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Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance

Friday’s selloff was not a surprise.

Between deteriorating credit markets, rising Treasury yields, increasingly absurd artificial intelligence valuations, enormous amounts of leverage and an entire financial system that has spent the better part of two decades mainlining cheap money like a frat guy guzzling Jaegermeister at the bottom of an ice luge, the warning signs have been flashing for quite some time.

The only real surprise, at least to me, is that it’s taken this long for equity investors to begin paying attention. And what worries me most isn’t how far stocks could fall, but how spectacularly unprepared investors are to deal with a market that actually goes down and stays down.

I want to start with something I read on CNBC this morning, because I think it perfectly encapsulates the extraordinary complacency and all around ignorance that exists on Wall Street. Discussing whether increased debt issuance could become a systemic problem, Michael Rosen, chief investment officer at Angeles, offered the following assessment:

“The question is: Is this a systemic issue? Obviously, increased debt issuance is something to observe and continue to watch and be concerned about if it continues to get to levels of excessiveness. But we’re not remotely close to that right now.”

I’m sorry. What? We’re not remotely close to excessive debt issuance?

The United States has more than $40 trillion in federal debt. Annual deficits are measured in trillions. Interest expense is approaching levels that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Corporations are borrowing enormous amounts of money to finance everything from acquisitions and share repurchases to an artificial intelligence infrastructure boom whose eventual returns remain largely theoretical.

And that’s before we get to the trillions in private credit, leveraged loans, off-balance-sheet financing arrangements, GPU-backed borrowing and assorted financial engineering Wall Street has stuffed into every available corner of the economy.

But don’t worry, everybody. Apparently we’re not remotely close to excessiveness. Oh and don’t worry about the market going down…Jim Cramer blamed Friday’s sell off on a “big hedge fund blowing up”.

It’s hilarious to constantly be called a conspiracy theorist and then see the financial world’s predominant retail voice blaming a 2% move lower on “possible scenarios” about unnamed rogue margin clerks and hedge funds, before hoping to “start fresh” on Monday, as though $2 trillion in off balance sheet AI debt, dogshit private credit marks, positive real rates on the largest debt bubble in history and all the natural laws of mathematics are just going to go away if he closes his eyes and wishes hard enough for it.

If this isn’t excessive, what the fuck qualifies? Does the Treasury have to start issuing debt denominated in scientific notation? Do we need to start borrowing money to pay the interest on the money we borrowed to pay the interest on the money we borrowed?

Oh, wait.

The remarkable part isn’t the statement itself. Wall Street is a cesspool of delusion and ignorance like that. It’s that I suspect a significant percentage of Wall Street genuinely believes it. We’ve spent so long normalizing financial absurdity that the concept of excess has lost its meaning. And I think that complacency is going to make the next genuine market drawdown considerably more psychologically devastating than people realize.

As part of my award-winning1 “The World Is Ending, So Please Prioritize Renewing Your Paid Subscription To A Former Bartender’s Finance Substack” Series, on September 23, I published Bonds Are About To Crash The Stock Market, arguing that rising Treasury yields were threatening to expose the extraordinary amount of leverage and speculative valuation built into financial markets. As I wrote then:

“Rising rates are a slow, methodical wood chipper for anything built on cheap money.”

And we’ve spent the better part of twenty years building almost everything on cheap money.

My argument wasn’t complicated. When the risk-free rate rises, everything built on cheap financing becomes more difficult to justify. Equity valuations compress, refinancing costs increase, leveraged borrowers come under pressure and speculative investments requiring endless access to capital suddenly discover that capital has a price. The equity market can ignore that math for a while, invent new narratives and convince itself that artificial intelligence has somehow repealed the laws of finance. But it cannot ignore arithmetic indefinitely.

As I also wrote in that piece, the market has spent the last fifteen years assuming we would eventually return to the financial environment that followed the Global Financial Crisis: zero rates, endless liquidity, cheap leverage and central banks standing behind asset prices. Then I asked a question I think is becoming increasingly relevant:

“What if we don’t? What if this is the reckoning?”

There are legitimate reasons the market could find some relief in the near term. Lower oil prices, for example, could ease inflation expectations, reduce pressure on consumers and potentially give the bond market some breathing room after scorching producer prices rose the most in 4 years this past week:

And investors will keep looking to telegraph the Fed’s next move…as long as reading the tea leaves results in confirmation bias that rates are definitely going lower very soon.

Stocks found slight intraday relief for a few moments when, speaking in Bangkok during meetings of the International Monetary Fund, Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh declined to endorse or reject recent indications from colleagues that the central bank was in no hurry to raise interest rates. Warsh said he wouldn’t prejudge upcoming meetings, adding that the Fed was entering a new chapter in which it would no longer preview its decisions.

In other words, Warsh essentially told everybody that he wasn’t going to tell them anything. And the market managed to find some relief in that.

Which tells you something about the extraordinary degree to which investors have become conditioned to hang on every syllable uttered by central bankers. We’re now at the point where the chairman of the Federal Reserve declining to speculate about future policy decisions can be interpreted as comforting news.

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For much of the recent turmoil, stocks and bonds have both been under pressure, consistent with fears about inflation, fiscal deterioration and higher interest rates. But Friday offered some evidence that the traditional flight from equities into Treasuries may finally be beginning to emerge. Longer-duration Treasuries rallied meaningfully, and the 30-year yield reportedly recorded its largest weekly decline since April 2025. That doesn’t establish a sustained rotation yet, but I think it’s something worth watching closely.

As equity losses accumulate, credit markets deteriorate and investors begin worrying less about inflation and more about preserving capital, I suspect demand for Treasuries could return in force. Yields could decline substantially even as equities continue falling. (Read: You Have To Like Bonds Here...Right?)

There is a world where falling yields are bullish for stocks because they reflect improving inflation expectations and a healthier economic outlook. And there is another world where falling yields are a symptom of investors becoming terrified of everything else. I think the second scenario deserves far more attention than it’s getting.

I suspect investors are going to be stunned if we enter an environment where Treasury yields fall, oil prices fall and equities continue getting their teeth kicked in anyway.

After years of conditioning investors to believe that lower interest rates automatically translate into higher stock prices, a genuine credit-driven bear market could be deeply confusing. If earnings expectations are collapsing, credit is tightening and investors are unwinding leverage, falling Treasury yields don’t necessarily rescue equities. They may simply indicate that the economy is deteriorating faster than policymakers can respond.

This is also why, as I wrote recently in You Have To Like Bonds Here...Right?, I’ve become increasingly interested in fixed income. Longer-duration Treasuries could benefit enormously from a serious economic contraction and eventual flight to safety. There are still risks, particularly if inflation remains stubborn or fiscal deterioration continues pushing yields higher, but I think the possibility of a reversal in rates is compelling.

And the truly fascinating possibility is that bonds could begin performing precisely when equity investors discover that the Fed can’t magically prevent every decline. (If they don’t, bonds keep crashing and gold heads toward $10,000 as the Fed implements yield curve control.)

One of the reasons I’m so concerned about what comes next is that, despite the selling we’ve already seen, I don’t believe we’ve come remotely close to clearing out the speculative excess built up during this cycle.

Take CoreWeave, which I’ve spent the last several days writing about. The company has become one of the poster children for the financial insanity surrounding the AI infrastructure buildout: enormous capital requirements, debt financing, GPU collateral, extraordinary growth expectations and a business model heavily dependent on continued access to capital. It should have never IPO’d if you ask me and if it wasn’t for Nvidia backstopping its IPO, it might not have.

As I wrote in my recent piece about Nvidia potentially being forced to support CoreWeave:

“They share an uncomfortable characteristic: the financial health of one participant increasingly depends on the continued financial health, spending and access to capital of everybody else.”

That’s a wonderful arrangement when asset prices are rising and a potential catastrophe when the music stops.

I suspect Nvidia may eventually find itself forced to intervene if CoreWeave’s financial condition continues deteriorating. Not necessarily because Jensen Huang wants to throw good money after bad, but because allowing one of the central financing mechanisms behind the AI boom to unravel could prove far more expensive than trying to save it. And even then, another investment might simply postpone the inevitable. (Read: Jensen Will Blink First)

CoreWeave is just one example, and frankly, it may be one of the more visible ones.

Look at crypto, where an enormous speculative ecosystem has developed around assets whose prices depend heavily on continued confidence, liquidity and risk appetite. There are legitimate technologies and businesses within that ecosystem, but also extraordinary amounts of leverage, financial engineering, questionable collateral and speculation.

What happens when investors discover that their crypto holdings, technology stocks and other speculative investments were effectively different versions of the same liquidity trade? And crypto doesn’t even need market forces to crash. It just needs…Democrats to win Congress in November: The Crypto Risk No One Is Discussing

Then there’s private credit, a market I’ve been warning about for quite some time. In this sector, the absence of daily price discovery is not the absence of risk. Sometimes it’s just the absence of a mirror: From Par To Pennies

Beyond that, there are leveraged loans, speculative real estate investments, private equity portfolios, venture capital valuations, structured financing arrangements and countless other corners of the market that have benefited from the same two-decade experiment in cheap money.

In my September 29 piece, It’s Official: The AI Emperor Has No Clothes, I wrote:

“Crises have a nasty habit of beginning from the ground up and working their way toward the assets everyone previously assumed were untouchable.”

I think that’s precisely the risk we’re facing now. And despite the recent selling, I suspect we’ve barely begun to uncover what’s hiding beneath the surface. The excess is still massive, the leverage is still massive, and the psychological complacency may be the most massive thing of all.

Here’s what I think people are really underestimating about the possibility of a major market drawdown: we have spent so long conditioning ourselves to believe that financial markets are supposed to go up that an actual sustained decline could produce a level of psychological hysteria unlike anything we’ve seen in decades.

I’m not talking about a garden-variety 5% correction or a couple of uncomfortable trading sessions followed by Nvidia announcing another $100 billion investment in somebody who will turn around and spend it buying Nvidia chips. I’m talking about a bear market where every rally gets sold, every supposedly cheap stock gets cheaper and every dip buyer who spent the last fifteen years congratulating himself for being a financial genius discovers that his entire investment strategy was predicated on the Federal Reserve making sure he never had to experience genuine discomfort.

I don’t think people have any idea what that would feel like anymore.

Why would they? For nearly twenty years, we’ve operated under a financial regime in which virtually every meaningful market disruption has eventually been met with lower interest rates, quantitative easing, emergency lending facilities, fiscal stimulus or outright intervention. We’ve trained investors to expect the rescue before they’ve even experienced the crisis. We’ve trained corporations to believe capital should always be available, private equity firms to believe valuations are whatever the last financing round says they are, and speculators to believe leverage is a permanent wealth creation strategy.

As I wrote in my recent piece about the potential return of boring blue-chip stocks:

“We’ve spent twenty years confusing asset price inflation with genuine prosperity, speculation with investing and central bank liquidity with actual wealth creation.”

We’ve spent two decades systematically eliminating financial discomfort, and in doing so, we’ve created a market populated by people who have almost no tolerance for it. That’s a hell of a psychological experiment, and I think we may be getting ready to find out what happens when it ends. (Read: Modern Chickenshit Monetary Theory)

The first genuine drawdown will be met with disbelief, followed by anger, accusations of manipulation, demands that the Federal Reserve do something and eventually, if the selling continues, people will be f*cking beside themselves.

And underneath all of that noise, the market will be doing something it hasn’t been allowed to do naturally for a very long time: attempting to price actual risk.

If that process really gets underway, I suspect the amount of financial garbage that gets exposed will be breathtaking. There are entire business models and sectors that have never been tested in a world where capital isn’t readily available.

Some of these assets will recover. Some will be acquired or restructured. And some will simply disappear. That’s what happens when financial markets begin distinguishing between businesses that create economic value and businesses that have survived primarily because the cost of capital was artificially suppressed.

And the process could be especially traumatic because we have an entire generation of investors who have been conditioned to regard every meaningful decline as temporary, every correction as a buying opportunity and every crisis as something that will eventually be resolved by somebody in Washington pushing a button.

We’ve become so accustomed to financial comfort that genuine price discovery could break our brains.

Of course, I could be wrong about the timing. Oil could retreat, Treasury yields could stabilize, the Fed could provide enough reassurance to spark another speculative rally and the whole circus could continue for another six months or longer. I’ve never claimed to know the precise date on which the market will finally lose its mind.

But I do believe the underlying excess is real, the financial vulnerabilities are enormous and the longer we postpone dealing with them, the more painful the eventual adjustment could become.

Imagine what happens when people discover there is no law of economics requiring their brokerage accounts, home equity, retirement portfolios or speculative investments to increase in value every year. I think it could genuinely break people’s brains.

And the irony is that none of this would be particularly extraordinary by historical standards. Financial markets have always experienced booms, busts, credit contractions, bankruptcies and periods of brutal repricing. What’s extraordinary is that we’ve spent the last twenty years convincing ourselves we’ve somehow evolved beyond them.

We haven’t. We’ve spent twenty years convincing ourselves that financial pain is optional. I think we’re getting dangerously close to discovering that it isn’t.

And when that realization finally sets in, I suspect the market crash itself may be the least remarkable part of the spectacle.

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QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here.

Fermi America's nuclear plans just cleared their first regulatory hurdle.

NRC staff have preliminarily recommended issuing combined licenses for four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at Project Matador, Fermi's planned power and AI campus outside Amarillo, Texas, according to a draft environmental impact statement the agency put out for comment on October 9th.

Together, the four units would add over 4.4 GW of nuclear generation capacity to the private grid.

It took 15 months from application, and Fermi wrote the draft itself as the first test of an NRC pilot that lets applicants prepare their own environmental reviews under staff supervision. The agency expects that to cut its in-house review time by about half.

The NRC is targeting a final version in December. The harder part is the safety review, which has no schedule yet. Fermi pulled the site-specific portion of its application and plans to refile it by Dec. 31, and a mandatory hearing and Commission vote come after that. 

Fermi wants its first reactor running by 2032, meaning the NRC is far from the company's problem.

Last November, we warned that storm clouds were gathering as Fermi struggled to sign its first major tenant. A month later, the stock cratered 50% when that prospect pulled out of a $150 million construction funding agreement. 

In April, shares crashed another 22% after the board ousted co-founder and CEO Toby Neugebauer and the CFO resigned. As we put it then, "without tenants there is no company."

But, Fermi finally has one, on paper. In August, it signed a binding 15-year lease with TensorWave, an AMD-only GPU cloud, for 222 MW worth about $6.5 billion, with options to expand past 650 MW. 

Phased delivery starts in the second half of 2027.

The lease hasn't closed yet. Fermi pushed the deadline from Sept. 30 to Oct. 31 to finish a lease guarantee, and it still needs project financing. On Tuesday, AMD agreed to provide credit support for the lease.

So AMD sells TensorWave its chips, has invested in TensorWave, and now backs TensorWave's lease. Circular?

Here it is: the latest, expanded AI circular financing chart https://t.co/a2RCRi4ygC

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 2, 2026

Still waiting on first power

On-site power is running behind. Last November, Fermi promised "1 GW of capacity online by late 2026." As of August, they moved the goal posts to "about 200 megawatts of initial commercial power over the next six months."

Fermi has taken delivery of six Siemens SGT-800s (nearly 300 MW) and three larger Siemens F-class units, and three GE Vernova 6B turbines reached the site recently. NAES has been hired to run the fleet, and Hillcore Energy Capital has signed a framework deal to finance, build and own about 2.6 GW more on site.

The old founder won't let go

Neugebauer, still Fermi's largest shareholder, sued over his firing in May. 

He suspended a campaign to call a special meeting in July, and last month a Texas Business Court judge declined to temporarily block a 70% supermajority bylaw and new voting rules the board adopted after his ouster. He has since sued three directors.

The board, meanwhile, named former TerraPower CEO and Bechtel veteran Lee McIntire as CEO in August.

The next few weeks will be busy:

Authored by Thaddeus G. McCotter via American Greatness,

Far-left candidates court socialist influencers in primaries, then pivot to the center for the general election...

If memory serves me, while serving in Congress amidst a heated midterm battle in the mid-2000s, I made a cable television appearance where I was asked an "ambush" question. Well, it wasn't quite an ambush question, because the station in question was left-wing; hence, the anchor's Pavlovian parroting of the Democrat talking point du jour was really no surprise. The question was something along the lines of "Does every Republican blindly listen to Rush?"

"Who doesn't love a Canadian power rock trio?" I replied. My interrogator was nonplussed. I elaborated, "Though I do prefer Triumph."

In truth, the Rush in question was actually Mr. Limbaugh, who was at the height of his renown. Looking for an issue, the Democrats trotted out the canard that Republicans didn't work for their constituents but were in the thrall of a radio show host, following his dictates heedless of what the public wanted.

The Democrats' strategy quickly petered out, largely because Mr. Limbaugh's pro-American and commonsensical views were shared by scores of millions of Americans. Thus, even if some Republicans were influenced to one degree or another by Rush's views, those views were also shared by many of their right- and center-right constituents, who formed the base of their electoral coalition.

What evokes this memory is how the rank hypocrisy of today's leftists, particularly the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), regards their associations with social media, particularly radical leftist socialist influencers - one of whom, in fact, claims to aspire to being the radical version of Rush Limbaugh.*

The ideological difference between Mr. Limbaugh and today's shrill leftist socialist influencers is patent, as their anti-American content readily attests to their quest for clicks, celebrity, and money. (At present, I am unaware of these socialist influencers voluntarily putting their streaming revenues into a pool to be apportioned by a commissar for the common good of the oppressed.)

Be it hating all Americans or - as if to prove the depths of their animus - justifying the murderous terrorist attacks on our nation on September 11, 2001, or rationalizing away domestic left-wing political violence, these socialist influencers, to varying degrees of self-indulgent animus and self-imposed ignorance, aver that the "United States of Amerika" is irredeemably racist, misogynistic, inequitable, and wholly corrupt, and must be radically transformed into a socialist utopia by an omnipotent government controlled and commanded by them and their bilious, unproductive ilk, who have never run anything but their mouths.

Sane people would be tempted to think these anti-American, socialist cranks would be ignored by sound minds. They are. But sound minds are in ever-shortening supply these days. That is why they are increasingly being listened to and heeded by politically like-minded listeners.

In the instances of those listeners who become DSA and other ideologically aligned far-left candidates, there is the question of how truly they dance to the socialist influencers' tune - especially in electoral areas that are not deep blue progressive hellscapes.

What happens is the far-left candidate proclaims to the far-left, socialist, America-loathing voters how they, too, share that view. To help prove their bona fides as radicals and defeat a Democrat establishment candidate in a primary, they associate and, in some cases, physically appear with socialist influencers on the campaign trail.

Once they win their primary, however, the far-left/DSA Democrat realizes that America-loathing is not a great general election issue, so they begin to distance themselves not only from such socialist influencers but also from their own words.

One would hope such cynical duplicity would be readily identified so voters could factor it into their considerations. Unfortunately, we live in a world where the deceitfully named "accountability journalism" is a pandemic transmogrifying objective reporting into propaganda. As a result, when the far-left candidate is called on the carpet about embracing socialist influencers, the crucial bloc of independents views it, if at all, as just another partisan attack.

Consequently, the far-left/DSA candidate can casually dissemble how they are not there to disavow any social media influencer and how any past association with socialist influencers is a distraction by their GOP opponent, indeed a smear tactic. As they cynically race from the radical Left to the center in a general election, the far-left/DSA candidate hopes the voters miss the abject deceit in this defense.

The far-left/DSA candidate has actively embraced and aligned with the America-hating socialist influencer to court like-minded America-loathing socialists in his or her electoral coalition. Thus, while the far-left/DSA candidate claims not to have "disavowed" the socialist influencer, that is already known, because the fact is the far-left/DSA candidate has knowingly and cynically aligned with the socialist influencer and their listeners to win the primary.

Now, not wanting to lose these critical members of their electoral coalition, the far-left/DSA candidate gives a wink and a nod in the general election to keep their votes in his or her pocket without alienating independent and traditional Democrat voters. Meanwhile, this general election conversion from a far-left/DSA candidate into a center-left moderate is abetted by an ideologically sympathetic media that studiously ignores it.

One group that does not ignore it, however, is the socialist influencers. Throughout both their overt primary support and covert support in general elections, they have made no bones about how, once elected, the far-left/DSA candidate will answer to them - or else.

One can only imagine if Rush Limbaugh had made such claims against Republicans. Or, indeed, if Republicans had tried to win primaries by fist-bumping the far-right version of these socialist influencers and then scurrying to the center. They would rightly be pilloried by the press and the electorate.

People of good hearts know that hate is hate regardless of its partisan stripe and that it has no place in our American home. Yet, despite their lawn signs to the contrary, for the far-left/DSA candidates and their friends in a compliant press, not all haters are created equal, and their radical, socialist influencer haters, while muted for the moment as a matter of electoral necessity, are far from appeased.

If these radical socialist influencers get their way and their fellow-traveling far-left/DSA candidates get away with their cynical strategy and win, their America-loathing words will become deeds.

[*Author's note: I did not name the individual social influencers who disdain Americans and our country. I am not in the habit of giving these reprobates what they seek - name recognition, validation, and the clicks they crave that provide the revenue streams needed to propagate their anti-American screeds and promote their "careers." One rightly must support the freedom of speech. But no one is required to promote views they find repugnant. Feel free, however, to look them up and give them a listen, though I advise you to have the Alka-Seltzer handy.]

A new documentary from investigative outlet Muckraker traces the migrant route from West Africa through Spain and France to Britain, examining what the outlet describes as a network sustained by taxpayer-funded aid programs, NGOs, and even Western governments.

The 47-minute film, "Replacing Europe," draws on months of reporting and undercover footage to investigate the logistics and top NGO players behind the nation-killing mass migration into Europe. 

"The entire migration is a game," says Sheikh M. Kromah, identified by Muckraker as a worker for the UN's International Organization for Migration. He alleges that Spain has a financial incentive to maintain arrivals because reducing them could jeopardize EU funding.

Muckraker claims that publicly funded institutions help sustain the migration flows that European governments publicly promise to control. Its interviews raise questions about oversight, spending incentives and the boundary between humanitarian assistance and facilitating illegal alien border crossings into Europe. 

The broader concern is whether mass migration, malassimilation, and soaring public costs of the European welfare state that cater to migrants could compound fiscal pressure and political instability. 

Here is Muckraker's report:

A UN migration worker admits Spain won't stop the boats because the EU money is too good. A Catholic NGO pulling in €225 million a year moves arrivals to the mainland and pays them to stay. Activists paint a trail to the French border. And the journalists who filmed it were attacked and nearly arrested.

Investigative outlet Muckraker spent two months following the West African migration route from start to finish: from the smuggling hub of Nouadhibou, Mauritania, to Spain's Canary Islands, across mainland Spain and France, and finally to the English Channel and the United Kingdom. The result is a new documentary, REPLACING EUROPE.

The film's central finding is that the movement of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants into Europe is not chaos. It is a managed system, run by smugglers, publicly funded NGOs, activist networks and governments, several of which admit on camera that they profit from it.

Among the documentary's findings:

• A worker for the UN's International Organization for Migration says Spain deliberately lets the boats keep coming so it keeps receiving EU money.
• ACCEM, a Catholic NGO that took in about €225 million in 2024, mostly from the Spanish state, moves arrivals from the Canary Islands to the mainland, houses them in camps and pays them a monthly allowance.
• Migrants are flown by the hundreds from Gran Canaria to Madrid.
• In the Spanish border town of Irun, an activist group has painted a trail of footsteps guiding migrants past police and into France, where a city-run shelter takes in people with no papers.
• The UN's own migration agency says the priority should be "facilitating, not restricting" migration.

Where It Starts: Mauritania

Most boats on the West African route leave from Senegal, Morocco, Western Sahara and above all Mauritania. Tens of thousands of the illegal immigrants who have landed in the Canary Islands departed from Mauritania's coast.

In Nouadhibou, a local source told Muckraker that young migrant women are raped and held "like slaves," and that captors call their families to demand ransom. Asked whether criminals or police were responsible, he said both: "The police do that… because they are working with the criminals who smuggle people." He added that gun and drug traffickers travel among the migrants to get into Europe.

Muckraker also visited a migrant aid center in Nouadhibou run by OAMR (Organisation d'Appui et d'Assistance aux Migrants et Réfugiés), which works alongside the United Nations International Organization of Migration. A banner on the wall reads "Projet Julia Taft – Phase II": a capacity-building project offering training, outreach and assistance to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Nouadhibou, with funding listed as "Ambassade des Etats-Unis en Mauritanie" — the U.S. Embassy. Asked whether the United States pays for the center's bakery and computer lab too, staff answered yes.

The Julia Taft Refugee Fund is a State Department program run by the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. Created in 2000 and named for Julia Taft, who led that bureau under President Clinton, it lets U.S. embassies hand out small grants directly to local NGOs. The U.S. Embassy in Nouakchott's 2022 call for proposals offered up to $50,000 per project and listed migrants among eligible beneficiaries alongside refugees and returnees.

Arrival: The Canary Islands

Off the island of El Hierro, Muckraker filmed a boat packed with migrants, almost all of them military-aged men, being towed in by Spain's Maritime Rescue Service. One man was carried off on a stretcher, apparently lifeless.

Arrivals are taken to temporary camps. Residents described days with no work ("only eat and sleep") and men who leave to drink and try to come back with knives. A migrant from Senegal described a darker practice on the crossing itself: passengers accused of witchcraft are tied up and thrown into the sea.

The UN Insider: "Migration Is a Game"

On the Canary Islands, Muckraker met Sheikh M. Kromah, who was then working for the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM) and has more than a decade in the migrant aid industry. Kromah has been photographed alongside Spain's Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, and local officials on El Hierro.

"The entire migration is a game," Kromah told Muckraker. "Everyone wants to have their share." He said smuggling networks collect between €50,000 and €60,000 per boat.

Asked why Spain doesn't stop the arrivals, he said the government doesn't want to. Every year, he said, Spain receives a huge amount of money from the European Union to manage migration, and if the boats stopped, so would the money. The strategy, in his words, is to "minimize it, but not stop it completely, so that they keep getting the money."

Kromah went further, claiming some of the money changes hands in cash, carried in suitcases into negotiating rooms. He said even the special police deployed to the islands, paid about three times a regular officer's salary, "want the boats to come every day."

"Everybody just wants to make money off everybody here," he said. "So if you look at it, it's a game."

Flown to the Mainland

Then comes the transfer. At Gran Canaria airport, Muckraker found a few hundred African men waiting to be flown to Madrid. This process happens multiple times per week and is managed by ACCEM. 

ACCEM: The NGO Running Spain's Migrant Camps

One of the primary organizations responsible for moving illegal immigrants from the Canary Islands to mainland Spain, and housing them in camps once they arrive, is ACCEM.

ACCEM's full name is the Asociación Comisión Católica Española de Migración, the Spanish Catholic Commission for Migration. According to its own 2024 annual report, as reported by Spanish outlet Infovaticana, ACCEM took in about €225 million in 2024, 88% of it from Spain's central government. It employed 3,839 people and managed 9,812 reception places that year.

ACCEM makes no secret of its goals. In 2023, its president, Pilar Samanes Ara, cosigned a letter demanding more "safe and legal routes" for migrants into the European Union and Spain. The letter tied that demand directly to the UN's 2030 Agenda, describing migration as "a transformative force for growth and development."

Outside an ACCEM camp, Muckraker met a man from Senegal who had lived there for almost a year without a job. He said residents receive about €75 a month from ACCEM, plus bus or metro tickets. Even people who leave the camp without documents, he said, still get the money and a ticket. He knew of a friend who left for another Spanish city and kept being paid.

The UN's Blueprint

What Kromah described is consistent with the framework the UN itself has published. In September 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, built around 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

In a related paper titled "Migration and the 2030 Agenda," the IOM states that the agenda recognizes migration as "a core development consideration," the first time migration has been integrated explicitly into the global development agenda. The paper calls migrant women, men and children "agents of development" and says migration can be linked to every goal in the 2030 Agenda. Its conclusion: efforts should not focus on stopping migration. Facilitating it, not restricting it, is the priority.

It is the same framework ACCEM's president invoked when demanding new routes into Europe. The UN sets the agenda, NGOs like ACCEM carry it out, and European taxpayers fund it.

A Painted Trail to France

In Irun, the last Spanish town before France, migrants arrive at the bus station on a daily basis. From the bus station, a trail of painted footsteps leads to the Red Cross and on to the town hall, where an activist group called Irungo Harrera Sarea meets migrants every day. Members of the activist group told Muckraker the group has helped some 40,000 migrants to cross the Spanish border into France.

The man who painted the footsteps told Muckraker the trail exists so migrants can cross the border without being caught by police, and that he plans to paint more "because they get lost." The activists confirmed they tell migrants which buses to take to avoid getting caught. A billboard by the train station maps out the entire route.

The trail leads to Pausa, a shelter in Bayonne, France, that has received millions of euros in public funds. Its director told Muckraker the center is managed by the city of Bayonne's administration and keeps "no photos, no names." Migrants stay a few days, he said, then take the bus and "go all over Europe," with or without documents.

Attacked in Paris

At the entrance to the Eiffel Tower, Muckraker found the plaza crowded with migrant street vendors. When the crew began filming, the vendors surrounded them. Muckraker co-founder Josh Rubin (@joshbrubin) was attacked and left bleeding heavily from the head, for pointing a camera.

A few miles away, Muckraker visited ARDHIS, an NGO that helps migrants seek asylum as LGBT refugees. A migrant who knows the community said many of those making the claim are not gay: "They say that they just want to get on… the help."

Calais and the Channel

For those headed to Britain, the last stop in France is Calais, where makeshift camps serve as staging grounds for Channel crossings. A local private security guard described migrants stealing from stores and killing a farmer's goat to eat. Human traffickers embed themselves in these camps, which have been the scene of deadly shootings in recent years.

Posing as aid workers and filming with hidden cameras, Muckraker got inside one camp set up in an abandoned warehouse. Men there said they came from Sudan, Morocco and Egypt. The crew counted roughly 100 tents packed under one roof, a prayer area lined with rugs and stacked Korans, and masked men watching the visitors. Once the camera was noticed, the mood turned. "I don't accept that you take photos here," one man said. A crowd closed in and pushed the crew out.

International trafficking networks run the crossings themselves. Many of the traffickers are illegal migrants themselves, often from Iraq, Albania and Kurdish regions. On the evening before a boat leaves, hundreds of migrants move out of the camps to pre-arranged meeting points along the coast. Muckraker spent weeks in Calais watching these movements and gathering intelligence.

Getting to a launch was the hard part. An Afghan migrant who planned to make the crossing himself told the crew that smugglers are suspicious of anyone who speaks English or French, assuming they are spies or police, and warned they could be beaten, injured or even killed. Late one night, he sent the crew the location where a boat would leave from, followed by a warning to be careful because the smugglers were armed.

The crew drove to the coast and waited. In the dark, they watched a dinghy head out to open water while groups of men they believed could be smugglers moved along the shore. The boat's plan was to circle back and pick up its passengers from the beach.

At about 5 a.m., more than 50 people ran out of the dunes toward the water, including a man carrying a small child. For more than 15 minutes, not a single police officer was on the beach. By the time police arrived, the boat was loading, and they soon gave up and walked back up the beach and the boat they attempted to stop successfully departed for and later arrived at the U.K.

The United Kingdom

In England, asylum seekers living in a government-funded hotel told Muckraker that housing and food are free, that they receive about £300 a month, and that university is free for them as well. One said he had been living in the hotel for three years.

Watch the full video here: 

* * *

President Trump said, "France is burning!" on Truth Social early this morning, as what appears to be the fall of France quickly unfolds. Consumed by nation-killing Third Worldism through a decade of unfettered mass migration and a cancerous far-left movement, the nation is on a troubling trajectory as its imploding welfare state collides with a fiscal mess.

Riots across France today. Looting, fires, vandalism and attacks against policemen and firefighters reported from cities across the country. https://t.co/ZpVnuXTvC3

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 17, 2026

"The immigration of people from an entirely different world, people with hatred in their hearts, has shattered that once great country. Close your Borders and take control, before it is too late!" Trump continued.

Vice President JD Vance responded to the accelerating far-left violence on X, saying, "Western liberals imported the third world into France and other countries in the name of diversity and compassion. They ignored fundamental questions of assimilation and compatibility. They were told it would lead to this and they didn't listen."

Western liberals imported the third world into France and other countries in the name of diversity and compassion. They ignored fundamental questions of assimilation and compatibility. They were told it would lead to this and they didn't listen. I pray that France, a beautiful country of amazing people, will stop this madness before more of its landmarks burn. And I hope Americans are paying attention. This is the future congressional Democrats seek for your country.

— JD Vance (@JDVance) October 18, 2026

Euronews described the aftermath of the overnight riots, reporting that "broken glass and litter filled the streets." Local outlets reported that rioters looted 1,500 retail stores across multiple major cities.

Urban clashes between the Red-Green militants and the French Patriots expands in France. Here in Rouan. Pass the point of no return...

— Dr Walid Phares (@WalidPhares) October 18, 2026

"My thoughts are also with the 1,500 shops belonging to all the other retail chains and with all the shopkeepers who have suffered the same unacceptable violence," Alexandre Bompard, the chairman and CEO of the Carrefour Group, told the outlet.

France has officially become a war zone. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have taken over and are burning down the entire country. Muslims are 10% of the population, but account for an estimated 40% of newborns. Imagine how things will be in 20 years. https://t.co/gwNVEm8vYO

— Dr. Maalouf ? (@realMaalouf) October 17, 2026

 

He said the social unrest would have "considerable human and economic consequences."

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said earlier today that the weekend riots had injured more than 600 police officers, gendarmes, and firefighters. He said authorities had arrested more than 2,000 rioters.

Young 2nd and 3rd-generation migrant rioters gather for a group photo to celebrate after setting Paris on fire & looting nearly every store near Champs-Élysées They also proudly give the French people the finger in the picture ?? https://t.co/PqQu8QXPIG

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 18, 2026

The endgame for France is quickly approaching as its generous welfare state can no longer support the influx of migrants and services deteriorate. 

Watch:

• "Replacing Europe": Undercover Film Follows The Money Behind Europe's Taxpayer-Funded Mass Migration Pipeline

The country has not balanced its budget since the early 1970s, and sovereign credit default swap spreads are widening in a high-rate environment. The current trajectory, as described by right-wing presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, would put the country on a path toward a sovereign debt crisis.

In recent weeks, Le Pen has already offered a glimpse of the shadow budget she would pursue if she wins next year's presidential election. That would include shrinking the deficit to 3.7% of economic output next year, well below the government's 5% target, before bringing it down to 2.2% by 2032.

Le Pen's Polymarket odds of winning the April 18 election stand at nearly 48%, surging in recent weeks as the riots unfolded. 

Left-wing corporate media are still providing cover for the far-left rioters and migrants who are torching parts of the country. CBS embarrassingly had to delete a tweet that called the riots "scuffles."

CBS just deleted this tweet calling rioters burning down Paris “scuffles” after major backlash You don’t hate the media enough https://t.co/SrmDYUBmd5

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 18, 2026

We have described how a high-rate environment has put socialism's promises of more and more handouts on "borrowed time" because bond markets are refusing to fund massive deficits for unproductive welfare systems that produce more economic malfeasance.

Socialist failures are piling up across the West. South America is shifting rightward, and a Bolsonaro win in Brazil's runoff election later this month would cement that move.

Related:

• "I Come From Your Future": A Frenchman's Warning To All Americans Voting Democrat

This outcome was very predictable... 

As France is burning, I keep thinking of what the UAE Foreign Minister said a few years ago ?? He accurately predicted this. https://t.co/EgQClncb2s

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) October 17, 2026

The West is experiencing what should be considered "lived memories" of the progressive experiment unraveling at the seams, whether in South America or now in Europe, giving rise to what Nomura analysts expect will be a right-wing wave over the next 18-month election cycle.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

General Sir Roly Walker, Chief of the Army General Staff in the UK, has declared that Britons will be required to make sacrifices for their country in a coming war.

He addressed around 700 soldiers at Catterick Garrison and laid out the coming reality in plain terms. "You didn't know this, but our nation is going to need you," he said. "There was a time that our nation didn't want to think of a time when it would need its soldiers to fight in a war. Indeed, very soon, the political leaders of this country will start to have a frank conversation with the citizens of this country about just what is going on and where the risk lies."

He continued that citizens "have got to consent to sacrifices to prioritise defence and security" and that they will be asked "to play a part in the defence and security of this country." Ultimately, he said, the public must "back us, to back you to do the one thing that you do that nobody else gets to do and that is to take the fight to the enemy."

This is General Sir Roland "Roly" Walker KCB DSO, head of the British Army.

He says 'Britons must be ready for the sacrifices needed to strengthen national security'.

Will you and family sign up to have your limbs blown off or die for 'Roly'. https://t.co/EWqbaoftNQ

— UNN (@UnityNewsNet) October 16, 2026

The speech lands against fresh Ipsos data showing that forty-eight percent of Britons say there are no circumstances in which they would take up arms for the UK. Only 36 percent said there were circumstances in which they would.

At the same time, 51 percent support increased defence spending even if it means higher taxes, borrowing or cuts elsewhere. Support for more money has risen, but personal willingness to serve has not.

'If it came down to it, you'd never know how you'd act.'

GB News Contributor Cai Wilshaw reacts to an Ipsos poll finding 48% of Britons would refuse to take up arms to defend the country.

?? Become a Friend of GB News: https://t.co/KHGzBF2vMr https://t.co/NnWElfNO1y

— GB News (@GBNEWS) October 15, 2026

Matt Goodwin highlighted the age split: nearly half of 18-to-34-year-olds see no circumstances in which they would fight.

Nearly half of 18-34-yr-olds in Britain say there are "no circumstances" in which they would fight for their country, says new poll by Ipsos-MORI.

Why would young men fight for a country that often treats them like second-class citizens? https://t.co/ItlQLBvrWs

— Matt Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) October 15, 2026

Commentators on LBC noted a "distinct lack of patriotism."

'It's no wonder young people feel there's nothing worth defending.'

As the majority of Brits say they wouldn't fight for their country, @BenKentish and @ConorWilson2 reflect on the 'distinct lack of patriotism' in the UK. https://t.co/x6O4ljyMwc

— LBC (@LBC) October 16, 2026

Public replies under the army chief's warning have been blunt, ranging from demands that borders be controlled first to outright refusals to fight for the current government.

'The home front could be the first on the line rather than the armed forces because of hybrid warfare.'

Contributing Editor to Defence on the Brink Eliot Wilson on the Head of Armed Forces warning that Britain must be prepared to make sacrifices for war. https://t.co/4IXZFnH2Fp

— GB News (@GBNEWS) October 17, 2026

This sits inside a longer sequence of government signals. Officials have updated the War Book, the classified contingency manual for shifting from peace to wartime footing, and plan Exercise Albiston Shadow, described as the largest home-defence exercise in decades, for 2027.

Households have been advised to stockpile bottled water, tinned food, battery or wind-up radios and cash as part of the biggest public resilience campaign in years. Hotels and large venues could be requisitioned for mass evacuations.

Professor David Betz of King's College London has argued that the primary concern is, contrary to government suggestions, not a Russian ground invasion of the British Isles - an outcome he calls "logically absurd" given the distance and lack of any realistic occupation scenario - but domestic fracture.

In his assessment, Britain is "low trust, highly fractured, and highly politically factionalised which is leading us increasingly inevitably into civil conflict." The external threat narrative, he says, functions as a convenient public pretext for preparations that officials understand are driven by internal conditions.

Elon Musk has separately described civil conflict in Britain as an inevitable "reckoning" driven by rapid demographic change and incompatible belief systems rather than any external power.

Funding choices reinforce the gap between rhetoric and reality. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has stated that national security "can't come at the expense of social security" and rejected proposals to cut housing benefit to help close defence shortfalls.

Defence Secretary Wes Streeting has spoken of "choices and trade-offs" while insisting Britain will not be made stronger by making citizens poorer. The Defence Investment Plan faces a multi-billion-pound gap ahead of the October Budget, with no clear path yet to the 3 percent of GDP target by 2030 that some Conservatives have costed through welfare restraint.

A separate analysis published this week frames the broader trajectory as acceleration toward critical crisis: sustained high migration, demographic transformation, rising welfare dependency, strained public services, and eroded trust, with governments responding to dissent through tighter speech and policing measures rather than reversing the underlying policies.

Walker's call for public consent to sacrifices arrives while large numbers of Britons, especially younger ones, see little reason to risk their lives for the present order.

The polling, the stockpile advice, the War Book updates and the expert warnings about internal fracture all point in the same direction: a state preparing for serious disruption while a substantial portion of the population no longer feels the country is worth defending on current terms.

Controlling borders and restoring basic cohesion would address the root conditions more directly than asking citizens to accept cuts elsewhere so that troops can "take the fight to the enemy." Whomever that may be.

A live-fire training exercise at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in Alberta reportedly ended in a major explosion and wildfire Saturday, leaving at least seven people dead and dozens injured, according to local outlet Global News. 

The report said a projectile was fired during the FTX that struck "a gas line or gas well" within the base's training area, triggering an explosion before strong winds spread the fire. 

???? At least 7 killed, dozens injured at Canadian army base after live-fire exercise hits gas well An explosion and fire tore through CFB Wainwright in Alberta, the Canadian army's main live-fire training base, on Saturday afternoon. Multiple military sources told Global News that at least seven people were killed and dozens injured. Local social media accounts claim over 100 injured. According to the same sources, a live-fire exercise struck a gas line or gas well on the range, triggering the blast. The base has had gas wells and pipelines running through its training area since the late 1980s. Strong winds pushed the fire past the base fence into the surrounding countryside, and NASA satellites picked up a line of hotspots across the range. Wainwright's hospital was overwhelmed, and Edmonton hospitals declared a "code orange" disaster protocol as the wounded were flown in. Defence Minister David McGuinty confirmed deaths and injuries but gave no numbers or cause, saying he could not recall anything like it in recent memory.

— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) October 18, 2026

Located about 130 miles east of Edmonton, CFB Wainwright is a major Canadian Army installation used to prepare troops for combat operations. 

Despite the information blackout, posts, rumors and minimal reporting indicate the Wainwright Incident began as a Canadian Forces live-fire exercise: 1. Temperatures exceeded 20°C with 20% humidity and gusts up to 100 km/h—fire weather in Alberta. 2. Artillery or other fire (one post says grenade launcher) apparently caused a grass fire that burned into an active natural gas well, or hit the well and caused an explosion that started the fire. 3. Winds drove this grass fire into a conflagration. Soldiers may have got caught in this. 4. The fire then burned into base ammunition storage, causing a mass casualty incident. 5. Extreme winds continue fueling rapid expansion as the fire spreads from federal land into the MD of Wainwright. 6. No Alberta Emergency Alert. Highly suspicious and shows at least a complete communication breakdown with the Alberta and Canadian governments. Gross negligence. 7. Albertans are dead, missing and injured en masse. A Code Orange (mass casualty alert) is in effect. This is a horrible tragedy. Praying for everyone affected. Why do this exercise in fire weather? Why the complete lack of information from the feds? The feds aren’t God. The longer they withhold pertinent information, the less I will trust Canadian governing institutions. Something is fishy here. Can’t put my finger on it. It must be gross incompetence. Right?

— Erik Thorvaldsson (@erik_thorvalds) October 18, 2026

Bloomberg data shows its training grounds contain natural gas infrastructure, including wells and buried pipelines. 

NOVA Gas Transmission, called NGTL, appears to have a pipeline that runs through part of an area on the base called "Permanent Danger Area 3B H1." 

"I cannot recall an incident like this in recent memory," Minister of National Defense David McGuinty said. 

***

Germany is one of the world's largest destinations for international migrants, shaped by decades of labor migration, European mobility, and more recent refugee arrivals.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Srijaa Chatterjee, uses UN international migrant stock data compiled by Our World in Data and analysis from DataPulse Research to show where Germany's foreign-born residents originated and where German-born emigrants live.

The figures represent people living outside their country of birth, rather than annual migration flows.

Where Germany's Immigrants Come From

The table below ranks the largest countries of origin for Germany's foreign-born population, based on data compiled by Our World in Data.

Rank	Country of Origin	Share (%)
1	???? Poland	11.0
2	???? Türkiye	9.0
3	???? Ukraine	8.5
4	???? Russia	6.8
5	???? Romania	5.8
6	???? Kazakhstan	5.4
7	???? Syria	5.1
8	???? Italy	2.6
9	???? Afghanistan	2.1
10	???? Czech Republic	2.1

Poland accounts for 11% of Germany's foreign-born population, followed by Türkiye at 9% and Ukraine at 8.5%. These populations reflect several migration waves, including postwar labor recruitment, EU labor mobility, and more recent humanitarian migration from Ukraine and Syria.

Germany's broader migration footprint extends beyond its foreign-born population. In 2025, 21.8 million residents, or 26.3% of the population, had an "immigration history," meaning they had immigrated themselves or both parents had immigrated. This measure also includes some people born in Germany, making it broader than the foreign-born population shown in the graphic.

Germany's Immigration Policies

Labor shortages have helped shape Germany's immigration policies. The expanded Skilled Immigration Act broadened pathways for qualified workers, including an Opportunity Card for job seekers and expanded access to the EU Blue Card. According to the OECD, reforms implemented in 2024 also made the recognition of foreign qualifications more flexible.

Alongside these labor migration measures, Germany has pursued integration programs and policies addressing asylum and irregular migration.

Where German-Born Emigrants Live

The U.S. hosts the largest population of German-born emigrants, at 1.1 million, or roughly one in four living abroad.

European countries also feature prominently. Switzerland, the UK, and Austria are among the largest destinations, reflecting geographic proximity, employment opportunities, and established migration links. Türkiye also ranks highly, illustrating how migration between the two countries extends in both directions.

Rank	Destination Country	Share (%)
1	???? US	26.0
2	???? Switzerland	8.7
3	???? Türkiye	8.5
4	???? UK	6.7
5	???? Austria	6.2
6	???? Italy	4.5
7	???? France	4.4
8	???? Spain	4.1
9	???? Netherlands	2.9
10	???? Greece	2.9

These figures differ from annual departure statistics. In 2025, Switzerland, Austria, and Spain were the most common destinations recorded for people moving out of Germany.

***

South America's rightward shift has created a more favorable environment for the Trump administration to expand its influence across the Western Hemisphere. A victory by right-wing Flávio Bolsonaro over unhinged socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil's runoff election later this month would cement the shift across the continent. 

The next test is whether those political gains translate into deeper trade and military cooperation. On the military side, those partnerships are expanding in the war against narcoterrorists. 

Joint military activity has already broadened this year, and the reported transfer of US MQ-9 Reaper drones to Colombia and Ecuador suggests preparations for a broader campaign, according to The New York Times. 

?????? EL PENTÁGONO MUEVE SU MAQUINARIA LETAL Llegaron a Colombia y Ecuador los drones de ataque MQ-9 Reaper. Ahora sí, ¿dónde se esconderán los bandidos? ?????????? https://t.co/vow0hzxpVt

— ??????. ?X? (@CapGusXMan) October 7, 2026

According to the report, the U.S. military is transferring MQ-9 Reaper drones from Africa, and this was first reported by CNN last month. 

Ecuador's defense minister, Gian Carlo Loffredo, was quoted by NYTimes earlier today, saying two Reapers are already operating in the country. Colombian officials have previously outlined plans to receive three of these Group 5 drones. 

The outlined plans show how Colombia and Ecuador are partnering with the U.S. military to wage a fight against narcoterrorists that were allowed to thrive under previous left-wing governments: 

Ecuador's president, Daniel Noboa, was the first regional leader to allow joint military operations in his country this year and has recently faced scrutiny over the presence of U.S. troops at one base. Ecuador's Constitution bars foreign military bases in the country, a prohibition voters affirmed in a referendum last year.

Colombia's new right-wing president, Abelardo De La Espriella, has launched an aggressive military effort targeting leaders of several groups said to be involved in cocaine trafficking.

The likely mission for the Reapers will be intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (known in the defense world as ISR). These operations would likely be used to track cartel leaders and support potential strikes on land. 

Reported losses of at least 45 Reapers, or roughly a quarter of the U.S. fleet, in the Iran conflict only suggest the urgent need for low-cost Group 5 drones. 

As we have previously highlighted, DZYNE Technologies' ULTRA platform, now part of Ondas, could complement or replace the Reaper on selected ISR missions as military orders expand. It could provide persistent surveillance while preserving armed Reapers for critical strike missions. 

***