Vancouver, B.C. TheNewswire – February 9, 2026 Armory Mining Corp. (CSE: ARMY) (OTC: RMRYF) (FRA: 2JS) (the ‘Company’ or ‘Armory’) a resource exploration company focused on the discovery and development of minerals critical to the energy, security and defense sectors, is pleased to announce that is preparing to conduct a series of airborne geophysics surveys at the Ammo antimony-gold project (‘Ammo’) located in Nova Scotia, Canada.
The planned airborne geophysics surveys have been designed using efficient 50-meter flight lines (Fig 1) to collect information from associated sulfide mineralization, sericite and potassic alteration and probable pathfinder related uranium anomalies.
The Company intends on undertaking a magnetic survey designed to collect information regarding geological characteristics including structural and lithological features, an electromagnetic survey to collect data correlated with associated sulfide mineralization, and a radiometric survey to collect any possible correlation between uranium anomalies and the target mineralization.
‘These surveys form an important part of preliminary exploration critical to defining drill targets at Ammo,’ said Alex Klenman, CEO of Armory Mining. ‘The data generated by the surveys will aid tremendously in determining the best areas to drill. The geological team has outlined a comprehensive exploration plan for the Ammo project, and we’re committed to completing these next steps,’ continued Mr. Klenman.
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Figure 1 – Ammo Property and Significant Mining and Mineral Occurrences within and adjacent Distance
The Property
The Company has the option to acquire a 100% interest in the Ammo Sb-Au project, comprising three contiguous mineral claims (Exploration Licenses) surrounding the historical West Gore antimony-gold mine, a past producer of antimony and gold, located in central Nova Scotia, Canada covering approximately 3,020 hectares (Fig. 2).
The property is underlain by sericitic slates and minor intercalated arenites of the Halifax formation, a member of the Ordovician Meguma Group. It is made up of a basal sandy flysch unit known as the Goldenville formation and an overlying shaly flysch unit known as the Halifax formation which hosts the West Gore gold-antimony mineralization. Peraluminous granites and minor mafic bodies intrude the Meguma Group sedimentary. This magmatic activity seems to be responsible for the hydrothermal activity that caused the gold mineralization (Fig 2).
The mineralization in adjacent West Gore mineralization occurs throughout the Meguma Group stratigraphy. The mineralization is generally in laterally continuous veins were emplaced during hydrofracturing in brittle ductile deformation dominated by quartz-carbonate gangue and iron sulphides with free gold, generally micron sized but nuggets up to 11 ounces have been reported. The sulfides with mineralization including Pyrite, pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite, stibnite, chalcopyrite, galena, sphalerite and iron oxides are associated with quartz-carbonate veins or sheared host rocks in the Mineralized zone.
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Figure 2 – Ammo Property and Surrounding Mining and Mineral Occurrences
About Armory Mining Corp
Armory Mining Corp. is a Canadian exploration company focused on minerals critical to the energy, security and defense sectors. The Company controls an 80% interest in the Candela II lithium brine project located in the Incahuasi Salar, Salta Province, Argentina. In addition, the Company controls 100% interest in both the Ammo antimony-gold project located in Nova Scotia and the Riley Creek antimony-gold project located in British Columbia.
Qualified Person
The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Babak V. Azar, P.Geo., a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Historical reports provided by the optionor were reviewed by the qualified person. The information provided has not been verified and is being treated as historic.
Contact Information
Alex Klenman
CEO & Director
alex@armorymining.com
604-970-4330
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as the term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this news release. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any of the Company’s securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful, including any of the securities in the United States of America. The Company’s securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the ‘1933 Act’) or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for account or benefit of, U.S. Persons (as defined in Regulation S under the 1933 Act) unless registered under the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption from such registration requirements is available.
Forward-looking statements:
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the intended use of funds. The words ‘expects,’ ‘anticipates,’ ‘believes,’ ‘intends,’ ‘plans,’ ‘will,’ ‘may,’ and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that its expectations as reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements due to various factors, including, but not limited to, political and regulatory risks in Canada, operational and exploration risks, market conditions, and the availability of financing. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which are made as of the date of this release. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws.
Copyright (c) 2026 TheNewswire – All rights reserved.
Substantive change has occurred in the subjects examined in my second book, Gold and Liberty (AIER, 1995), since it was published three decades ago. That change has been mostly negative, unfortunately, especially during the first quarter of this century. As economic liberty has decreased, gold has increased, a historical pattern which is by no means random.
The theme of Gold and Liberty is straightforward: the statuses of gold-based money and political-economic liberty are intimately related. When a government is sound, so also is money. One of the book’s premises is that sound money is gold money (or gold-based money) because it’s economically grounded, non-political, and exhibits a fairly steady purchasing power over long periods. A second premise is that while sound government makes sound money possible, sound money alone can’t ensure fiscal-monetary integrity in public affairs.
A sound government is, in this sense, one that respects private property and the sanctity of contract, a state that’s constitutionally limited in its legal, monetary, and fiscal powers. Sound money is a predictable and reliable medium of exchange, serving as a reliable yardstick due precisely to the relative stability of its real value (that is, “the golden constant”). Unrestrained states “redistribute” wealth rather than protect it, tending to spend, tax, borrow, and print money to excess. That erodes an economy’s financial infrastructure.
The dollar-gold price reached yet another all-time high milestone ($4,000/ounce) in October, having surpassed $3,000/ounce last March and $2,000/ounce only thirty months ago. So far this month, it has averaged $4400/ounce – triple its level in March 2020 (when COVID lockdowns and subsidies began). Gold breached $1,000/ounce sixteen years ago, amid the financial crisis and “Great Recession” of 2009. Only two decades ago, it was $500/ounce.
What Bretton Woods Got Right
Under the relative discipline of the Bretton-Woods gold-exchange standard (1948-1971), when the dollar-gold ratio was officially maintained at a steady level ($35/ounce), the Fed’s main job was to keep it there and issue neither too few nor too many dollars. Its job was not to manipulate the economy by gyrating interest rates. The dollar wasn’t a plaything in foreign exchange. Both US inflation and interest rates were relatively low and stable – not so since.
Gold and Liberty illustrates how the commonly cited dollar-price of gold is really the dollar’s value (purchasing power) in terms of real money, such that a rising “gold price” reflects the dollar’s debasement by profligate politicians. When this occurs – due largely to perpetual expansion of the fundamentally unnatural, unaffordable, and unsustainable welfare-warfare state – public finance (spending, taxing, borrowing, money creation) becomes both political and capricious. At the base there’s an erosion of real liberty. From that comes money debasement, the trend since the US left the gold-exchange standard in 1971.
The value of a monopoly-issued (fiat) currency reflects the competence and quality of public governance no less than a stock price reflects the competence and governing quality of a private-sector company. The empirical record makes clear that the US dollar held its real value (in gold ounces) for most of the period from 1790 to 1913, when government spending was minimal and there was no federal income tax or central (government) bank. In contrast, since the US established its money monopolist (the Federal Reserve) in 1913, the dollar, whether measured as a basket of commodities or consumer goods, has lost roughly 99 percent of its real purchasing power, most of that since the abandonment of the gold-linked dollar in 1971.
Debasement doesn’t get much worse than 99 percent – unless the loss occurs quickly and catastrophically, as in a hyperinflation. That’s not impossible in America’s future.
Having re-read Gold and Liberty recently, I feel both pride and chagrin. I’m proud that it refutes many monetary myths, gets the analysis basically right, and is prescient. It’s got solid data, history, economics, and investment advice. But its main, most helpful purpose is to make clear that money, banking, and the economic activity they support remain sound only in a capitalistic setting. That is, when government sticks to protecting rights to life, liberty, and property, by providing the three necessary functions of police, courts, and national defense.
Measures of Gold and Freedom
Why was this not the path taken this century? Why has government been expanded so much that it now routinely violates rights and spreads chronic fiscal-monetary uncertainty? Where’s the case, made so well in the second half of the twentieth century, for a more classically liberal political economy? In short, where have all the pro-capitalists gone? They were once dominant – and influential. Given the foundation laid by “Reaganomics” (1980s), the end of the USSR and the Cold War (1990s), plus US budget surpluses four years running (1998-2001), the first quarter of the twenty-first century could have entailed a still-purer capitalist renaissance. Instead, vacuous voters and pandering politicians from everywhere along the ideological spectrum have preferred more welfare, more warfare, and more lawfare. Many youths in recent decades tell pollsters they prefer socialism to capitalism (whether from ignorance or malevolence isn’t clear). New York City now has an overtly socialist mayor. Compared to 1995, America now has a larger, but still-burgeoning, welfare-warfare state that necessitates massive borrowing and money printing, as tax avoidance and evasion tend to cap the state’s direct “take” (see Hauser’s Law).
Unfortunately, the gains of the last quarter of the last century seem to have been squandered in the first quarter of this century. Monetary myths persist. Some have proliferated and worsened. Statists push a capricious “modern monetary theory” in hopes of more easily funding a burgeoning welfare-warfare state with minimal resort to taxation. Influential Keynesians and policymakers still insist that inflation is caused by “greed” or by an economy that “overheats” and thus warrants a periodic recession. Central banks this century seem more reckless and resistant to rules compared to the 1990s, as they unabashedly fund profligate states by chronic debt monetization, and their supposed “independence” dissipates.
One metric not available for the 1995 book was an index of economic freedom by nation, globally. This was still in the early stages of development. Two main measures have been constructed by the Heritage Foundation in Washington (since 1995) and the Fraser Institute in Canada (with indexes in five-year intervals extending back to 1955). An account of long-term trends in both gold and liberty would be interesting.
Figure One plots the dollar-gold price and the index of economic freedom (a splice of the Heritage-Fraser measures) since 1975. If the gold-liberty thesis is plausible, we should see an inverse relationship, or negative correlation, between the variables: liberty up, gold down or instead liberty down, gold up. That’s just what we observe. Indeed, it’s a more inverse relationship in the latter half of the period (2000-25) compared to the first half (1975-2000). Since 2008, the gold price has ascended while US economic freedom has descended.
Figure Two plots the dollar-gold price and US economic freedom for this century only. The inverse relation between gold and liberty is even more noticeable.
A few years ago, only three countries were economically freer than the US in 2007, but by 2015 11 nations were freer (I documented this as “The Multiyear Decline in US Economic Freedom”). Today, 24 are freer than the US. I wrote then:
most people, including many professional economists and data analysts (who should know better) seem to cling to the impression that US economic freedom is high and stable, while China has become less free economically. The facts say otherwise, and the facts should shape our perceptions and theories. Human liberty also should matter; much of our lives are spent engaged in market activity, pursuing our livelihoods, not in political activity. Finally, as a rule (which is empirically supported) less economic freedom results in less prosperity. Neither major US political party today seems much bothered by the loss of economic freedom. They don’t talk about it.” I added that “without a reversal in the trend of declining economic freedom in the US, we’ll likely be suffering more from less liberty, less supply growth, and less prosperity.
Recently, the relative holdings of foreign central banks are shifting away from large portfolios of US debt securities to gold. In dollar value, the world’s central banks now hold more gold than US securities. But this is due mostly to gold’s price boom relative to the prices of US Treasury notes and bonds, not to any material rise in the banks’ physical gold holdings. In short, the shift is an effect, not the cause, of gold’s price rise. The latter is due to the Fed’s excessive issuance of dollars, which is due to the US Treasury’s excessive issuance of debt to be monetized, which is due to the US Congress’s excessive spending, which in turn reflects a government no longer limited by a constitution or a gold standard.
Central banks could have sold some gold in recent years to rebalance the composition of their reserve holdings, but they haven’t. Why not? Are they now “gold bugs?” One might hope that their refusal to diversify would make it easier to return to the gold standard, but that seems unlikely given the fiscal-monetary prodigality we’ve witnessed so far this century. Here’s how I explained it in the book, when I was more optimistic about a return to monetary integrity.
If there is ever a return to a gold standard, it will not be accomplished by convening government commissions, which do no real scholarship and are purely bureaucratic undertakings, which perpetuate existing policy. Nor will a gold standard ever be properly managed by central banking, which is inimical to gold. The return to gold will require a sustained intellectual effort from academic economists and monetary reformers who uphold free markets, the gold standard, and free banking. It will require a major shift away from the welfare state that central banks are enlisted to support. Above all, it will require a return to classical liberalism based on a sound philosophic footing of respect for individuals and their right to be as free as possible from coercive government.
Meanwhile, it is encouraging that gold increasingly is in the hands of market participants instead of central banks. Since 1971, investors all over the world have been buying gold in the form of coins, bullion, and gold mining shares, primarily to protect their savings against the ravages of unstable government money. Meanwhile, although central banks and national treasuries continue to sit atop most of the gold they last held as reserves under the Bretton Woods system, they have somewhat reduced their gold holdings via sales and, more significantly, greatly increased their holdings of government debt. Gold now is a far smaller proportion of official reserves than it was in 1971. If these trends persist, the world’s central banks will be known solely as repositories of government debt, not of gold. In 1913, central banks and government agencies held about 30 percent of the world stock of gold. This proportion reached a peak of 62 percent in 1945 before falling back to 30 percent today. Where is this percentage headed? Central banks and governments as a group tend not to accumulate gold anymore and occasionally they sell it. Meanwhile, the world’s gold stock grows 2 percent every year. So the portion of gold held by governments should continue falling, absent a policy shift. With less and less of the total world stock of gold held by central banks and national treasuries, a greater portion is held privately. This was the situation before the rise of central banking. With the legalization of gold ownership and gold clauses, one might envision a return to gold de facto.
Why Gold Has Won
In 2020, recognizing that a return to a gold standard was less likely with every passing year (and crisis), I advised a gold-based price rule the Fed could follow (“Real and Pseudo Gold Price Rules,” Cato Journal). It’s a practicable, efficient system, but the Fed doesn’t consider it – and I can guess why. Central banks can’t afford to listen to reason, given their powerful and needy clients: deficit-spending treasuries and legislatures. As I wrote:
Most central banks in contemporary times attempt monetary central planning without a clear or coherent plan, consulting an eclectic array of measures without focus. In effect, they rule without rules. Economists by now are reluctant to recommend rules that central banks are neither motivated nor required to adopt and would drop in haste in the heat of the next crisis. Much monetary policymaking now embodies the subjective preferences of policymakers and their clients: overleveraged states.
It’s as clear now as it was in 1995 that gold is an ideal monetary standard, even though sovereign powers at times (and for the entirety of this century) have refused to recognize or use gold for that crucial purpose. But consider just one important implication, pertaining to investments. Precisely because (and to the extent) sovereigns refuse to recognize gold, to be fiscally free (profligate), the result is nonetheless bullish for gold. By not making their money “as good as gold” and precluding a return to a gold standard, sovereigns make possible returns on gold that are very good indeed – often superior to those on the most popular alternative: equities. Table One illustrates how fiscal profligacy and monetary excess have favored returns on gold relative to those on the S&P 500. Not shown is that gold has outperformed the S&P 500 in nearly two-thirds of the years this century, by an average of +17 percentage points per year; it underperformed only one-third of the time by an average of -14 percentage points. Oddly, most investment advisors eschew gold and routinely recommend large portfolio shares in equities.
Friends of liberty and prosperity may feel chagrin, as do I, about this century’s innumerable, unnecessary financial debacles. But they can also feel consoled, satisfied, and even gleeful if they’ve trusted gold more than central bank alchemists. They’ve likely been mocked – by fans of fiat currency or cryptocurrency alike – for clinging to their “mystical metal,” “shiny rock,” or “barbaric relic.” But name-calling isn’t a good argument – nor good investment strategy.
For the first time in decades, the world’s two largest nuclear superpowers are no longer bound by any treaty limiting their arsenals.
The last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the U.S. and Russia, known as New START, expired Thursday.
The lapse removed limits on how many nuclear weapons Washington and Moscow could deploy on missiles, bombers and submarines, and ended the requirement that both sides notify one another whenever nuclear weapons were moved.
The scale of what’s now unconstrained is vast.
Globally, there are more than 12,200 nuclear weapons spread across nine nuclear-armed nations, according to a recent analysis. The United States and Russia alone account for roughly 10,636 of those weapons.
While the exact size of each country’s arsenal is closely guarded, below is a breakdown of estimated nuclear stockpiles, based on data from the Federation of American Scientists.
Ahead of the New START agreement’s expiration, President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social, ‘Rather than extend ‘NEW START’ (a badly negotiated deal by the United States that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated), we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future.’
He has previously argued that China should be included in any new agreement with Russia, pointing to Beijing’s growing nuclear arsenal, the world’s third largest after the U.S. and Russia.
Iran is prepared to pursue diplomacy while remaining ready to defend itself if challenged, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday, arguing that Tehran’s strength lies in its ability to stand firm against pressure.
‘We are a man of diplomacy, we are also a man of war; not in the sense that we seek war, but … we are ready to fight so that no one dares to fight us,’ he said, according to Press TV, Iran’s state-run English-language broadcaster.
Araghchi made the remarks in Tehran at the National Congress on the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Policy, two days after Iran and the United States held nuclear talks in Oman.
Fox News previously reported that negotiations between Iranian and U.S. officials in Muscat, the capital, were held face-to-face, marking the first such meetings since U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in June.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry described the talks as ‘intensive and lengthy’ in a post on X, saying the meetings allowed both sides to present their positions and concerns.
‘It was a good start, but its continuation depends on consultations in our respective capitals and deciding on how to proceed,’ the government account said.
It added there was broad agreement on continuing the negotiations, though decisions on timing, format and the next round will be made following consultations in the two capitals, with Oman continuing to serve as the intermediary.
Araghchi said Sunday that Iran views its nuclear program as a legitimate right and is seeking recognition of that position through negotiations.
‘I believe the secret of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s power lies in its ability to stand against bullying, domination and pressures from others,’ he said, according to Press TV.
‘They fear our atomic bomb, while we are not pursuing an atomic bomb. Our atomic bomb is the power to say no to the great powers,’ the top diplomat added. ‘The secret of the Islamic Republic’s power is to say no to the powers.’
President Donald Trump has expanded the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and the USS Michael Murphy, a guided-missile destroyer.
Other U.S. naval assets, including the USS Bulkeley, USS Roosevelt, USS Delbert D. Black, USS McFaul, USS Mitscher, USS Spruance and USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., are positioned across key waterways surrounding Iran, from the eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea.
North Korean authorities executed teenagers for watching the South Korean television series ‘Squid Game’ and listening to K-pop, human rights researchers announced in early February.
Amnesty International cited testimony from an escapee with family ties in Yanggang Province who said people, including schoolchildren, were executed for specifically watching the popular survival drama series.
It also separately documented accounts of forced labor sentences and public humiliation for consuming South Korean media elsewhere in the country, particularly for those without money or political connections.
‘Usually when high school students are caught, if their family has money, they just get warnings,’ said Kim Joonsik, 28, who was caught watching South Korean dramas three times before leaving the country in 2019.
‘I didn’t receive legal punishment because we had connections,’ he told Amnesty International in an interview.
Joonsik said three of his sisters’ high school friends were given multi-year labor camp sentences in the late 2010s after being caught watching South Korean dramas, a punishment he said reflected their families’ inability to pay bribes.
‘The authorities criminalize access to information in violation of international law, then allow officials to profit off those fearing punishment. This is repression layered with corruption, and it most devastates those without wealth or connections,’ said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director.
‘This government’s fear of information has effectively placed the entire population in an ideological cage, suffocating their access to the views and thoughts of other human beings,’ she added. ‘People who strive to learn more about the world outside North Korea, or seek simple entertainment from overseas, face the harshest of punishments.’
Several defectors told the human rights organization that they were required to witness public executions while still in school, describing the practice as a form of state-mandated indoctrination designed to deter exposure to foreign culture.
‘When we were 16, 17, in middle school, they took us to executions and showed us everything,’ said Kim Eunju, 40. ‘People were executed for watching or distributing South Korean media. It’s ideological education: if you watch, this happens to you too.’
LEXINGTON, Va. – President Donald Trump’s poll numbers are a bit all over the place these days. The averages have him about seven points underwater, while some surveys show him down as much as 19. And then, one poll, the most accurate of 2024, has him up one point at 50%.
Likewise, large majorities of Americans say in polls that they want all illegal immigrants deported, but large majorities also say that the Trump administration is going too far in executing this policy.
So, what do the American people actually want?
I traveled to Lexington, Va., to get a feel for what the reality is on the ground, below these shaky and inconsistent poll numbers, and what I found was good news and bad news for both parties and a midterm that is still wide open.
Brian, from nearby Lynchburg, was visiting town with his wife Erin. A chef in his early 50s and a former Republican, he finds Trump’s coarseness, and what he would call his racism, such as the recent social media post featuring the Obamas as monkeys, to be a dealbreaker.
Brian was very interesting because, while he knew he could not tolerate Trump, he was also quite forthright about the negative tradeoffs in voting for Democrats. When I asked him, as a business owner, about Virginia’s new governor, Abigail Spanberger, his response was telling.
‘I voted for her,’ Brian told me. ‘Part of me wishes I hadn’t had to, but I did, given the alternative.’
The alternative here seemed to be Trump, not Spanberger’s actual opponent and former Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, something that any Republican thinking of running by distancing themselves from Trump should consider. It probably won’t work anyway.
I pressed a bit on Spanberger, asking Brian if the wave of new taxes she supports worries him.
‘Absolutely it worries me,’ he said. ‘I’m a fiscal conservative. I have to balance my budget, and the government should too. But if the alternative is racism, then I have to reject that.’
Never mind that Sears is African-American. Brian was the perfect example of why Democrats focus so much on race and racial issues. For some voters, alleged racism on the president’s part will trump even their own policy beliefs and preferences and taint the party he rules.
This phenomenon can also look like fools gold to pollsters who see a voter with some conservative leanings who should be obtainable, but some, like Brian, just flat-out will never support Trump or the GOP so long as Trump leads it.
As Brian bluntly put it, ‘If it’s men in women’s sports or racism, I have to go with men in women’s sports.’
But it wasn’t all bad news for Trump in rural Virginia. Alice, who is in her 40s and works in real estate, thinks the Trump’s economic measures are starting to pay off.
‘I can just feel it,’ she told me. ‘Gas prices are low, more stuff is on sale at the grocery. That’s what we voted for.’
When I asked about Trump’s gruff manner, the one that bothered Brian so much, she just said, ‘If you aren’t used to it by now, you’re not getting used to it.’
Others, like Peter, in his 70s and retired, are feeling a real political fatigue. Apathy is the wrong word, but perhaps frustration fits.
‘Today, it’s like who you vote for is your whole identity,’ he said. ‘But I can’t fall out of a tree every time Donald Trump opens his mouth.
On Friday afternoon, a small protest of mostly older White people was gathered on a street corner in pretty-as-a-picture Lexington. Annette, the leader and spokesperson, was handing out cookies. Unlike their peers in Minneapolis, they were happy to talk with the press.
‘This is what we feared all along,’ one man holding the Virginia state flag with its motto, ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis,’ told me of the Trump administration’s handling of Minneapolis. ‘It’s why we have been out here protesting for a year.’
Generally speaking, the huge shifts that pollsters are so ardently looking for appear to exist more in the world of numbers than that of flesh and blood, where it continues to be very rare to meet anyone who has changed their mind politically in the age of Trump.
No, the fear for Republicans today is not that Trump or the party are bleeding support. It’s that the Democrats on the ground seem far more motivated to stop Trump than the Republican voters are to reward slow and steady progress.
Importantly, there does not appear to be anything that Trump could do, any position he could soften, be it on immigration enforcement, tariffs or his own rhetoric, that will sway the third of voters who just detest the man. But both Trump and the party have proven they can win without them.
From now until the midterm, we will be in the field with our ear on the ground, listening to the things that voters never tell the pollsters. And if Lexington is any indication, this is still anybody’s ballgame.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has his ‘Arsenal of Freedom Tour’ in full swing, visiting the nuclear submarine production floor at Newport News, Virginia and Blue Origin’s space launch at Cape Canaveral Florida. His goal: restore American industrial prowess and secure freedom for generations to come.
You’ll never guess which program is moving fastest of all: it’s the Army’s new M1E3 Abrams tank.
Get this: the M1E3 Abrams is five years ahead of schedule. Yes, five years. And it’s a hybrid.
While Golden Dome missile defense, the battleship design and other programs are on the drawing board, the Army has accelerated the M1E3 Abrams to wartime pace.
Credit Army Chief of Staff General Randy George and Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll. It’s part of their push to accelerate top programs like the MV-75 air assault tilt-rotor plane. In the case of the tank, the Army had been studying upgrades and watching the Ukraine war. George and his science adviser Dr. Alex Miller were told they would not see the tank until 2032. ‘We said no,’ Miller recalled.
The result: the M1E3 prototype rolled out at the Detroit Auto Show in January. The first platoon of the M1E3 will be ready for testing by soldiers in 2028.
As seen in Detroit, the new M1E3 is a sleek change from earlier Abrams models. Gone is the top turret position. Now the three-man crew side by side in the hull where armor is strongest. External cameras, sensors, heat-detecting thermal sights, and laser-range finders feed into gaming-inspired cockpit displays. Their remote? It’s not for changing channels. An M1E3 tank crew can remotely fire Javelin anti-tank missile with a 2.5-mile range and a range of other weapons, including loitering munitions.
Here are five killer attributes of the M1E3 Abrams.
Formula One Cockpit. The M1E3 tank has a driver interface that ‘looks like an Xbox controller,’ said George. Just as important, the tank uses a modular, ‘plug-and-play’ open systems software backbone. Soldiers can plug in new apps and upgrade it in at a point in the vehicle software where all the things that make the vehicle run are protected.
Quiet mode. It’s a hybrid. No, the Army isn’t going eco-friendly. The M1E3 will have a Caterpillar diesel engine and a SAPA transmission that allows it to switch into electric mode. The hybrid electric drive is all about silent stalking. Iraqis facing the Abrams in 1991 called it Whispering Death, but the new Abrams takes the silent mode into a new realm when the tank is running on electric. Add in heat signature reduction and electronic jammers. This is not eco-mode. It’s whispering death. Iraqi soldiers reportedly feared the quiet killing power of the Abrams in 1991 Gulf War; the new Abrams takes silent lethality to a new level.
Active Protection. Shoot at an Abrams and ‘active protection’ will detect, target and obliterate you. This is the Army’s term for a system that can sort out a whole range of incoming threats, from recoilless rifles to anti-tank guided missiles, rockets, tank rounds and rocket-propelled grenades. And of course, drones. The best part is the detection system nails the location of the enemy shooter. So, the Abrams crew can destroy it.
Reactive Armor. Already an Abrams standard, tiles fitted on the tank hull prevent penetration by RPGs and deflect blast downward or outwards, depending on the tactical situation. The Army really doesn’t like to talk about this secretive system, but guarantee you, the M1E3 will improve on it.
Great Guns. With lessons drawn from the Ukraine battlefield, a .30-mm chain gun replaces both the .50-caliber and the loader’s gun. The .30-mm can hit light-armor vehicles like the Russian BMP. It can also chew up drones. Remember remote control permits the crew to fire without popping the hatch.
By the way, this is a tank on a diet. Older Abrams models weigh close to 80 tons. Expect the M1E3 to weigh in at about 60 tons, after shedding top turret armor. Lighter weight yields about 40% greater fuel efficiency. It also allows the M1E3 tank to access 30% more bridge crossings in Poland and other NATO Eastern front-line countries facing Russia.
Why a new tank? To deter Russia. The Ukraine war could stop tomorrow, and Putin’s Russia would still be a long-term threat. Russia has lost over 3,000 tanks in Ukraine but can still produce 1,500 tanks per year, according to former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Christopher Cavoli.
In the end, it is the tank that deters the taking of territory. Just ask the soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, who wrapped up an armored live-fire exercise in Poland during Operation Winter Falcon last month. Polish and U.S. forces fired their M1A2 Abrams tanks side by side. ‘We train to be ready for anything that might happen in the future … you’ve [got to] do that in the place you may have to defend,’ said U.S. Army Col. Matthew Kelley, Commander, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard denied any wrongdoing on Saturday as Democrats question why a whistleblower complaint filed against her last May took nearly a year before it was referred to Congress.
‘[Virginia Democrat] Senator Mark Warner and his friends in the Propaganda Media have repeatedly lied to the American people that I or the ODNI ‘hid’ a whistleblower complaint in a safe for eight months,’ Gabbard wrote in a lengthy X post on Saturday. ‘This is a blatant lie.’
She continued, ‘I am not now, nor have I ever been, in possession or control of the Whistleblower’s complaint, so I obviously could not have ‘hidden’ it in a safe. Biden-era IC Inspector General Tamara Johnson was in possession of and responsible for securing the complaint for months.’
The highly classified complaint by a U.S. intelligence official alleging wrongdoing on the part of Gabbard was filed eight months ago with the intelligence community’s watchdog office and was first reported on by the Wall Street Journal.
The complaint has been locked in a safe since its filing, according to the Journal, with one U.S. official telling the newspaper that the disclosure of its contents could cause ‘grave damage to national security.’
The whistleblower’s lawyer has accused Gabbard’s office of slow-walking the complaint, which her office has denied, calling it ‘baseless and politically motivated.’
Meanwhile, Democrats are also questioning why it took her office so long to hand the complaint over to Congress.
‘The law is clear,’ Warner, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Thursday, according to NPR, adding that the complaint was required to be sent to Congress within 21 days of its filing. ‘I think it was an effort to try to bury this whistleblower complaint.’
Neither the contents of the complaint nor the allegations against Gabbard have been revealed.
Gabbard wrote on Saturday that the first time she saw the complaint was ‘when I had to review it to provide guidance on how it should be securely shared with Congress.’
‘As Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Warner knows very well that whistleblower complaints that contain highly classified and compartmented intelligence—even if they contain baseless allegations like this one—must be secured in a safe, which the Biden-era Inspector General Tamara Johnson did and her successor, Inspector General Chris Fox, continued to do,’ she continued. ‘After IC Inspector General Fox hand-delivered the complaint to the Gang of 8, the complaint was returned to a safe where it remains, consistent with any information of such sensitivity.’
She claimed that either ‘Warner knows these facts and is intentionally lying to the American people, or he doesn’t have a clue how these things work and is therefore not qualified to be in the U.S. Senate.’
Gabbard further wrote that ‘When a complaint is not found to be credible, there is no timeline under the law for the provision of security guidance. The ‘21 day’ requirement that Senator Warner alleges I did not comply with, only applies when a complaint is determined by the Inspector General to be both urgent AND apparently credible. That was NOT the case here.’
An inspector general representative said that it had determined some of the allegations in the complaint against Gabbard weren’t credible, while it hasn’t made a determination on others, according to the Journal.
Gabbard said she was made aware that she needed to provide security guidance on the complaint by IC Inspector General Chris Fox on Dec. 4, ‘which he detailed in his letter to Congress.’
Afterward, she said she ‘took immediate action to provide the security guidance to the Intelligence Community Inspector General, who then shared the complaint and referenced intelligence with relevant members of Congress last week.’
In closing her post, Gabbard once again accused Warner of spreading ‘lies and baseless accusations over the months for political gain,’ which she said ‘undermines our national security and is a disservice to the American people and the Intelligence Community.’
Warner’s office told Fox News Digital Gabbard’s post was an ‘inaccurate attack that’s entirely on brand for someone who has already and repeatedly proven she’s unqualified to serve as DNI.’
Republicans on the House and Senate intelligence committees have backed up Gabbard, with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., writing on X on Thursday: ‘I have reviewed this ‘whistleblower’ complaint and the inspector general handling of it. I agree with both inspectors general who have evaluated the matter: the complaint is not credible and the inspectors general and the DNI took the necessary steps to ensure the material has handled and transmitted appropriately in accordance with law.’
He addded, ‘To be frank, it seems like just another effort by the president’s critics in and out of government to undermine policies that they don’t like; it’s definitely not credible allegations of waste, fraud, or abuse.’
Gabbard’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Russia said it plans to ‘interrogate’ two suspects in the attempted assassination of a top military intelligence official who was ambushed in Moscow on Friday, according to a Russian newspaper.
The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that two suspects in the shooting of Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev ‘will soon be interrogated,’ citing a source close to the investigation.
After questioning, the suspects are expected to be charged, the report said, according to Reuters.
Alekseyev, the deputy head of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, was shot three times in his Moscow apartment building on Friday and rushed to a hospital.
The Associated Press reported that the business daily Kommersant said the shooter posed as a delivery person and shot Alekseyev twice in the stairway of his apartment building, injuring him in the foot and arm. Alekseyev allegedly attempted to wrest the weapon away and was shot again in the chest before the attacker fled, the report said.
Kommersant reported that Alekseyev underwent successful surgery and regained consciousness Saturday but remained under medical supervision.
Russian news outlet TASS reported that the surgery was successful and that Alekseyev’s injuries were not life-threatening.
The outlet reported that the Investigative Committee launched a criminal investigation on charges of attempted murder and illicit trafficking in firearms.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov accused Ukraine of being behind the assassination attempt, alleging — without providing evidence — that it was intended to sabotage peace talks. Ukraine denied any involvement.
Alekseyev, 64, has been under U.S. sanctions over alleged Russian cyber interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The European Union also sanctioned him over the 2018 poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England.
The assassination attempt came as President Donald Trump’s administration has been seeking to help broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.
The warring nations agreed to a prisoner swap this week, according to readouts posted on X by U.S. special presidential envoy for peace missions Steve Witkoff and Ukraine’s national security and defense council minister Rustem Umerov.
Fox News’ Alex Nitzberg and Reuters contributed to this report.
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