dark entourage of "resistance" foundations, billionaire NGO-funders, and Deep State seditionists must be itching to unleash similar punishments across the USA, as they managed to do in 2020 to honor the saintly George Floyd. Of course, they don't have the same resources they enjoyed back then. The US president - know who that is? - has choked off a good deal of their money-laundered cash-flow.

The main question seems to be: will any street-fighting commence here before or after the mid-term election? Before Nov. 3, let's face it, would not be such a good look for the Dems. Flash mobs of "teens" looting the sneaker stores and burning down 7-Eleven shops might only prompt the Trump-weary Republican hold-outs to show up at the polls bigly in swing states. Certainly, big, violent street demonstrations full of jihadi and communist iconography won't reflect well on Mamdani wannabe Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan or Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who assisted Tim Walz in covering-up the Somali fraud operations for years and years, and ran the Signal comms network during the Minneapolis ICE riots of last winter.

Of course, if the Euroland riots keep going, the American Lefties just might bust out anyway. "Solidarity," and all that. Comically, the "No Kings" demos of Saturday were hamstrung when Mark Zuckerberg's Meta company (formerly Facebook) suspended the No Kings Instagram account around the peak time of scheduled events around the country (starting at 1:30 p.m. ET) and for nearly two hours after. Meta later explained something about an automated security system triggered by a high volume of bot postings linked to an Anthropic AI tool. The No Kings organizers lost their action coordination platform. Fizzle fizzle. . . Boo-hoo.

After the election, however, you might consider that the same Lefty-left minions in America will take to the streets whether they win or lose the big contest over who gets to run Congress. For one thing, do not underestimate the degree of scrutiny that the federal government will give to balloting in previously sketchy corners of the land such as Michigan, Arizona, Minnesota, California, and many other places.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, head of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, sent letters to fifty states last summer warning officials they could face criminal liability for allowing or enabling non-citizens to vote. This ain't no fool' around. The DOJ is also sending attorneys by the hundreds to "observe" election proceedings. The Department of Homeland Security announced and is taking multiple actions framed as "protecting election integrity and addressing voter fraud."

The Democratic Party is already royally pissed-off at the prospect that their manifold cheating operations might be stifled this time around. You can bet that a failure to win the House and Senate will produce a vigorous reaction, easily turning violent, along with a massive effort led by lawfare ninjas Norm Eisen and Marc Elias to foul up all efforts at certifying the vote in a thousand frivolous lawsuits. Is it not time to recognize that as a form of seditious conspiracy and prosecute it accordingly?

The last big question, then, is how the president might respond to post-election shenanigans. Well, for one thing, and whatever the outcome, Mr. Trump will no longer be constrained by the need to avoid the appearance of election interference. My guess is that he will finally go medieval on these vile seditionists, even if it requires declaring some sort of national emergency or invoking the Insurrection Act. He is not going to allow a replay of anything like the 2020 mayhem.

Whatever the Europeans choose to do, it would be a shame if they lose their countries. We won't lose ours, and we are not coming to rescue them this time.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 17:00
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44% Of Americans Have Trouble Paying For Basic Necessities As Lifetime Cost Of The American Dream Tops $5 Million

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse Blog,

How did we get to a point where nearly half of the entire population is struggling to even pay for the most basic necessities? A lot of people talk about "economic collapse" as something that will occur someday in the future. The truth is that "economic collapse" has been slowly happening for decades as the middle class has been systematically eviscerated. It now takes 5.3 million dollars to live the American Dream over the course of a lifetime. Who can afford that? Most Americans aren't even going to come close to making 5.3 million dollars during their working years. Of course in this economic environment, much of the population is just concerned with trying to survive from month to month. The cost of living crisis that has been raging for this entire decade is absolutely crushing millions upon millions of U.S. households, and now we just learned that the official inflation rate has gone up again.

If financial stress has become a major theme in your life, I want you to know that you are not alone.

According to a shocking new survey just released by the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of Americans struggle to even pay for the most basic necessities...

More than four-in-ten Americans (44%) indicate they have had trouble paying for at least one of these basic necessities in the past year

We aren't talking about having difficulty paying the phone bill.

The survey found that an alarmingly high percentage of the population can't even afford to pay for housing, food and medical care.

It also discovered that a whopping 27 percent of Americans can't pay their monthly bills in full...

• 60% say they do not currently have enough income to lead the kind of life they want.
• 53% say they do not have emergency funds that would cover their expenses for three months.
• 27% cannot pay some of their monthly bills or can only make partial payments.
• 32% say they worry every day or almost every day about the cost of healthcare and the amount of debt they have.

More than a quarter of the population is getting behind on their debts.

That is what you call a crisis.

And there is no end in sight.

Most Americans don't want to be rich.

Most Americans just want to live a middle class lifestyle like their parents did.

Unfortunately, it now costs 5.3 million dollars to live the American Dream over the course of a lifetime...

The cost of the American dream is rising at a faster pace than household earnings, driven by notable increases in the cost of homeownership, raising children and paying for college, according to a new report.

An analysis by Investopedia finds that the lifetime cost of the American dream rose 4.1% from 2025 to 2026, with the cost increasing by more than $208,000 from $5.11 million a year ago to $5.32 million this year.

Are you going to make more than 5 million dollars during your working years?

If not, you are out of luck.

Housing costs have been eroding the middle class faster than just about anything else...

Homeownership costs rose the most in dollar terms, with the lifetime cost rising by over $91,000 from $1.184 million in 2025 to $1.275 million in 2026. That rise amounts to a 7.7% increase year over year.

That figure includes a 20% down payment on a median-priced single-family home of $420,000, with a 6.32% 30-year mortgage that brings the total cost with interest to about $837,000, as well as $3,057 a year in insurance costs, property taxes and 30 years of upkeep and utilities which adds another $438,000 to the price tag.

Of course the figures quoted above no longer apply, because the average rate on a 30 year mortgage is now well over 7 percent.

So now homeownership is even more unaffordable.

And just about everything else is becoming more expensive too.

Today we learned that the official rate of inflation just went up again...

September brought little relief to the accelerating cost of living, as consumer prices increased again and kept the inflation rate well above the Federal Reserve's goal.

The consumer price index, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the U.S. economy, rose a seasonally adjusted 0.6% for the month, putting the 12-month rate at 3.7%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected respective gains of 0.6% and 3.6%.

The formula that is used to calculate the official rate of inflation has been changed dozens of times since the Jimmy Carter era, and at this stage it doesn't even come close to accurately reflecting how quickly prices are actually going up.

But the fact that even the government is admitting that inflation is rising is not good.

Soaring energy costs were the primary reason for the spike in the inflation rate...

Energy costs drove inflation in September, and high retail prices in October suggest pain at the pump will continue. Prices have soared since the Iran conflict started at the end of February.

Gasoline prices last month rose 9.1% from the prior month - a faster pace than August's 3.9% increase - and are up 34% over the past year. Fuel-oil prices, meanwhile, are up 74% since last September.

When this inflation report was released, it really spooked investors, and bond yields spiked dramatically...

The 10-year Treasury note yield rose on Wednesday following the latest U.S. inflation print.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note - the main benchmark for mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt - jumped more than 7 basis points to 5.289% and reached the highest level since Oct. 8.

The longer-dated 30-year U.S. Treasury yield - which tends to react most to geopolitical events - was up more than 3 basis points to 5.602%.

The U.S. Treasury has been working really hard to keep bond yields under control.

I think that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is going to need a bigger boat.

During most economic downturns, normally we are either facing an inflation crisis or an unemployment crisis.

This time around, it appears that we will have both.

Mass layoffs have been occurring all over the nation, and on Wednesday we learned that Netflix is joining the party...

Netflix is reportedly laying off 1,000 workers - the streaming giant's biggest cuts since 2022.

Staff were told Wednesday that about 6% of the workforce - within product, tech, legal, and human resources teams - was being slashed, according to a memo obtained by the Post.

I thought that Netflix was doing well.

I guess not.

Kroger is another company that was once thriving, but now they have decided to give the axe to about 3,000 highly-paid corporate workers...

Kroger is planning to eliminate approximately 3,000 corporate positions over the next three years as the grocery giant expands its use of artificial intelligence and looks to cut costs, according to a report.

The planned cuts would affect roughly 37% of Kroger's approximately 8,200 corporate employees, Reuters reported Monday, citing an internal memo from CEO Greg Foran.

The restructuring comes as Kroger faces pressure to improve sales, keep grocery prices competitive and streamline operations through increased use of AI.

Every time more highly-paid jobs are wiped out, the middle class gets even smaller.

If you still have your seat in the middle class, you should be very thankful, because more chairs are being pulled out of the game with each passing day.

The top 10 percent of all income earners are still thriving, but for almost everyone else life is a struggle.

It didn't have to turn out this way.

Decades of insanely bad decisions have brought us to this point, and now the cost of living is the number one political issue during this campaign season by a very wide margin.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 16:20
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44% Of Americans Have Trouble Paying For Basic Necessities As Lifetime Cost Of The American Dream Tops $5 Million

"Escape Valve" No More: San Francisco Moves To End School Choice Lottery

Authored by Lear Zhou via The Epoch Times,

The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUD) board passed a resolution on Oct. 13 to replace the current lottery-based admission policy with a neighborhood-based system for elementary schools.

Board members voted 5-2 to develop a policy under which every student would be assigned to a neighborhood school based on their home address, with a seat guaranteed even if applying late. Programs such as language immersion, K-8 schools, and special education remain open to citywide students to apply.

There were two options up for the vote: Option B and Option C.

Option B would guarantee a seat at a child's neighborhood school for families who apply on time. Families could also apply to any other SFUSD school with available space, preserving broader citywide choice.

Option C would guarantee a neighborhood-school seat even for families who apply late. But families could apply elsewhere only to designated citywide programs, such as language immersion, K-8 schools, and special education programs.

SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su recommended option C, while the parents' survey favored option B.

About 65 percent of families responding to the survey did not believe the district would fulfill promises made in option C, according to Su.

"Option C will actually not let the district off the hook. It will require the district to be very intentional with how we resource our schools; it puts the responsibility squarely on the district to make sure that every single neighborhood school is worth choosing," Su told the board at the Oct. 13 meeting, promising that the schools have "safe, academically rigorous, and stable staffing by trusted adults."

The new policy would take effect in October 2027, following the board's approval on April 13, 2027, and would apply to the 2028-29 school year.

"Any district that goes through this type of turnover is at least going to take five to 10 years," deputy superintendent John Davis told the board.

"There's going to need to be a lot of difficult discussions to get a strong staff at schools that have historically been disinvested in, through their community, through redlining, through all the negatives that our society has imposed on folks."

Under the current student assignment system, families can list any number of schools on their application in order of preference, and are assigned to their highest-ranked choice if seats are available.

If more students request the limited number of available seats at a particular school, a series of preferences is weighted in a lottery-like selection process to determine who gets the spot.

"It is every parent's responsibility to think about what's best for their kid. It is our responsibility to think about what's best for all the kids," SFUSD commissioner Matt Alexander said.

"The choice system creates an escape valve for the families that have the most wherewithal, the most understanding, the most ability to navigate the system and escape from schools that are perceived to be bad."

SFUSD commissioner Alida Fisher, who voted no on Option C, criticized the change. "Saying it will take time and yet forcing families into a system where we know we can't within two years equitably resource those schools and put the programs into place." she said.

"Frankly, we are screwing over families in certain parts of the city. Neighborhood schools will by definition be segregated schools."

The current student assignment policy, which applied from 2011, was initially designed to "reverse the trend of racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in the same school," but the city's public schools became more segregated than 30 years before, according to SFUSD.

SFUSD commissioner Supryia Ray, who also voted against option C, said the elephant in the room is that SFUSD is facing a 14,000 enrollment gap.

"There seems to be some idea here that if we force people to go to their neighborhood school, outside of maybe citywide schools, somehow this will fill up all these schools," Ray said.

If the board chose option B, Su said, "Families who do not trust their neighborhood schools will continue to leave those schools; those schools will stay under-enrolled. And that pattern impacts our southeast neighborhoods the hardest."

Su argued that by choosing option C, the district could keep the funds in the southeast neighborhood and consider merging schools in neighborhoods with few students.

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"Escape Valve" No More: San Francisco Moves To End School Choice Lottery

Saudi Helicopter Downed, Two Pilots Killed, In First Of Renewed Yemen War

Saudi Arabia has confirmed two military pilots are dead after their reconnaissance helicopter crashed near the border with war-ravaged Yemen - the first such reported Saudi military deaths since the renew of war with the Houthis last month.

Saudi official statements are calling it a crash, describing it as a malfunction or accident, while the Houthis are saying they shot down the aircraft.

Illustrative file image: Boeing

"The AH-6i helicopter’s crash near the city of Najran was due to a technical fault and killed two of the crew members, the Saudi-led coalition leading a campaign against the Houthis said," according to Bloomberg. "That disputes the Iranian-backed group’s earlier claim that it had downed a similar aircraft."

Najran has been under frequent attack by the Houthis, including when the helicopter went down on Saturday. It happened amid the typical missile and drone barrage on the kingdom from neighboring Yemen.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sari had on Saturday soon on the heels of the incident announced the group had shot down a Saudi attack helicopter near Najran.

He said the helicopter wasn't just for reconnaissance, but was actively targeting Houthis positions along the border.

There is a fierce PR dispute among the warring sides:

On Sunday, October 18, al-Maliki responded to Sari’s post. He posted a photo of several Apache helicopters lined up in a row and wrote: “You claim to have shot it down, but it will soon reappear on the battlefield.” Thus, the Saudi-led coalition has denied the Houthis’ claim that an Apache helicopter was destroyed. At the same time, the report of the AH-6i crash and the deaths of two crew members remains a separate, officially confirmed fact. The details of the incident and the possible connection between these reports require further confirmation. Reuters reported this, citing a statement by Saudi Coalition spokesperson Major General Turki al-Maliki.

The Houthi side has produced what it says is video proof of the AH-6i helicopter being targeted:

Ansarallah released footage showing the interception of a Saudi AH-6i attack helicopter off the coast of Najran, Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition had previously claimed that the helicopter went down due to a "mechanical failure". This footage disproves that claim. https://t.co/LdgYju6ywy

— AMK Mapping 🇳🇿 (@AMK_Mapping_) October 18, 2026

Whichever ends up being the case, this could be the first of more military disasters for the superior-armed Saudis to come. The Houthis don't have air power or an air force, but likely have shoulder-fired and ground-to-surface systems capable of taking out low-flying aircraft.

Tyler Durden Sun, 10/18/2026 - 15:30
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Saudi Helicopter Downed, Two Pilots Killed, In First Of Renewed Yemen War

Egypt's Sisi Declares His Presidency Will End In 2030

Via Middle East Eye

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has declared that his presidential term will end in 2030 and that the question of his departure from office is now "settled and will not be discussed".

Sisi, 71, said on Saturday during a graduation ceremony at the Egyptian Military Academy that "the Egyptian constitution would not be touched". He is currently serving a six-year term.

Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi (source: Russian Information Office)

"The year 2030 will mark the end of my presidential term. This matter is completely settled," Sisi said.

"I will not leave the Egyptian state until it is brimming with its own people capable of shouldering responsibility."

The president added that the military academy was creating a new generation of leaders.

Sisi came to power in 2013 after leading a military coup that deposed Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi.

Rights groups estimate that over 60,000 prisoners of conscience are held in Egyptian jails, including more than 1,000 women.

Many prisoners, including former President Morsi and several opposition figures, have died as a result of medical neglect and other inhumane prison conditions, according to rights groups.

Sisi's latest comments come at a turbulent time in the region. Last week, Egypt’s foreign minister reaffirmed the country's support for Saudi Arabia in its conflict with Yemen's Houthis, saying that "Gulf security is integral to Egypt’s national security and our solidarity with Saudi Arabia."

Egypt has also been involved in military conflict with its neighbors. Last week, an Egyptian air strike killed 72 civilian workers at a gold mine on the Sudan-Egypt border.

Egypt backs the Sudanese Armed Forces in its war against the UAE-backed paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Egyptian President el-Sisi on leaving office by 2030: I’m saying this more than 40 months in advance so that no one can claim I’m preparing someone from my family or relatives to take over. No, no, no. Nothing like that. This is a very big country, and such things cannot happen here.

— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 17, 2026

Sisi's government is also at loggerheads with Ethiopia, which it sees as a potential naval rival in the Red Sea and with which it has a long-standing dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

Egypt recently hosted a conference with representatives from Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea to discuss coordinating military and intelligence efforts should conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea escalate.

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Egypt's Sisi Declares His Presidency Will End In 2030

"Trans ID In Free Fall": After Decade-Long Surge, Far Fewer Teens Identify As Lesbian, Gay, Or Bisexual

Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times,

The percentage of American high schoolers who say they are homosexual or bisexual has plummeted after years on the rise.

Based on data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, psychologist and researcher Jean Twenge found that "the decline appears to be driven almost entirely by girls."

Girls identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual dropped 5 percentage points, hitting 22 percent last year. Among boys, that percentage fell by 2 percentage points to 7 percent.

"The trends are striking," especially compared to data from a decade ago, Twenge, a professor at San Diego State University, wrote on her blog in late September.

Reasons for the decline in teen in lesbian, gay, or bisexual identification are not readily apparent. "I have to confess: I have no idea," Twenge wrote.

Determining whether the numbers reflect the start of a trend requires further examination, she and other professionals say.

Competing explanations for the shift are emerging amid a larger debate over alternative sexuality in America.

Patterns Emerge

By comparing the CDC's newly released 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey with its 2023 figures for grades 9 through 12, Twenge identified a pattern: The younger the grade level, the sharper the decline in lesbian, gay, or bisexual identification.

Ninth graders calling themselves lesbian, gay, or bisexual dropped from 17 to 11 percent.

For 12th-grade students, the number dipped by 2 points, from 18 to 16 percent.

Twenge's analysis excluded responses from students who said they describe their sexual orientation "another way," were unsure, or didn't understand the survey question.

Identifying as transgender - which is a gender identity, rather than a sexual orientation - also was not specifically addressed.

The newly reported drops contrast with data from preceding years.

With 2015 as a baseline, the number of girls identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual ballooned 128 percent in six years; for boys, the number went up 99 percent in eight years, Twenge wrote.

At the same time, the percentage of young adults aged 18 to 24 identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual "is no longer racing upward as it did between 2014 and 2022," Twenge wrote in another blog post.

In 'Free Fall'?

A few studies appear to reflect findings similar to those Twenge described in the CDC data.

Between 2022 and 2025, students identifying as "straight" or heterosexual climbed from 76 percent to 83 percent, the University of Minnesota reported. That study surveyed Minnesota schoolchildren in grades 5, 8, 9, and 11.

And, a year ago, Canadian political science professor Eric Kaufmann pointed to a few studies reporting non-heterosexuality was dropping among high schoolers and college students.

The data showed "trans identification is in free fall among the young," he wrote on X.

Twenge referenced Kaufmann's quote and wrote that while declining lesbian, gay, or bisexual identification is not dramatic in older teens, the data for ninth graders "really does look like a free fall."

That observation about Generation Alpha - young people born in 2010 or later - "could be a harbinger of a coming wave of change, or it could be a blip - it's hard to say," Twenge wrote.

Presidential Politics

Liberals and conservatives alike opined that the pro-traditional-family policies of President Donald Trump appear to be playing a role.

Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, which combats "anti-family extremism," told The Epoch Times that his organization has supported the Trump administration's efforts to "eliminate transgender ideology from school curriculum" and to ban boys from playing in girls' sports.

The administration has done a good job overall with "getting this type of ideology out of our schools, and instead embracing normalcy," he said.

A married father of eight, Schilling said: "It's very clear across all social data that families are incredibly important to someone's fulfillment and happiness and well-being in life."

He has witnessed lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual ideology tearing families apart and distorting what "love" means.

"So many of these young people are getting lost in this seemingly attractive ideology that proposes tolerance and acceptance - when, ultimately, it doesn't provide either of those things," Schilling said. "It's eliminating anyone in their lives that might have concerns or questions about these newfound identities, it's just a totally tragic and sad political ideology that's taking hold."

'Oppression'

Biology professor and blogger PZ Myers, who calls himself a "godless liberal," is skeptical about the CDC data possibly revealing a trend.

"Are teenagers actually becoming straight again? That makes no sense," he wrote in an essay.

Those young people are "in the process of discovering their sexuality; it's not as if ten year olds were biased towards gayness and then 'straightened up' when they were 15," Myers wrote on his blog.

His essay - titled, "Oppression Works!" - implies that the respondents may have been unwilling to admit they are lesbian, gay, or bisexual in the current political climate.

"This is not a good time to honestly express yourself, because the [expletive] crazy Republicans are running roughshod over schools, education, and science," Myers wrote.

The data Twenge compiled shows that a slight drop in lesbian, gay, or bisexual identification began in 2021 for students in ninth and tenth grades. That year, Trump ended his first term in office.

More noticeable declines began around 2024, during Democratic President Joe Biden's tenure, even though his administration advanced pro-LGBT policies.

'Fad' Versus Human Nature

Politics aside, Pennsylvania licensed professional counselor Andrew Rodriguez believes cultural influences and human nature could be driving the decrease, if it holds.

"It's clear there was a social contagion, because of the 'fad' aspect of this," he told The Epoch Times. "And now people are starting to realize, 'Oh, this isn't truly who I am.'"

"Social engineering" - using society-wide influences to steer a culture in a desired direction - helped make identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual socially acceptable or even cool, especially for girls, Rodriguez said.

For some young people, "it just was an idea, and they jumped on it ... there was some social capital they got out of it, and now they're realizing that's not as popular anymore," he said.

Rodriguez, who owns and operates Integrity Christian Counseling, said he believes God instilled people with a drive toward unions with the opposite sex.

He thinks more girls are probably realizing "I really do want to be a wife and mom."

Texas psychologist David Pickup said a recent historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling will help more people face "reality" about sexuality and gender.

In Chiles v. Salazar, the court held that a Colorado law violated therapist Kaley Chiles's constitutional right to fully explore sex and gender issues with some clients.

Pickup leads a group that includes therapists, scholars, and researchers who believe adolescents and their parents "should not be pressured to affirm homosexual identity."

With the ruling, coupled with other societal shifts, "some people are realizing that LGBT issues are not inborn and change is possible," Pickup said.

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"Trans ID In Free Fall": After Decade-Long Surge, Far Fewer Teens Identify As Lesbian, Gay, Or Bisexual