It’s that time of year again: The Houthis are making the news—and so is the Western corporate media narrative that surrounds them.

The Houthis—formally Ansar Allah, “Supporters of God”—are from the Zaydi Shia minority in Yemen, and have governed the most populous sections of the country, including the capital Sanaa, since the start of Yemen’s civil war in 2014.

Like many a “civil” war, the conflict has plenty of outside participants—most notably Saudi Arabia, which led a coalition of Arab states (with the backing of the United States) in an effort to bomb and starve Yemen away from Houthi control.

In 2022, a tenuous truce took hold between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, but the Saudi blockade of the country was never lifted.

This July, the Houthis declared their own naval blockade of Saudi Arabia, in response to the Saudi siege and resumed bombing of Yemen. In a rapid September offensive, the group completed its takeover of Yemen’s Red Sea Coast and the strategic Bab al-Mandeb strait, putting Saudi oil shipping operations in a decisive bind. The Houthis have also launched missiles at Saudi Arabia in response to Saudi attacks on the country.

‘Who are the Houthis?’

The offensive has prompted a slew of media interventions to ostensibly explain to everyone who the Houthis are. The New York Times (9/23/26), for instance, ran the headline “Who Are the Houthis, and What Do They Want?”; the BBC (9/24/26) ran the very same title, minus the comma.

The Washington Post (9/15/26) asked: “Who Are the Houthis, the Iran-Backed Rebels Threatening a Key Maritime Passage?” Its headline characterization revealed what corporate media see as the primary thing anyone needs to know about the Houthis: that they are simply proxies of Iran, the West’s current favorite enemy.

In a typical example, a recent CNN dispatch (9/21/26) identified the Houthis as “Iran-backed” in both the headline and the first sentence, with a reference to “Tehran’s proxies” appearing further down.

For its part, an Associated Press exclusive (9/23/26) on how “Iranian Advisers Helped Houthis Seize Yemen’s Red Sea Coast in Less Than 48 Hours” sounded the alarm that “Iranian Revolutionary Guard advisers were in the field helping direct the battle,” in a show of “how Iran has built the Houthis into a major regional partner able to open a new front in the wider war with the US.”

Lost in the AP report, of course, is the fact that neither Iran nor the Houthis had anything to do with starting the “wider war.”

Following the launch earlier this year of the deranged US/Israeli war on Iran, the Houthis largely stayed on the sidelines. But now that they are acting up again, the media seem happy to oversimplify and demonize them as foot soldiers of Tehran.

The media’s reductionist approach erases the Houthis’ own domestic motives and aims, not to mention their own reasons for standing up to Saudi Arabia, the US, and Israel. That essentially eliminates the need for further investigation or thought about appropriate diplomatic responses, and justifies whatever aggression is meted out against Yemen by Saudi Arabia and friends. It also props up the idea that the US is fundamentally right to go after a proxy-happy Iran bent on overturning the proper regional order.

Granted, the Washington Post’s “Who Are the Houthis” explainer  (9/15/26) does allow a bit of space for the view of a “pro-Houthi commentator,” Hussain al-Bukhaiti, who

said Houthi demands include free movement at Yemen’s ports and airports, the exchange of all prisoners of war and the use of Yemen’s oil revenue—much of which is under Saudi control—to pay the salaries of civil servants and services across the country.

But this idea that the Houthis have interests beyond those of Iran is immediately dismissed by an anonymous Yemeni official in the next paragraph, who the Post paraphrases saying that “the Houthi fighters were being closely directed by Iranians on the ground.” And who should Post readers believe—the Iran proxies or the US allies?

‘US-backed’ Saudi Arabia?

The media’s longstanding pathological refusal to discuss the Houthis as anything but “Iran-backed” raises the question of why, for the sake of symmetry at least, Saudi Arabia is never defined as “US-backed.” To be sure, it would be more difficult to cast the kingdom as a victim of Houthi antagonism were media outlets to provide regular reminders of the global superpower’s role in underwriting Saudi-led slaughter in Yemen.

Consider that, when the Saudi-led coalition staged its bloody entrance into the Yemeni civil war in 2015, the Barack Obama administration stood by with “intelligence, munitions and midair refueling to coalition aircraft” to assist in bombing the hell out of the impoverished nation.

American warships also helped to enforce a Saudi maritime blockade that would keep Yemen firmly on the brink of a famine that amounted to “torture in slow motion,” as determined by the World Organization Against Torture. Between April 2015 and October 2018, Save the Children estimated that some 85,000 children may have died of starvation in the country, due in large part to the blockade.

In August 2018, the Saudi-led coalition massacred 40 children and 11 adults on a school bus in northwestern Yemen, using a laser-guided bomb manufactured by Lockheed Martin, one of the beneficiaries of the previous year’s gargantuan US/Saudi “defense” deal. Neither this particular atrocity nor any other has made it into present media coverage as potentially useful context in understanding why the Houthis may have a beef with the (US-backed!) Saudis.

In the BBC’s “Who are the Houthis” explainer (9/24/26), Robert Greenall wrote that the group wants “an end to a Saudi blockade,” which inexplicably morphs later in the article into “what the Houthis say is a years-long Saudi blockade”—though it would have worked just fine to restate the blockade as fact.

Noting that “Saudi Arabia and Western powers say Iran smuggled weapons—including drones, and cruise and ballistic missiles—to the Houthis during Yemen’s civil war in violation of a UN arms embargo,” Greenall steered clear of referencing the effects of Western weapons on the Yemeni landscape.

‘Messaging is going to be tough’

In addition to helping sustain a panorama of utter humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, the US has conducted its own periodic bouts of violence in the country since 2002, when “war on terror” chief George W. Bush kicked off a covert action program there—which allowed successive administrations to go about bombing Yemen without having to declare war or really say anything about it. By 2015, the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism calculated that such “covert action” had killed up to 1,580 people in Yemen.

Then, last year, Donald Trump undertook to pummel the country and kill a bunch of civilians in response to Houthi attacks on US ships in the Red Sea, and other actions carried out in solidarity with the victims of Israel’s US-backed genocide in the Gaza Strip.

In private correspondence that was leaked to the public as part of the debacle known as Signalgate, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth cautioned that “messaging [on Yemen] is going to be tough” because “nobody knows who the Houthis are.” Of course, just because the taxpayers funding the bombing have no clue what is going on is no reason to call off the effort, and Hegseth cautioned that the US government needed to “stay focused” on conveying the idea that the Houthis are “Iran funded.”

Fast forward to now, and such messaging is still going strong, as in the September Fox News article (9/14/26) headlined “Iran’s Proxy Money Machine: How the Houthis Built a Multibillion-Dollar Network Despite US Sanctions.”

In the piece, complete with various menacing photographs of weapon-wielding Houthis, journalist Efrat Lachter warned ominously of “the sprawling financial network that has helped transform the Iran-backed group from a Yemeni insurgency into a heavily armed regional power capable of threatening global trade.”

And in case being a puppet of one US enemy isn’t enough, the Wall Street Journal (9/23/26) added that the Houthis are also “increasingly supplied by China.”

Trump, who apparently spoke too soon last year when he informed the Houthis that they would be “completely annihilated,” has thus far refrained from intervening in Yemen again on behalf of Saudi Arabia—although the United Kingdom has dutifully come to its fellow kingdom’s aid.

US ‘must rejoin Saudi war’

Among observers concerned that the US is not engaged in nearly enough bellicose activity worldwide is Dov Zakheim, a former deputy undersecretary of Defense under Bush II and the author of an opinion piece at The Hill (9/25/26) headlined “Washington Must Rejoin the Saudi War Against the Houthis.”

In his entreaty, Zakheim urges the Trump administration to assist “its longstanding Middle Eastern ally” in spite of “an increasing munitions shortfall that would seriously worsen if it again joined the fight against the Houthis.”

And yet the shortfall somehow hasn’t managed to throw a wrench in plans for an estimated $24.3 billion fighter jet sale to Saudi Arabia—already the No. 1 client of US arms manufacturers—in a deal that was granted preliminary approval by the US State Department on September 17.

Ironically, Zakheim’s intervention contains more historical context than most corporate media coverage; at the outset, he explains that Houthi “resentment of Saudi Arabia stretches back nearly a century”:

In the 1920s, King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia seized the Asir province that historically had been under Zaydi Muslim control. When the rulers of Yemen tried to reclaim the territory, they were defeated by the Saudis in 1934.

In other words, despite corporate media falling lock-step behind US officials on messaging, it’s not just all about Iran.

Now, as corporate media continue to ask who the Houthis are without wanting a real answer, one may recall Hegseth’s warning that messaging on Yemen was going to be “tough.” But for outlets committed to politically motivated and oversimplified sensationalism, it doesn’t seem very difficult at all.

[…]

Via https://fair.org/home/corporate-media-dont-understand-the-houthis-and-dont-want-you-to-either/

Former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller. © Getty Images / Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/646691-poland-kiev-embezzling-aid/

The AI CON by Dr. Emily M. Bender and Dr. Alex Hanna. Source.

by Brian Shilhavy
Health Impact News

The AI bubble and impending financial collapse is now being reported more than ever before.

And while the corporate media and even the alternative media are still participating in the AI Con with doomsday scenarios about computers becoming smarter than humans and “rogue AI agents” threatening our very existence, more and more people are drawing back the curtain and noticing that there is actually nothing there, and that most of what is being published in the media about AI is NOT real science, but simply science fiction.

At some point reality and the truth about AI will become evident to all, but will that time come before the entire economy of the U.S. is completely destroyed by what is being described as “The largest misallocation of capital in history“?

AI Fantasies Have Become a Dangerous CULT!

After I published my last update on AI, Is AI a Threat to “Destroy Humanity” or is the Real Threat Those Who Control the Technology?, I received several comments from a reader that probably totaled over 3000 words “explaining” to me how wrong I was to not fear AI, claiming supernatural evil powers were evolving from it.

And the kicker?

This commentor admitted that HE HAD NOT EVEN READ MY ARTICLE yet.

This is called “a Cult“, because it is a belief system that will withstand any amount of logic or truth you throw at it, because most of the time they will not even read or listen to anything that contradicts their belief system, and their “mission” to warn the world about the doomsday future ahead where AI takes over everything and replaces humans.

The AI CON

Let’s start with the AI Con first, which is what is fueling the AI Cult. The AI CON is the title of a new book that was co-authored by Dr. Emily Bender.

And while I have not read this book, I am very familiar with the work of Emily Bender. Like myself, Dr. Bender has a background in linguistics and technology, and is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington where she is also the Faculty Director of the Computational Linguistics Master of Science program.

Dr. Bender co-authored an article that was recently published in The MIT Technology Review titled “Don’t be fooled by this summer of AI hype“.

[…]

The AI Financial Apocalypse is now Widely being Reported

If you search beyond the AI hype and religious fever producing their click-bait “news” which everyone prefers reading about these days, you will find genuine fear and concern about where all this massive AI spending is leading us.

“Apocalyptic” is not really hyperbole when you drill down to the facts, instead of reading the hype.

It just isn’t making it into most of the corporate news feeds, because the facts don’t sell as well as the hype.

[…]

And here’s another article from the latest The MIT Technology Review that does a deep dive into current AI spending, which also looks at Jessica Wachter’s analysis, and where this is probably leading us.

[…]

Here are a few other articles from The Information (subscription needed to read the full articles) on AI finances that have been published recently showing the increasing debt to fund AI build-outs.

Cracks Emerge in AI’s Debt-Fueled Data Center Boom

Excerpts:

Bond markets are getting tough for lower-rated borrowers. One example: CleanSpark, which is developing a data center for Meta Platforms, had to offer investors big concessions to land financing earlier this month.

That deal is among the clearest signs yet that financing the data center boom is getting expensive across the board, and investors are getting picky about which new projects they’ll back. The bank loan market too is showing signs of strain, with some lenders like Société Générale, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group becoming more selective in lending to data center projects, people arranging the deals say.

Those dynamics mean companies could struggle to borrow for planned data centers, jeopardizing growth plans for the broader AI industry.

Pressures on the AI financing market are coming from a number of different directions. Big data center operators like Amazon, Google and Microsoft will together spend some $700 billion on capital expenditures this year, and are expected to continue at around that level the next few years. They’ve issued nearly $160 billion in investment-grade debt this year, flooding the market with new supply.

That hyperscaler debt is getting more expensive relative to other highly rated corporate bonds, though the tech companies generate enormous operating cash flows. The extra yield investors are demanding to hold hyperscaler debt has risen by about 0.25 percentage points this year, compared with just 0.04 percentage points for the broader investment-grade market.

At the same time, several of these big tech companies are offloading spending onto other ventures raising money in the high-yield bond market. Meanwhile, developers building data centers for AI firms like Anthropic and OpenAI are leaning on the market too.

All told, the high-yield market has seen around $55 billion of AI-related bonds sold this year.

AI Risks, Macro Volatility Collide

Meanwhile, government bond yields are spiking, fueled in part by fears that persistently high inflation will prompt aggressive Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.

The AI boom itself is adding to the pressure—Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said last week that government yields have climbed in part because heavy tech debt issuance is crowding out investors.

Read the Full Article.

AI Data Center Debt Is Showing Up Everywhere

Excerpts:

Debt financing for data centers and related infrastructure has grown rapidly enough that it’s become its own category these days—credit analysts are breaking out AI versus non–AI-linked debt across markets to analyze new issuance and performance. Several asset managers in recent months have filed to create exchange-traded funds focused on AI or AI infrastructure–related debt.

And right now, parts of this category aren’t doing so hot.

There’s a lot going on, from wider spreads on tech giants’ corporate debt in the investment-grade market; to investors demanding bigger concessions in recent bonds for AI data center projects in the high-yield market; to skittishness in the bank loan market for AI project financing. Investors are getting choosier and taking a harder look at project-specific construction and other risks.

Zeroing in on the high-yield market in particular, there’s a group of bonds that anyone with an interest in the AI build-out should be keeping an eye on. Overall, there have been at least 20 high-yield bond deals financing data center projects over the past 12 months.

The companies behind these projects, such as CleanSpark or TeraWulf, are hardly household names, and the project debt is often issued through even more obscure special purpose entities.

But if you do a little digging, many of the biggest names in AI show up connected to these data center projects in some form, as direct tenants, customers of the tenants or providing some kind of credit support to get the financing done. That means markets for lower-rated issuers are financing at least some of the infrastructure supporting the biggest AI companies.

Full article.

Wall Street and Silicon Valley Split Over AI’s Price Tag

Excerpts:

Shifting economic forces are driving a widening divide between the financial views of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, clouding the outlook for trillions of dollars invested in AI.

Stock market angst has already caused delays for several medium-sized initial public offerings, and it is starting to cool once-red hot sentiment about Anthropic’s giant IPO, which is coming later in the year than investors expected.

While venture capitalists are still tripping over each other to invest at ever loftier valuations in AI startups showing any sign of traction, public market investors say they are retreating to big, safe stocks and growing skeptical about a flurry of data center companies trying to go public amid rising interest rates and high oil prices.

“Anything going public today needs to be priced right, and I don’t see it,” Samantha Lau, chief investment officer of small and mid-cap growth equities at asset management firm AllianceBernstein, referring to the IPO market overall.

“The only way to open the market is to be conservative.”

Leading AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic will likely require a steady stream of financing, even after their IPOs, to help pay for their hundreds of billions of dollars worth of data center commitments.

Anthropic, for example, had committed to agreements for at least 14.8 gigawatts of compute capacity that could cost well over $500 billion over the next decade, The Information reported earlier this month. Data from Anthropic’s draft IPO prospectus reported this week by Reuters have renewed investor attention to the size of its financial commitments and other risks it faces.

‘Who’s Paying for It?’

Lau said that she is optimistic about agentic software capabilities that tech firms are demonstrating, showing new benefits to all the money invested in chips and data centers.

But it isn’t clear if investment firms would see a return on their investment, especially with rising interest rates that increase companies’ borrowing costs.

[…]

Via https://healthimpactnews.com/2026/more-people-waking-up-to-the-ai-con-and-the-impending-ai-financial-collapse-that-will-probably-destroy-our-economy/

Nokia’s CEO said that by 2030 “smartphones will be implanted directly into our bodies” as 6G becomes fully operational:

This will likely involve a newly developed AI brain implant known as the Biological Interface System to Cortex (BISC) developed by teams at Columbia University, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Stanford University, and the University of Pennsylvania:

“A radically miniaturized brain implant called BISC is redefining what’s possible in human–computer interaction, offering a paper-thin, wireless, high-bandwidth link directly to the brain.”

“With over 65,000 electrodes and unprecedented data throughput, it enables advanced AI decoding of thoughts, intentions, and sensory experiences while remaining minimally invasive.”

Just like when smartphones were first released, they rapidly became widespread throughout society, with most individuals becoming dependent on them for work and entertainment. The same path will likely occur with AI brain chips, as those who receive them may have enhanced cognitive abilities and possible telepathic communication with other brain chip users.

These customers will have merged their consciousness with AI. As Elon Musk puts it, “we effectively become one with the AI”:

Meanwhile, hundreds of studies have already linked 5G frequencies to significant biochemical changes, gene expression disruption, DNA damage, oxidative stress, neurological injury, and tumor growth:

Documented adverse biological effects span:

• Biochemical changes
• Cell membrane disruption
• Altered cell proliferation
• Gene expression changes
• Morphological effects
• Immune function disruption
• Brain and neuronal effects
• Electrophysiological effects
• Genotoxicity
• Oxidative stress
• Metabolic and enzyme alterations
• Hematological effects
• Reduced cell viability
• Synergistic and combinative effects
• Fertility effects
• Behavioral effects
• Cell signaling disruption
• Apoptosis
• Learning effects
• Memory effects
• Hypoalgesic effects
• Tumor growth effects
• Developmental effects
• Endocrine effects

Those who receive brain implants will likely experience some of these deleterious effects within their neurons as biologically harmful EMFs interface in direct contact with brain tissue.

Needless to say, I will not be taking the 6G AI brain chip or merging my consciousness with machines.

[…]

Via https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/trump-signed-a-directive-to-accelerate

by Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

I joined Finnerty on NEWSMAX to warn that 6G will not simply deliver faster internet—it will dramatically intensify EMF exposure while enabling AI brain chips and advanced surveillance systems.

While 5G networks operate across frequencies ranging from approximately 0.6 to 48 GHz, 6G networks are expected to extend into terahertz (THz) frequencies. Under laboratory conditions, THz radiation has already been shown in human-derived cells and tissues to induce:

• DNA damage and DNA-damage signaling
• Genomic instability
• Impaired neural stem-cell proliferation
• Disrupted cell-cycle activity
• Altered gene expression
• Mitochondrial dysfunction
• Inflammation
• Apoptosis and cell death

One study found that THz exposure caused DNA damage, impaired proliferation, and apoptosis in human neural stem cells, with stronger effects at higher intensities and longer exposure durations.

The effects vary substantially by frequency, intensity, pulse structure, exposure duration, and tissue type. These studies do not yet prove that real-world 6G exposure will cause widespread disease, but they establish serious biological warning signals that demand rigorous long-term human testing before deployment.

Unfortunately, the multitrillion-dollar telecommunications industry is unlikely to adequately test chronic 6G exposure in humans before mass deployment—just as 5G was rolled out without comprehensive human safety studies.

Via https://envirowatchnz.com/2026/10/04/6g-will-expose-entire-populations-to-largely-untested-terahertz-radiation-enable-ai-brain-chips-and-allow-through-wall-surveillance/

The Cradle

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of preparing for a war that could lead to the postponement of Israel’s 27 October elections, telling Channel 12 that Netanyahu was “preparing the infrastructure to go to war in a way that would postpone the elections.”

Barak called on Israelis to remove Netanyahu from power in the election, saying, “We must do everything to remove him from power on Oct. 27, once and for all.” His remarks come amid accusations from Netanyahu’s opponents that the government is using security developments as an election issue.

Netanyahu has warned of possible attacks ahead of the vote and held consultations with senior security officials over developments on several fronts.

He has also threatened retaliation over the 30 September incident aboard Flydubai flight FZ1073, saying those responsible would face a “very heavy price.”

https://t.me/thecradlemedia/68798

The Cradle

US Senator Bernie Sanders said AIPAC plans to spend $233 million in the upcoming congressional midterm elections to defeat candidates who speak out against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

“AIPAC plans to spend $233 million to defeat candidates who dare to speak out against Netanyahu’s extremist government,” Sanders said in a post on X.

He also claimed the group and its affiliates spent $33 million seeking to defeat Democratic Senate candidate Abdul el-Sayed in Michigan’s primary, but failed. The Associated Press previously reported that AIPAC and affiliated groups spent nearly $30 million backing Sayed’s primary opponent, Haley Stevens, in what was the group’s largest investment in a single race.

Abdul el-Sayed has opposed unconditional US military aid to Israel and criticized Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Sanders also renewed his call to end US military aid to Israel ahead of the 3 November midterm elections.

Via https://t.me/thecradlemedia/68803