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Japan Continues Drifting From Post-WW2 Pacifist Constitution, Inking Landmark Navy Deal With Australia

Japan continues getting further away from its pacifist constitution adopted after World War 2, as US regional allies continue strengthen defense alliances in face of the ‘China threat’.

Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles announced Tuesday a major deal with his country’s Indo-Pacific trade partner Japan, hailed as “the largest defense industry deal ever made between Japan and Australia.”

Australia plans acquire a total of eleven frigates from Japan in a major boost to its navy, valued at 10 billion Australian dollars (approximately $6.5 billion or €5.6 billion).

The major contract was awarded to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which will provide Mogami-class warships, which are highly advanced and with an array of weapons, with the bid succeeding over that of Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems.

“This decision was made based on what was the best capability for Australia,” Marles said. “We do have a very close strategic alignment with Japan.”

“The Mogami-class frigate is the best frigate for Australia,” Marles described. “It is a next-generation vessel. It is stealthy. It has 32 vertical launch cells capable of launching long-range missiles.”

This agreement marks Japan’s first export of warships since before the Second World War, and only its second significant defense sale abroad, which is why some Australian analysts consider the landmark deal to be high risk.

Many details of the deal still remain shrouded in mystery, but one maritime sources says: “Under the agreement, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will supply the Royal Australian Navy with three upgraded Mogami-class multi-role frigates built in Japan from 2029. Eight more frigates will be built in Western Australia.”

Additionally, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has never built warships outside of Japan. Rabobank in a note has commented further of this factor as follows:

Japan continues to increase its defense exports after decades of controls to stay out of global conflicts after World War II. Mitsubishi is going to build a fleet of frigates for the Royal Australian Navy in the coming years. The first three will be built in Japan, the remainder in Australia, bolstering the defense ties between the two countries. Both are US allies and face a threat from China. Australia aims to increase its surface fleet to its largest size since WWII.

It was only just over a decade ago, in 2014, that then-prime minister Shinzo Abe partially lifted the post-WW decades-long self-imposed ban on foreign arms sales.

The high tech multi-mission stealth frigate for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, now to be supplied to Australia’s military…

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Don Lemon Embroiled In New Controversy

Former CNN host Don Lemon is once again facing intense backlash after appearing to give tacit approval to an outrageous Holocaust comparison made by a Texas Democrat during a livestream discussion on the state’s 2026 redistricting battle.

Texas State Rep. Jolanda Jones (D–Houston), who recently fled to Illinois along with dozens of other Democrats to block a Republican redistricting proposal, created outrage when she likened the GOP’s mid-decade redistricting efforts to the Holocaust.

“I will liken this to the Holocaust,” Jones said. “People are like, ‘well, how did the Holocaust happen? How is somebody in a position to kill all them people?’”

“Well, good people remained silent or good people didn’t realize that what happens to them can very soon happen to me or somebody I love,” Jones claimed.

As she delivered the incendiary remarks, Lemon nodded in agreement and muttered, “Mmhmm.”

Jones remained defiant, even as the Holocaust analogy threatens to derail her party’s messaging. “God forbid they end up targeting you and your family,” she added in her closing line.

Jones, who was elected in 2022, made the comments during a virtual town hall discussing the Republican-led redistricting plan. That proposal—unveiled earlier this summer—aims to redraw 37 of Texas’s 38 congressional districts, potentially giving the GOP control of up to 30 seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Democrats claim the map disproportionately targets Black and Latino-majority districts in cities like Houston, Austin, and Dallas–Fort Worth. But comparing political maneuvering to one of the most horrific genocides in human history has even some liberals backing away from Jones.

Jones’s full comments were even more dire. “If you think it can’t happen, it can,” she said. “We will lose all of our rights. And if you think it can’t happen, it can. And I will liken this to the Holocaust.”

While most of the attention has focused on her remarks, Lemon’s visible affirmation is raising eyebrows as well. The former CNN anchor, who has previously come under fire for bizarre on-air moments, including suggesting women over 40 are “past their prime,” was recently attempting a career pivot through online platforms. Many are now calling for advertisers to cut ties.

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US Government Announces ChatGPT Integration Across Agencies

US President Donald Trump’s administration has signed a deal with OpenAI to provide the enterprise-level version of the ChatGPT platform to all federal agencies in an effort to “modernize” operations.

Under the deal, all US government agencies will have access to the AI platform for $1 per agency to facilitate integration of AI into workflow operations, according to a Wednesday announcement from the US General Services Administration (GSA).

The GSA, which is the US government’s procurement office, said the private-public partnership “directly supports” the White House’s AI Action Plan, a three-pillar strategy to establish US leadership in AI development recently disclosed by the admnistration.

Despite the modernization efforts, critics say the ongoing AI race between nation-states may have negative implications for privacy, data protection policies, censorship, narrative control, cybersecurity, civil liberties and governance.

The dangers of centralized AI in government

In 2023, the US Space Force, a branch of the military, paused the use of generative AI tools at the organization, including ChatGPT, due to cybersecurity concerns over sensitive data critical to national security.

Large-language models (LLMs) and AI service providers would need to overhaul their data protection standards before the tools can be widely adopted by the military, said Lisa Costa, Space Force’s deputy chief of space operations for technology and innovation at the time.

Public concerns over automating government work with AI have also grown as the AI industry develops. 

Sweden Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson recently came under fire after acknowledging that he had consulted AI for policy decisions, according to The Guardian.

Tom Samuelsson, a spokesperson for the prime minister, said Kristersson did not use AI to discuss classified matters or sensitive information related to national security.

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Obama caught insisting gerrymandering is wrong when Republicans do it, but it’s ‘democracy’ when Dems take advantage

It’s unfair, it’s wrong, it’s “gerrymandering” when Republicans do it.

But it’s “democracy” when the perpetrators are Democrats.

That odd bit of hypocrisy is courtesy Barack Obama, who this week joined in an orchestrated campaign by Democrats to condemn a redistricting proposal in Texas.

It would, if fact, give GOP members a higher probability of winning some seats, analysts have said.

Obama wrote, “We can’t lose focus on what matters – right now, Republicans in Texas are trying to gerrymander district lines to unfairly win five seats in next year’s midterm elections. This is a power grab that undermines our democracy.”

However, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, pointed out the two different definitions of redistricting, or gerrymandering, Democrats, including Obama, trot out.

Democrats “only call it ‘gerrymandering’ when it’s in a Republican state,” he explained. “When it happens in Illinois, they call it ‘democracy.’”

A report on the politicking by Obama, in Twitchy, cited a 2012 article in the New Yorker in which Obama confessed that his own national political career “was launched with the assistance of gerrymandering that Barack had a personal hand in helping with.”

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Was the Death of Seth Rich a Hit by the Deep State?

“The truth is stranger than fiction” (as attributed to Mark Twain) 

Conspiracy theorists have long thought that Seth Rich’s death was an assassination facilitated by the Deep State — a Machiavellian hit by the Deep State to cover for its operation known as Russian Collusion because Rich could expose it as false from the beginning.  It was an actual “Spy vs. Spy” episode, straight out of Mad Magazine — except our side went full Stasi against the American people.  There were the DOJ, FBI, CIA, ODNI, and others in the Intelligence Community (I.C.), except NSA director Adm. Mike Rogers (See more).

With the bombshell release of documents (and here) by DNI director Tulsi Gabbard and more releases every day, Rich’s death at the hands of the Deep State is no longer a conspiracy theory.  I agree with Director Gabbard’s conclusion: Accountability and the rule of law must be restored.

Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people. …

Their egregious abuse of power and blatant rejection of our Constitution threatens the very foundation and integrity of our democratic republic.  No matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.  The American people’s faith and trust in our democratic republic and therefore the future of our nation depends on it.

Gabbard spoke at the regular White House press conference.  CNN cut away while Gabbard was speaking.  Why?  Fraud by omission on a significant news story of the day?  The legacy media are up to their usual spin.  Politico was less biased than the rest so far.  Politico does have a link to the documents.

The circumstances surrounding the death of Rich are well known to the American Thinker readers.  I will limit this piece to new information.  I did glean one thing from these releases that is significant to the death of Seth Rich, which I’ll explain soon.

METRO DC police quickly attributed Rich’s death to a street robbery gone bad.  Any Deep State involvement was swiftly dismissed as a fantasy of conspiracy theorists by the authorities and echoed by the legacy media. 

Attorney Ty Clevenger and I have made many attempts to bring information about Rich’s death to the congressional oversight committees.  The silence has been deafening.  I empathize with A.G. Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel.  Especially since the DOJ, FBI, ODNI, and CIA are principals in this conspiracy — who destroy, withhold, hide, curate, and create evidence under the guise of classification, ongoing criminal investigations, or national security from the American people. 

The absence of information leads to speculation and conspiracy theories.  Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.), a victim of egregious lawfare by the Deep State, is beginning to wonder.  Gen. Flynn knew too much, as likely did Rich.  People have little awareness of what it takes to put together a good criminal case, let alone prosecute it, especially when the DOJ is in the tank.  People’s expectations often stem from fictional accounts in movies and TV, where everything typically happens within 60 to 90 minutes.

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Top Democrat’s ‘Secret Life’ Revealed By Bombshell Exposé

A top Democratic recruit for U.S. Senate may have had a secret marriage, one that he has never publicly acknowledged existing, up until the time he entered politics, according to a new report from the Daily Mail.

Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who jumped into the open race last week, is alleged to have swooned his ex-wife while she was still married to her former husband, she claims in a new interview.

The revelation comes as a shock to longtime observers of the “squeaky clean” Democrat who left office in 2024 with high approval ratings and scuttlebutt about his potential future on the national stage, including reportedly being on the shortlist to join former Vice President Kamala Harris on the party’s ticket.

That image changed after a new story by the Daily Mail alleges that Cooper is no longer “the living, breathing antonym of controversy.”

Before entering politics, Cooper was married to his ex-wife, Georganne Rice, now 65, claims. His desire for elected office ultimately overshadowed their marriage and led to its demise, she told the outlet.

“He was my orientation counselor when I was a freshman and started at [University of North Carolina] Chapel Hill,” she said.

“We dated starting my sophomore year of college, and then we got married two weeks after I graduated from college in 1981.”

“I thought everything was great, until one day he came home and told me that he had signed up to run for state representative,” she continued.

“We had not discussed it or anything. We were in our mid-20s, and I wanted to start a family. I was completely flabbergasted that he would decide to run. He wouldn’t even discuss it with me; he just came home and told me.

“I told Roy, ‘I don’t want this life; we didn’t discuss this.’ It was a pretty major life decision.”

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ATOMIC BOMBINGS AT 80: Truman’s ‘Human Sacrifice’ to Subdue Moscow

Sumiteru Taniguchi was one of the “lucky” ones. He lived a long and productive life. He married and fathered two healthy children who gave him four grandchildren and two great grandchildren. He had a long career in Japan’s postal and telegraph services. As a leader in Japan’s anti-nuclear movement, he addressed thousands of audiences and hundreds of thousands of people. He traveled to at least 23 countries. The organizations in which he played a prominent role were nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Many of the more than 250,000 who lived in Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, were not so lucky. Tens of thousands were killed instantly by the plutonium core atomic bomb the U.S. dropped that day from the B29 Bockscar, captained by Major Charles Sweeney.

The bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man,” exploded with a force equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT and wiped out an area that covered three square miles, shattering windows eleven miles away. Some 74,000 were dead by the end of the year. The death toll reached 140,000 by 1950. Included among the victims were thousands of Korean slave laborers, who toiled in Japanese mines, fields, and factories. Since then, atomic bomb-related injuries and illnesses have claimed thousands more victims and caused immense suffering to many of the survivors.

The scene of death and destruction defied description. Corpses, many of which had been charred by the blast, lay everywhere. Susan Southard, in her groundbreaking book Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War, describes the scene that U.S. occupation troops encountered when they landed on September 23, 1945: “The Urakami Valley had vanished from existence, corpses were burning on cremation pyres, skulls and bones were piled on the ground, and people were walking through the ruins with beleaguered and empty expressions.”

Among the troops was Keith Lynch, a sailor from Nebraska. Lynch wrote to his parents that he had just seen

“a sight I hope my children, if I am so fortunate, will never have to see, hear of, or ever think of. It was horrible and when you get to thinking, unbelieveable….Such a thing as I saw yesterday cannot be described in words. You have to see it and I hope no one ever has to see such a thing again.”

The death toll was even higher and the destruction greater in Hiroshima, which the U.S. had obliterated three days earlier with a uranium core atomic bomb. There, some 200,000 were dead by 1950. The Nagasaki bomb was more powerful than the one that leveled Hiroshima, but damage was limited by the fact that the bomb missed its target and that the mountains surrounding Nagasaki, which is located in a valley, contained the blast. However, in Urakami Valley, where the bomb landed, nearly 70 percent of the population perished.

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Judge Strikes Down California Deepfake Censorship Law

California’s attempt to regulate political speech on major social media platforms has been blocked in federal court, with a judge ruling the state’s latest “deepfake” law clashes with protections already established by Congress.

Assembly Bill 2655 attempted to compel certain large platforms to track down and delete “materially deceptive content” about candidates, election officials, and officeholders.

Supporters described it as a safeguard against manipulated media. The companies targeted, including X and Rumble, argued it was an attempt to turn them into agents of government censorship.

Senior US District Judge John Mendez sided with the platforms and did not even need to reach the argument of constitutional free speech questions to strike down the measure.

He found the federal Communications Decency Act [CDA] already shields online services from punishment over third-party content.

“No parts of this statute are severable because the whole statute is preempted,” Mendez said in court. “No parts of A.B. 2655 can be salvaged.”

The ruling applies to the companies in the lawsuit, and his earlier order freezing enforcement of the law remains in effect statewide until he issues a formal opinion.

For Mendez, the law punished companies for doing something they are “clearly protected by [the CDA] from doing.”

The court also cast doubt on another state law, Assembly Bill 2839, which prohibits false or misleading digital communications aimed at election workers, officials, voting equipment, or candidates in the months leading up to an election. That measure is also on hold, and Mendez signaled he doubts it will survive judicial review.

“Anybody can sue,” he said. “I can sue. If I see the video, under this law, I can sue.” He warned that such a rule chills protected speech and noted the state had not shown it was using the least speech-restrictive approach possible.

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Brazilian Woman Granted Refugee Status in Europe After Facing 25-Year Sentence for ‘Misgendering’ Trans Politician

In a precedent-setting move, a European country has officially granted full refugee protections to a Brazilian women’s rights activist who was facing 25 years in prison in her home country for misgendering a transgender politician. Isabella Cêpa is the first person to be recognized as a victim of state persecution for her outspoken opposition to gender identity ideology.

As previously reported by Reduxx, Cêpa first came under criminal investigation after she made a social media post about Erika Hilton – a male politician who “identifies” as a woman. Hilton was elected to São Paulo’s municipal government in November of 2020, winning his seat by a landslide that gave him the title of the most voted-for ‘woman’ in Brazil.

At the time of his victory, Hilton was celebrated in international media as being a “symbolic triumph” for transgender people. Hilton was amongst the top 10 most-voted for candidates in all of Brazil, and was touted as the “only woman” to make the list. 

It was the widespread announcement of his victory that first put him on Cêpa’s radar.

“At the time I didn’t even know who this person was. I just saw a headline on an Instagram page celebrating that ‘the most voted woman in São Paulo is a transwoman,’” Cêpa told Reduxx during a 2022 interview, recounting how her ordeal began. “Then, I shared a video with my followers saying I was disappointed to hear that the most voted-for woman in São Paulo – later found out that it was in the entire country – was a man.”

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Opening Legal Marijuana Dispensaries Is Tied To A Huge Drop In Opioid-Related Deaths, Analysis Finds

Counties that have marijuana dispensaries see an average of 30 percent fewer opioid-related deaths compared to counties without legal cannabis shops open, suggesting a substitution effect away from prescription pills and heroin toward the plant-based treatment, according to a new data analysis.

In a Washington Post piece on Wednesday, Harvard University economics student Julien Berman used data from the University of Michigan that identifies dispensary locations at the county level to compare opioid overdose trends over 10 years in jurisdictions where cannabis became legally available compared to those without regulated access.

“The theory is straightforward: making cannabis more available—and reducing its cost—could induce people to shift from opioids, which are super dangerous, to marijuana, a significantly safer alternative,” Berman said. “Existing opioid users seeking pain relief can choose marijuana instead of heroin, especially in counties where recreational use is legal and access is easy. And new potential users might never turn to opioids at all if they could get marijuana instead.”

Other factors were taken into account to support the conclusion, including comparisons of opioid mortality rates in counties within a legal state where some allow retailers to operate and others have chosen to opt out.

“That kind of variation helps rule out other state-level changes such as expanded access to naloxone—a drug that can reverse the effects of an overdose—as the main cause of the drop in deaths,” Berman said.

On average, the opioid death rates following the establishment of cannabis dispensaries declined more sharply in the immediate years after the opening compared to dry counties. But from years five to 10, there’s a more precipitous effect, with an average rate of 27 percent fewer opioid deaths in jurisdictions that have cannabis storefronts after a decade.

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