Newly released FBI files reveal that former Rep. Eric Swalwell had a sexual relationship with suspected Chinese intelligence operative Christine Fang, known as “Fang Fang,” settling years of public uncertainty over the nature of their relationship.
According to the May 2015 FBI files, released by the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/election-integrity/">White House</a> and reviewed by The Daily Wire, Swalwell told federal investigators that he had “physical relations” with Fang “on a handful of occasions” after meeting her in 2012.
Swalwell told investigators that the relationship was casual and that the two never dated or had a romantic relationship, but said he believed Fang was interested in pursuing a closer romantic relationship with him. Swalwell said that March of 2015 was the last time he had physical relations with Fang.
The revelation is significant because the precise nature of Swalwell’s relationship with Fang had remained disputed since her ties to the California Democrat were first <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/alleged-chinese-spy-got-close-to-democrat-eric-swalwell-fbi-had-to-intervene">publicly exposed in 2020</a>.
At the time, <a href="https://www.axios.com/2020/12/08/china-spy-california-politicians">Axios reported</a> that Fang had cultivated extensive relationships with American politicians as part of what U.S. intelligence officials believed was a Chinese political intelligence operation. Fang participated in fundraising for Swalwell’s congressional campaign and helped place at least one intern in his congressional office.
Axios reported that Fang had sexual or romantic relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors but did not report that she had a sexual relationship with Swalwell.
Swalwell declined to answer questions about the nature of his relationship with Fang when the Axios story broke, instead saying that he had provided information about her to the FBI and would not discuss information that might be classified.
The newly released interview shows that federal investigators were aware of the sexual relationship by 2015 and that Swalwell himself had disclosed it during the FBI investigation.
The interview also provides additional details about Swalwell’s communications with Fang. He told investigators that the pair primarily communicated through text messages, but also spoke by phone and exchanged emails. Swalwell said he had used his personal Gmail account to communicate with Fang and had reviewed the account before his FBI interview, finding approximately five email exchanges that he offered to provide to investigators.
Swalwell also told investigators that he did not know the source of Fang’s money. He said he assumed Fang or her family was independently wealthy and had never discussed the sources of her income with her.
The files also contain secondhand accounts from people in Swalwell’s orbit describing Fang’s efforts to maintain access to him. One source told investigators that Swalwell’s then-chief of staff had said Fang appeared at Swalwell’s home unannounced on at least one occasion. The source also reportedly heard that Fang had appeared at Swalwell’s door and made it clear to him that she was not wearing underwear.
The FBI documents are dated May 2015, meaning the disclosures came while Swalwell’s relationship with Fang was either ongoing or had only recently ended. Swalwell told investigators that March 2015 was the last occasion on which he had physical relations with Fang.
That timing is particularly notable because federal investigators were becoming increasingly concerned about Fang’s activities around the same period. U.S. intelligence officials later provided Swalwell with a defensive briefing warning him about Fang, after which he said he cut ties with her. Fang left the United States in 2015 amid the investigation.
Fang had cultivated relationships with numerous rising politicians in California and elsewhere between roughly 2011 and 2015. U.S. intelligence officials believed she was operating on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security and gathering political intelligence by developing access to ambitious politicians.
Among her most important targets was Swalwell, who had been elected to Congress in 2012 and joined the House Intelligence Committee in 2015.
Fang’s access to Swalwell extended beyond their personal relationship. According to the FBI files and previous reporting, she was involved in fundraising for his 2014 reelection campaign and helped place an intern in his congressional office. Intelligence officials believed Fang was cultivating relationships with politicians who could eventually rise to positions of national importance.
Swalwell has never been charged with a crime in connection with Fang, and investigators did not accuse him of knowingly participating in a Chinese intelligence operation. The House Ethics Committee also <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/4018047-house-ethics-concludes-swalwell-probe-into-link-to-chinese-spy-taking-no-action/">closed an investigation</a> into his ties to Fang without taking action.
In March, as Swalwell mounted his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/eric-swalwell-suspends-campaign-amid-sexual-assault-allegations">now-defunct campaign</a> for governor of California, his attorneys sent FBI Director Kash Patel a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/eric-swalwell-cease-desist-letter-fbi-kash-patel-suspected-chinese-spy-rcna266005">cease-and-desist letter</a> demanding that the bureau agree not to release investigative files concerning Fang. His lawyers argued that releasing the files would improperly damage Swalwell’s campaign and maintained that he had never been accused of wrongdoing.

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New FBI Files Blow Open Swalwell’s Long Running Fang Fang Mystery

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Somewhere on the press tour for &#8220;The Odyssey,&#8221; director Christopher Nolan appeared with Jimmy Fallon and watched his cast play Cyclops beer pong. Then he went to Beijing, sat down with a political philosophy Ph.D. student named Zhong Shu, and was asked a series of questions about his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/what-christopher-nolan-couldnt-bring-himself-to-do">interpretation of Homer</a> and whether he was a “bard for a civilization at dusk.”
The viral Beijing interview was so much more than a well-read academic finally giving Nolan an intellectual challenge. It was a snapshot of the new story “arms race” that’s been quietly brewing between the U.S. and China — a narrative cold war where each civilization is grappling with its relationship to the guiding stories of the past in an effort to determine which culture will lead the world in the future.
The interview with Nolan ran nearly 20 minutes and instantly went viral in the West for good reason. Zhong asked thoughtful questions about hubris by way of Thucydides and the fall of Athens. She asked whether the gods in the film were merely projections of the human psyche and if Nolan had intentionally “Christianized” Homer in any way. She challenged Nolan on whether a story that originally celebrated Odysseus as a cunning, noble king had to be refitted into a story that demands greatness and must repent. 
 
“We turn greatness into privileges and we demand apologies for it. That’s a fact of Hollywood,” Zhong stated before asking Nolan if he agreed. Nolan told the young Chinese intellectual that, in a democratic age committed to equality, storytellers have to manage the audience&#8217;s built-in resistance to greatness. Do we have to apologize for that greatness? &#8220;And the answer is yes, we do,&#8221; he said, or the audience rejects it. He did not demur or deflect. He wasn&#8217;t defensive. He described it the way an engineer describes a load-bearing wall: This is simply how the mechanism works in our culture today.
The West&#8217;s most prominent living filmmaker calmly conceded that his civilization can no longer receive a story about greatness unless greatness acknowledges wrongdoing first. This admission — delivered in Beijing to an educated Chinese classicist who came prepared with provocations from our own civilization’s foundational myths and stories — revealed a deeper civilizational conflict over what guiding story and set of values are most suited to lead the world. How we relate to Homer, the stories of the Bible, Dante, and even our modern mythological heroes such as Superman matters, and the Chinese know this. The line of inquiry in that interview was not incidental.
For years — and with very little media attention — China has been quietly engaged in a narrative arms race with an American culture and the broader Western world that it believes is in decline. There’s a <a href="https://ia801806.us.archive.org/12/items/america-against-america/America%20Against%20America.pdf">belief within the Chinese government</a> that the modern West abandoned its own inheritance by deconstructing its foundational myths and values, and that now is the time to build where we have faltered. So for years, the Chinese have been mining the “classics” of Western Civilization for the insights that once gave us a civilizational advantage.
In November 2024, Beijing hosted the first World Conference of Classics: 600 participants and scholars, a congratulatory letter from Xi Jinping read aloud by the CCP&#8217;s propaganda chief, and a new Chinese School of Classical Studies established in Athens. Over the past decade, Peking University and Renmin have built classical studies programs too. 
A key figure in China’s modern fascination with Western classical education is political philosopher Liu Xiaofeng, who spent the 2000s importing “Great Books education” into Chinese universities at precisely the moment Western universities were more focused on critiquing, subverting, and deconstructing these stories. Three of his students now run a classics division inside the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. While there is no evidence of any direct relationship between Liu Xiaofeng and the viral interviewer Zhong Shu, Zhong’s own approach and line of questioning were clearly influenced by Liu’s philosophy.
Here in the U.S., we too are reexamining our relationship to the stories of old and grappling with their importance. Even if Nolan’s interpretation of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-homers-odyssey-explains-the-american-soul">Homer’s epic myth</a> is a matter of contested debate, the fact that he believed it was the right time to return to a 2,800-year-old story means something.
Hollywood has been in a confused state of nostalgia for quite some time. Prequels, sequels, and reboots have dominated our narrative landscape. Oftentimes, they’re revisiting classic fairy tales or our modern mythic heroes to deconstruct them, and other times they’re going back to celebrate them. What is undeniable is that the relationship to these stories of our past matters.
This isn’t just a Hollywood entertainment phenomenon either. Throughout America, a new alternative to the SAT and ACT as the standard college entry exam has been quickly gaining traction. Developed by Jeremy Wayne Tate and a bipartisan network of educators and philosophers, the Classic Learning Test puts understanding of the “Great Books” and foundational myths of the West on center stage. Pete Hegseth, head of the U.S. Department of War, called it the new “<a href="https://x.com/PeteHegseth/status/1918730699500089459?s=20">gold standard</a>” of tests and is working to make it the norm at West Point.
At the highest levels of government, among the two most powerful superpowers in the world, there is a shared admission: Civilizations run on stories. They are the operating system of a society. They give a people who are not bound by blood a shared identity, shared values, shared customs, and even a way to mark their days through shared holidays and mass cultural celebrations. 
This is a lesson both nations learned about the “soft power” of story during the 20th-century Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The Cold War wasn’t just a conflict between two different economic theories. It was a civilizational collision between two different guiding stories about God, human nature, and the purpose of life, with the economics being downstream of those guiding stories. Many have even half-jokingly wondered over the years whether the movie &#8220;Rocky IV&#8221; is what finally beat the Soviets.
Both sides in today’s new cold war know that the stories we tell about our past are essential to any sense of shared cultural identity and that they determine the direction of our future. Going back to even the early 1990s, Chinese officials could see that the developing culture war in America was really a story war. “Nihilism has become the American way, which is a fatal shock to cultural development and the American spirit,” was the <a href="https://ia801806.us.archive.org/12/items/america-against-america/America%20Against%20America.pdf">famous conclusion</a> that Chinese political scientist Wang Huning came to after an extensive tour of American universities. 
As I first wrote about in &#8220;<a href="https://a.co/d/09v1C2CN">Based on a True Story</a>,&#8221; the Chinese government believes so strongly that a civilization’s destiny is bound up with the foundational myths and stories of its culture that officials now forbid time-travel stories from primetime television out of fear that the very notion that these core myths could be critically reassessed could cause their civilization to self-destruct.
This gets to the tension in Nolan’s confession about our association of greatness with “privilege” and the underlying assumption that all power is inherently oppressive. That story has not always been part of our shared cultural identity. There was a time when we unashamedly celebrated a modern mythic character like Superman as the most powerful and greatest being on the planet, and didn’t ask him to apologize for anything, because we believed that virtuous character could shoulder the weight of that power.
Zhong was clever to probe whether Christian notions of repentance were somehow influencing Nolan’s take on Odysseus. Certainly, a central emphasis of historic Christianity has been “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,” but this is not what Nolan, by his own admission, was trying to communicate. Jesus was not claiming that greatness was inherently a byproduct of some sin of “privilege” that requires repentance just for being great, but that the shape of greatness should resemble his own virtues and sacrifice. This is the central guiding story of Western civilization.
Whatever civilization rediscovers this truth first will be the one that averts civilizational armageddon and stands the test of time.
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Paul Anleitner is a cultural theologian whose work focuses on the role of culture and story in our quest for meaning. He is the author of “Based on a True Story: Vibe Shifts, the End of Deconstruction, and the Reboot of Meaning.”
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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Christopher Nolan Exposes Hollywood’s Strange New Rule About Greatness

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A high-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is behind the purchase of a historic building just hundreds of feet from the White House, according to a new investigation.
The Philip Qiu and Family Foundation purchased the Securities Building, located approximately 650 feet northeast of the White House grounds, for $8.4 million on July 21, <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2026/08/13/exclusive-ccp-intel-official-building-purchase-steps-from-white-house/">according</a> to the Daily Caller. 
The foundation&#8217;s namesake, Philip Qiu, has held multiple positions in Chinese government, security, and organizations linked to the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s United Front Work Department, the Caller reported. 
“The CCP is like a kind, but firm parent,” Qiu said in 2021, according to the Caller&#8217;s translation of a Chinese announcement. “It has guided our people out of hardship, led China’s sons and daughters to build a new country and is steering us toward great national rejuvenation.”
The purchase has raised national security concerns due to both Qiu&#8217;s background and the building&#8217;s proximity to the White House. Former CIA operations officer Bryan Dean Wright told the Caller that a property in such a location could be used for intelligence collection, including as a listening post or for collecting electronic communications.
Qiu, whose Chinese name is Qiu Feili, began his career as a detective with the Criminal Investigation Team in Shanghai, which is part of Shanghai&#8217;s Public Security Bureau, a subordinate to China&#8217;s Ministry of Public Security. 
The Caller investigation also found that Qiu has held at least three positions in organizations connected to the CCP&#8217;s United Front Work Department, whose activities the House Select Committee on the CCP has described as a combination of influence and intelligence operations.
Among those positions, Qiu has served since 2021 as chairman of the Shanghai Overseas Chinese Foundation (SOCF), which operates within Shanghai&#8217;s United Front system. At a 2021 foundation meeting, Qiu pledged that the organization would carry out Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s orders on overseas Chinese affairs, often referring to the CCP as “our party,” according to the Caller. 
The Philip Qiu and Family Foundation is also connected to the Chinese American Museum in Washington, D.C. (CAMDC), which Qiu co-founded in 2017 with Chen Xiaoping, also known as Neil Chen. Chen previously chaired the SOCF and has held several positions in the Chinese government.
The museum says it is not &#8220;funded, controlled, or influenced by any foreign government,&#8221; but the Caller found that Chinese government entities have co-sponsored at least eight of its programs. Four reportedly received support from religious entities controlled by the United Front Work Department.
Michael Lucci, CEO of the national security advocacy group State Armor, told the Caller that the risks posed by Qiu&#8217;s ownership of the property were &#8220;screamingly obvious&#8221; and urged the federal government to intervene.
At the time of publication, Qiu and the CAMDC had not responded to The Daily Wire’s request for comment.

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More than 140 research papers written by Harvard researchers were authored in collaboration with Chinese universities known as the Seven Sons of National Defense, according to a report from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/harvard-china-links-unearthed-congress-finds-140-papers-coauthored-ccp-military-universities">reported</a>. The Pentagon and other U.S. officials have identified those schools as central to China’s defense research and military modernization.
Lawmakers argue in the report that Harvard’s approach to research gave way to partnerships that could advance the technological and military capabilities of its biggest adversary.
“From allowing violence against anti-China protestors to collaborating with entities linked to the PLA [Chinese People&#8217;s Liberation Army], Harvard has made serious mistakes and must act now to prevent more,” said Committee Chairman Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI). “It should use this investigation as a catalyst for significant reforms that end CCP influence on campus and prioritize secure American research.”
Education Department data cited in the report show Harvard received more than $600 million from China under Section 117 foreign gift rules, more than any other American university. The committee says the volume of that funding raises the need for tighter oversight of research partnerships and disclosure practices.
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One 2023 paper looked at bio-inspired soft robots for deep-sea exploration. A Harvard-affiliated researcher shared authorship with a scientist from Beihang University (Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics), which has been on the Commerce Department’s Entity List since 2001.
While Harvard’s research compliance office described the project as nonmilitary research, lawmakers noted the project could help possible military applications, such as underwater detection. The paper was one of the examples the committee highlighted when examining Harvard’s collaborations with institutions linked to China’s defense research.
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Another 2023 paper involved a researcher at China’s National University of Defense Technology, an institution on a U.S. restricted list. That study examined magnetic materials and acknowledged partial support from the U.S. Army Research Office.
Engineering accounted for the largest share of the Harvard-affiliated research involving Seven Sons institutions, the committee found after reviewing publications across dozens of disciplines.
Harvard said it “shares the Committees&#8217; concern about geopolitical risks, including threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party, and is committed to continuing to conduct research and academic programming with protections that prioritize U.S. interests and national security.”
“Harvard follows national security standards and guidance set by the federal government for its international collaborations,” a university spokesman said. “Additionally, where appropriate, federal agencies who are best able to assess real-time national security risks work with Harvard to put in place agency approved risk mitigation measures for federally funded research.”
The university added that it “disagrees with mischaracterizations that fail to reflect the university’s documented record of compliance, cooperation, and commitment to protecting and advancing U.S. interests, national security, and global standing.”
The committee also investigated Harvard’s executive education program with China’s National Healthcare Security Administration, which trained Chinese health officials on international health insurance systems. 
Attendance and registration records listed officials connected to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, or XPCC, in connection with some sessions. The Treasury Department sanctioned XPCC in 2020 over human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
The report acknowledges it is unclear whether XPCC officials ultimately attended every program in question. It states, however, that Harvard had advance participant information for a 2020 online session that included XPCC-affiliated officials and did not take further action. 
Harvard professor Winnie Yip, who helped organize the program, told committee investigators she did not know XPCC was a sanctioned entity at the time and had not received training on sanctions compliance.
Committee members argued that Harvard’s research security process stayed too focused on narrow legal compliance and underweighted broader national security risks of working with Chinese military-connected institutions. Harvard research official John H. Shaw told investigators the university reviews collaborations on a case-by-case basis and does not ban all projects with Chinese institutions. The panel, however, said that research with entities inside China’s military civil collaboration system can still have military applications even when the work is unclassified and intended for publication.
The report also raises questions about Harvard Global Research and Support Services, a nonprofit affiliated with the university that can accept awards when Harvard is unable to accept a sponsor’s terms directly. 
The report recommended that Harvard prohibit research relationships with entities on restricted or sanctioned lists and centralize its research security oversight. It also urged Congress to strengthen foreign funding disclosure requirements for universities.

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Ivy League Elite Quietly Collaborated With China’s Top Defense Universities

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The Department of Justice charged 11 people in a massive immigration fraud scheme that authorities say facilitated roughly 1,000 sham marriages, mainly between Chinese nationals and American citizens seeking to help them obtain legal immigration status.
Ten out of the 11 defendants in the case were arrested Wednesday morning for their roles in orchestrating the fraudulent marriages between 2016 and July 2026, the Justice Department <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/11-defendants-charged-dismantling-decade-long-nationwide-marriage-fraud-scheme">said</a>. According to prosecutors, the group created a multimillion-dollar network that operated in New York City, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Vanuatu, and China.
Attorney General Todd Blanche described the case Wednesday as one of the largest marriage fraud prosecutions in U.S. history, saying it exposes &#8220;how far these people will go to cheat our immigration system.&#8221;
&#8220;Gaining American citizenship and legal status to reside in this great nation is a sacred privilege, and we will ensure it is always done in accordance with the law protecting our communities and national security,&#8221; he said. &#8220;These schemes have real costs. They rob our country of its ability to know who should be and should not be allowed in America.&#8221;
Prosecutors say the defendants built a network involving attorneys, tax preparers, and wedding officiants to help foreign nationals obtain green cards before later assisting the couples with divorces.
The scheme charged foreign nationals as much as $100,000 for its services while paying U.S. citizens as much as $30,000 to marry them, according to the Justice Department. Recruiters allegedly used social media posts advertising immigration services to lure clients while tracking down Americans willing to participate in the marriages.
After arranging the ceremonies, the accused staged family photos &#8220;to create the appearance of a legitimate wedding,&#8221; Blanche said.
The photos, along with joint accounts the group helped the couples open, were used in their green card applications.
The operation extended overseas, including to China, where an office tied to the scheme assisted with U.S. immigration paperwork and prenuptial agreements. In one instance, a prenuptial agreement stated that the couple lived separately &#8220;and must not interfere with each other,&#8221; Blanche said.
The Justice Department has directed federal prosecutors to prioritize denaturalization cases against naturalized citizens who obtained their citizenship through fraud, Blanche said. More than 120 such complaints have been filed since President Donald Trump&#8217;s return to the White House.
&#8220;Not only are we protecting our physical borders from unlawful crossings, but we&#8217;re also preventing immigration fraud schemes that are just another way to skirt the immigration laws of the United States,&#8221; Blanche said.
&#8220;Our efforts to protect our immigration system and our country&#8217;s borders are aggressive and exhaustive. No matter how complicated the scam, we will do everything in our power to stop it,&#8221; he said.
Federal authorities charged Amy Cheng, 72, of Brooklyn, New York, Xiao Mei Chan, 64, of Queens, New York, Christine Lu, 52, of Queens, New York, Jing Yan Ye, 43, of Staten Island, New York, Xiao Yan Chen, 48, of Brooklyn, New York, Gang Zheng, 61, of Queens, New York, Anthony Cheng, 47, of Staten Island, New York, Michelle Duenas, 35, of Staten Island, New York, Angela Duenas, 26, of Staten Island, New York, Sigrid Cetino, 32, of Peekskill, New York, and Erika Johnson, 43, of Ossining, New York.
Each defendant faces one count of conspiracy to commit marriage fraud and immigration document fraud, which could lead to a maximum sentence of five years behind bars, and one count of conspiracy to encourage the unlawful residence of aliens in the United States, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

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Fraudsters Facilitated Hundreds Of Green Card Marriages For Chinese Nationals

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The United States military is reportedly close to a breakthrough in the development of high-energy laser weapons, opening the doors to a future battlefield where targets are destroyed at the speed of light.
Laser weapons would give the United States an obvious advantage with regard to defensive capabilities, especially because they would allow operators to target incoming enemy drones and missiles for almost immediate destruction. In addition, they would not be forced to deploy missile interceptors — such as the Patriot (MIM-104) or the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) — at a much higher cost.
The U.S. Army is close to awarding a contract for a laser weapons system: Enduring High Energy Laser (E-HEL), according to a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/inside-americas-laser-revolution-military-nears-big-battlefield-breakthrough">report</a> from Fox News.
Army acquisition executive Lt. Gen. Frank Lozano said that the service was negotiating a contract with AeroVironment for the E-HEL, saying that it had been tested recently at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where it had shown &#8220;a lot of recent promise and capability.&#8221;
The initial goal is to implement E-HEL in a defensive posture so that the United States is not forced to put millions of defense dollars into traditional kinetic weapons that will be used to shoot down relatively cheap enemy drones — a move Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OLi34jNSBHk">likened to</a> &#8220;throwing Ferraris at frisbees.&#8221;
Lasers, in contrast, may only cost a few dollars each time they are fired — and they require no additional ammunition, only maintenance — meaning that the operational costs are almost nothing once the system has been installed.
The U.S. military has attempted to add lasers to its arsenal several times in the past, from a 747-mounted &#8220;ray gun&#8221; to a Humvee-mounted laser designed to target roadside bombs — but as WIRED <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/landmark-deal-would-officially-add-laser-weapons-to-us-army-arsenal/">reported</a>, none of those attempts were able to deliver on the promise of low-cost effectiveness.
The Army is not alone in its efforts to develop and implement laser-based weaponry. The U.S. Air Force has already implemented a compact laser weapon system as a defense against enemy drones, and the U.S. Navy has been slowly integrating HELIOS (high-energy laser with integrated optical-dazzler and surveillance) after years of testing.
Outside the United States, China has also put considerable time and money into laser-based counter-drone weapons and other laser weapon systems.
And in the United Kingdom, the <a href="https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news/2025/november/20/20251120-dragonfire-trials">Royal Navy</a> has already inked a £316 million (over $426 million) deal to develop a laser weapon after successful trials shooting down high-velocity drones. Until now, the Royal Navy has relied on a combination of kinetic weapons — including Sea Viper missiles and other traditional weapons — and the Phalanx system to defend against aerial attacks.

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Erin Brockovich has found a sequel. The legal activist, made famous by Julia Roberts in the 2000 film bearing her name, recently described America’s data center boom as “Hinkley on fricking steroids.” Her new website tracks data centers alongside anonymously submitted complaints about water, electricity, noise, and utility bills. The script writes itself: another environmental catastrophe is unfolding, and Erin Brockovich is here to expose it.
The legal case that made her famous involved groundwater in Hinkley, California, contaminated with hexavalent chromium. Residents were awarded a $333 million settlement. A data center is not a toxic-waste site. It is an industrial warehouse full of servers whose principal byproduct is heat. It’s true that data centers can impose costs on a community without adequate planning for power, water, or ratepayer protections. Some data centers use gas turbines, which are loud and annoying. Communities have complained about power lines going over their neighborhoods. Those are infrastructure failures but not evidence of impending environmental disaster.
Nationally, direct water use by all U.S. data centers in 2023 was <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-water-usage">roughly 17.5 billion gallons</a>: American farms used more water for irrigation every six hours than data centers consumed directly over the entire year. The figure is projected to rise, yet it remains a fraction of 1% of total U.S. freshwater use. A data center that uses less water in a year than a medium-sized farm does in a day is not a national emergency. The American answer to rising power or water demand should be to expand supply, not a halt to the infrastructure that needs them.
However, New York has imposed the country’s first moratorium on new data centers, citing the usual worries about water and electricity. Anti-data-center backlash has united the anti-capitalists, environmentalists, and the populist Right. The Bernie Sanders and Tea Party coalition shares little beyond suspicion of the elite, and the belief that corporate profit equals public loss. Data centers have become scapegoats on which Americans project their economic resentments. The moratorium in New York is a political choice, encouraged by a professional class that gains more from prolonging disputes than solving them.
I have seen this argument unfold in Loudoun County, Virginia, where my family has lived for more than 20 years. Loudoun has transformed from a wooded exurb of Washington, D.C. to the &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdMlGYSyh_k">Data Center Capital</a>&#8221; of America. Data centers generate 38% of Loudoun County’s <a href="https://www.loudoun.gov/m/faq?cat=241#question-1790">revenue</a> while occupying 4% of commercial parcels. This financial windfall has allowed the county to lower its property tax rate as its population and property values have risen. It has also generated disputes over transmission lines, utility costs, and land use. Virginia’s answer to these local concerns was better than New York’s: a new tax on data center electricity use.
Hoover Institution scholar Dan Wang <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/whos-going-win-future-dan-wang-chinas-engineers-vs-americas-lawyers">describes</a> China as an engineering state and America as a state of lawyers. Beijing does not treat data, power generation, large-scale infrastructure, and artificial intelligence as separate conversations. For China, they are interlocking parts of national policy. Chinese companies, backed by that national policy, are building data centers, computing clusters, and power plants at full speed. Together, they form the industrial base China needs to export its version of the AI economy and challenge American dominance in an AI-driven future.
America is still ahead in advanced chip design, and its AI companies have the most capable models. But not for long. Chinese open-weight models are already <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/08/03/2026/deepseek-releases-cut-price-new-ai-model-as-chinas-price-war-intensifies">competing</a> closely with leading American systems, often at far lower prices. By May 2026, China’s electricity-generating capacity surpassed 4 terawatts, roughly three times the U.S. total. That capacity is giving China a boost in building new AI infrastructure.
Hinkley made Erin Brockovich’s career; the film made her a household name. Today she runs a consulting firm and works as a sought-after professional speaker. Earning money through litigation and advocacy is a time-honored profession. But the incentives to cast data centers as the next great villain all point in one direction. Once an issue enters the grievance industry, activists need a campaign, lawyers need a case, consultants need another study, and politicians need a cause to raise their profiles. A manageable local dispute offers neither the attention nor the prestige of a national campaign against Big Tech. “Another Hinkley” gives her a proper sequel.
Republicans would be fools to let a growth-oriented agenda be captured by this conspiratorial mood. A party that promised to return manufacturing to American shores should not oppose the infrastructure required by the AI economy. Data center construction creates demand for transformers, cooling systems, electrical components, construction crews, engineers, and skilled trades. The data centers themselves provide computing power to the medical, defense, and energy sectors.
Each lawsuit, moratorium, or additional permitting hurdle strengthens the corporations activists claim to oppose. Restrictions increase the value of existing data centers controlled by incumbent giants such as Blackstone and Amazon. The obstructionist impulse isn’t just restricted to data centers. The trial-lawyer lobby has spent <a href="https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/07/trial-lawyers-lobby-against-autonomous-vehicles.html">years</a> fighting autonomous vehicles such as Waymo because injury lawsuits net them billions in insurance settlements. Fewer crashes are good for the people and bad for the business of crash litigation.
What kind of country do we want to be? A civilization that conquered the frontier and put men on the moon, or a nation of hall monitors billing by the hour while China commands the future? America still has the land, capital, and genius to overtake any rival. A national culture of delay, litigation, and rent-seeking will only hurt America and help our enemies. We need the courage to tell the grievance merchants to get out of the way.
***
<a href="http://anangmittal.com">Anang Mittal</a> is a Washington, D.C. based public affairs professional. He was a staffer for Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

SET OF ‘ERIN BROCKOVICH’ DIRECTED BY S.SODERBERGH

Data Centers Are Not The Erin Brockovich Conspiracy Sequel America’s Enemies Hope For

Dan Wang

Data Centers

Erin Brockovich

Loudoun County

New Right

President Trump In The Situation Room During Strike on Iran

Ending The War In Iran Means Winning, Nothing Less

America First

Iran Nuclear Deal

IRGC

JD Vance

Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

Nicolas Maduro

North Korea

Rebeccah Heinrichs

Strait of Hormuz

Trump Administration

China slashed its oil imports by more than half after the Iran war began, a move analysts say helped prevent global oil prices from climbing even higher despite major supply disruptions.
“China was definitely the most important factor in keeping prices down,” oil markets analyst Rory Johnston <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/2026/07/china-iran-usa-oil-prices/688086/?gift=9raHaW-OKg2bN8oaIFlCou6OgfFJt1HZK-qCD-xfA5g&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=share&amp;utm_source=chatgpt.com">said</a>. 
China typically imports about 11 million barrels of oil per day, but cut back on roughly 5 million after fighting disrupted Middle East energy markets and shipping routes, leaving more crude available to other buyers.
Analysts estimate oil could have reached $150 to $200 per barrel had China continued buying at its normal pace, rather than remaining around $90. China imports more than 70% of the oil it consumes, making it especially sensitive to price spikes. Instead of buying expensive crude on the open market, Beijing has increasingly relied on its strategic reserves, though analysts question how long that strategy can continue.  
Before the war, China’s Foreign Ministry <a href="https://www.anews.com.tr/world/2025/06/23/china-warns-iran-israel-war-could-impact-global-economy">urged</a> all sides to de-escalate tensions, warning that regional conflict could disrupt global energy markets.
&#8220;The international community [should] make greater efforts to promote de-escalation of the conflict and prevent regional instability from having a greater impact on global economic development,&#8221; foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said. 
The U.S. government estimates China holds nearly <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67504" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1.4 billion</a> barrels of oil in underground strategic reserves and commercial storage, enough to last between six months and more than a year depending on consumption. 
China employed the opposite strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic, dramatically increasing imports as oil prices collapsed. U.S. crude exports to China jumped <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news/crude-oil/012021-china-data-2020-crude-imports-from-us-surge-211-to-396000-bd-valued-at-628-bil">211%</a> in 2020 while benchmark oil briefly traded below zero, allowing Beijing to stockpile cheap supplies. 
“China is doing this for China, fundamentally,&#8221; <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/07/30/china-oil-price-iran-power?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&amp;stream=top">said</a> Ruby Osman, a senior policy advisor on China at the Tony Blair Institute. &#8220;But obviously it&#8217;s not unhelpful for China that it has become a global public good.&#8221;

TOPSHOT-VIETNAM-CHINA-DIPLOMACY-POLITICS

China’s Key Role In Your Gas Prices

Gas Prices

Gasoline

Oil and Gas

Oil prices

Every few months, an AI system arrives that makes the last one look quaint. The newest, a framework called Mythos, has been keeping policymakers and bank executives up at night for a specific reason: it showed how a single bug in an aging piece of Office software could hand an adversary the keys to the identity systems of every federal agency at once.
Mythos rattled bank executives and policymakers because it apparently turned the discovery and exploitation of software vulnerabilities, which once took elite state hackers months of effort, into an automated commodity. There is no doubt that the flaws in our systems will be found.
The question that matters now is: how far will the damage spread once they are?
For the federal government, the answer is simply: too far. The single greatest point of failure in American cyberspace is the <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/43ab8e50dc16705a1de14005da8729697333549f?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">procurement</a> monoculture that lawmakers in Washington spent decades creating.
Microsoft everywhere, all at once
Consider what tools support a single day of government work. Microsoft <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/ed32eadf7f9c5e1d9c9898b959861b6e19d7dbe0?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">commands</a> an estimated 85% of federal productivity software and <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/ff5899229fc23a10a4eb4e5b31f86fb8ba33303d?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">captures</a> roughly a third of all federal software spending. Windows runs most agency computers. Outlook carries the government&#8217;s mail. Microsoft Entra ID decides who can sign in across most departments. When one company supplies the operating system, email, identity layer, and cloud for nearly every agency, a defect in that company&#8217;s products becomes a defect in American national security.
We have already suffered the consequences of this lock-in. In 2023, the China-linked group Storm-0558 <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/6ca702bb1f38c6310c9deea2c06cd98de1ee3cb6?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">forged</a> Microsoft authentication tokens and read the email of the commerce secretary, the U.S. ambassador to China, and a member of Congress, downloading some 60,000 messages from the State Department alone. The government&#8217;s Cyber Safety Review Board concluded the intrusion &#8220;should never have happened&#8221; and called Microsoft&#8217;s security culture inadequate. In 2025, the SharePoint &#8220;ToolShell&#8221; campaign <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/c60beb834eb6e902a4b40a7ccd62afedf47a38b6?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">compromised</a> more than 400 organizations, including the National Nuclear Security Administration.
A rational customer, if breached this often, would diversify. The federal government has not done this because Microsoft&#8217;s licensing terms are engineered to make diversification irrational and uneconomical. According to Microsoft&#8217;s published pricing, running Windows Server on a competing cloud can <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/6be4215b75b5743630cbcdd364c8e1615256dd03?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">cost</a> up to 400 percent more than on Azure. The Government Accountability Office found agencies forced to pay extra fees simply to use software they already own on rival infrastructure. The result is a market in which <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/f734cc1e4644c1bfc62c89ae0e1ce344ff628fb8?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">fewer</a> than 1% of cloud customers switch providers in a given year.
Worse, security itself has become an upsell to line the company’s pockets. The State Department detected Storm-0558 only because it <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/b6a689f59232463ffc3a10f893c778a3d0606d84?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">paid</a> for Microsoft&#8217;s most expensive license tier, which included enhanced audit logging.
Agencies on cheaper tiers had no comparable visibility into their own email. As Senators Eric Schmitt and Ron Wyden <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/4182274b4a96594bacbc6d49688e163fc796f921?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">put it</a>, cybersecurity should be a core attribute of software, not a premium feature sold to deep-pocketed customers.
The ongoing China problem
Then there’s the China risk. For nearly a decade, Microsoft has <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/e9839dea5bb6517a2414cbb7fe545383cfcc7463?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">used</a> engineers based in China to maintain Department of War cloud systems, with the work supervised by American &#8220;digital escorts&#8221; who lacked the expertise to evaluate it. In response, the Pentagon <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/81c078a3d3b318a654bd95285f08c767a34ab545?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">terminated</a> the program and ordered an audit.
Even now, Microsoft&#8217;s early-warning program for software vulnerabilities includes more than a dozen Chinese companies legally <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/6fde8f4c2216ec4b42f62e4fdee239c88c4e77fb?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">obligated</a> to share what they learn with the Chinese government, and it has been <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/201b4a006d473db4a469383e623d2d52cb61f22c?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">suspected</a> of serving as a leak vector for Chinese state hackers at least three times. The company is even <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/a53758446cbeb8b2863f9b26d486514e8a727d3a?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">reportedly</a> folding DeepSeek, a Chinese AI model, into Copilot Cowork, the assistant it is actively installing across the executive branch.
These are demonstrable security risks for the United States.
Toward a less binding relationship
A solution to this problem does not require punishing Microsoft for its historic success. All that needs to happen is to make the government a customer who can walk away. Federal cloud contracts can prohibit licensing terms that lead to vendor lock-in. FedRAMP should pursue multi-cloud solutions, such as the Pentagon&#8217;s Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, to build resilience and diversity in AI procurement. And the Federal Trade Commission should see its <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/0e10cd73469aa4a3eac0435c85e36fc2f2a8dd66?w=anN0b2NrZXJAZGFpbHl3aXJlLmNvbQ&amp;u=11850803">investigation</a> of Microsoft&#8217;s bundling and licensing practices through, and pursue remedies as necessary to curb cloud practices that threaten national security.
Every advancement in AI beyond Mythos means every software vulnerability will be found faster than the last. A government wired through one company shares these flaws, everywhere, all at once. A more diversified system, with more vendors, can contain the fallout.
The current architecture of the United States’ security was built by contract, and it can be rebuilt the same way.
***
Aiden Buzzetti is the president of the Bull Moose Project. Evan Swarztrauber is Principal at CorePoint Strategies and a former policy advisor at the Federal Communications Commission.

AI – Tech – Photo Illustration

America Needs To Renegotiate Its Most Famous Software Marriage

Department of War

Microsoft

Microsoft Entra ID

Mythos

A bipartisan Senate bill aimed at keeping Chinese-made vehicles and automotive technology off American roads moved one step closer to becoming law on Wednesday after clearing the Senate Commerce Committee with unanimous support.
The Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026, sponsored by Sens. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), would prohibit the import, sale, and operation of vehicles manufactured by China and other designated foreign adversaries while also banning Chinese-developed connected vehicle technology, including software and data systems, from American roads.
Supporters argue the bill is necessary not only to protect the American auto industry from heavily subsidized Chinese competition, but also to address national security concerns posed by increasingly software-driven vehicles capable of collecting vast amounts of data on their owners.
&#8220;Chinese cars are surveillance packages on wheels, with the ability to collect on American citizens and transmit that data back to Beijing,&#8221; Slotkin <a href="https://www.slotkin.senate.gov/2026/07/22/slotkin-moreno-bill-to-protect-national-economic-security-from-chinese-vehicles-advances-unanimously/">said</a> after the bill advanced. &#8220;The Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s playbook of heavily subsidizing their product and underselling the competition puts Michigan&#8217;s auto industry and millions of American workers at risk.&#8221;
Moreno <a href="https://www.moreno.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/moreno-bill-cracking-down-on-chinese-vehicles-passes-out-of-committee-unanimously/">echoed</a> those concerns, arguing that Beijing&#8217;s ambitions extend beyond simply competing in the global auto market. &#8220;China&#8217;s auto industry was not built to compete, it was built to destroy American manufacturing, gut the middle class, and undermine our national security,&#8221; Moreno said. &#8220;For decades, D.C. globalists propped up Chinese businesses — now it&#8217;s time for Congress to stop this cancer before it spreads through the American auto market.&#8221;
The legislation would significantly expand upon regulations adopted during the Biden administration that effectively blocked Chinese automakers from entering the U.S. passenger vehicle market. Rather than focusing solely on connected vehicle technology, the bill broadly prohibits Chinese-manufactured vehicles and connected components throughout the production, importation, and sales process.
Moreno has argued that modern automobiles function as &#8220;roving electronic devices&#8221; capable of collecting sensitive location, infrastructure, and behavioral data while also allowing remote access to critical vehicle functions such as steering, braking, and acceleration. The bill also seeks to protect domestic manufacturers from what lawmakers describe as China&#8217;s strategy of flooding global markets with heavily subsidized vehicles sold below market prices.
The measure received backing from major American automakers, labor unions, steel manufacturers, and industry groups. General Motors praised the legislation for protecting American manufacturing while maintaining that U.S. automakers &#8220;can compete with anyone in the world when we are given a level playing field.&#8221;
Ford likewise commended the bipartisan effort &#8220;to protect the U.S. industrial base,&#8221; while Stellantis said the legislation addresses &#8220;important issues related to connected vehicle security and fair competition.&#8221;
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain also endorsed the proposal, arguing that rebuilding American manufacturing requires preventing further offshoring of the domestic auto industry. &#8220;Our national and economic security relies on a strong U.S. auto industry,&#8221; Fain said. &#8220;We can&#8217;t keep selling out the U.S. working class to transnational corporations that have no respect for labor rights.&#8221;
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents major automakers, warned that Chinese manufacturers are already flooding overseas markets with low-cost vehicles and said the legislation sends &#8220;a clear message&#8221; that the United States will not allow the same strategy to undermine the domestic market.
The bill was not without debate during Wednesday&#8217;s committee markup. Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX) expressed concerns over a provision barring automakers with more than 15% Chinese ownership from selling vehicles in the United States, warning the language could inadvertently affect companies such as Mercedes-Benz, which has substantial Chinese investment despite maintaining significant American manufacturing operations.
Moreno responded that the ownership provisions would not take effect until 2030 and include a waiver process to address companies caught by the threshold. He emphasized that lawmakers had no intention of preventing Mercedes-Benz from selling vehicles in the United States.
An amendment to soften the ownership requirements was ultimately withdrawn, while another amendment that would have narrowed the bill&#8217;s definition of connected vehicle hardware failed on a bipartisan vote.
The legislation now awaits consideration by the full Senate.

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