Hardpoints

$10,000 a Household for a Data Center and the Town Still Said No. Bribe or Fair Deal?

Local opposition blocked or delayed an estimated $130 billion in data center projects in the first three months of 2026 alone. In Hazle Township, Pennsylvania, a develope

The Pentagon Wants $54 Billion for Drones, Up From $226 Million. Does It Need a Four-Star for Robots?

The Pentagon is asking for $54.6 billion for autonomous warfare next year — up from about $226 million this year. That same week, Secretary Hegseth announces a new four-s

Anduril's CEO Says Defense Tech Is a Bubble. So Why Is His Company Talking $100 Billion?

Anduril's valuation doubled from $30.5 billion to $61 billion in under a year, and the company is reportedly in talks with investors at close to $100 billion. Its revenue

417 to 3: Congress Finally Agreed on Your Power Bill — And It Still Didn't Matter

The price of keeping the lights on in America's largest grid went from $29 a megawatt-day to $329 in two years. Utilities have already asked regulators for billions in ra

Diesel Just Hit $6 a Gallon for the First Time Ever. Can the White House Actually Fix It?

A $20,000 drone just took out 4% of the world's oil supply, and two days later American diesel crossed $6 a gallon for the first time in history. Mike and Neal break down

We Tariffed Hockey Sticks and Exempted the Oil We Actually Need

At 12:01 AM on September 8, Canada's counter-tariffs went live — roughly 700 American products tiered at 15, 25, and 50 percent, covering nearly 28 billion Canadian dolla

Trump's Grid Emergency Order Bans the Two Technologies Actually Fixing the Grid

Nine days before this recording, the White House declared a national emergency over the American power grid—not about blackouts, but about who built the equipment. Mike a

West Point Fired Its Only Climate Scientist

West Point just fired the only climate scientist on its faculty. Seventeen years of uniformly outstanding reviews, tenure, a grant to research weather systems for troop p

The Army Killed Its Drone School While Ordering Every Division to Buy Them. So Who's Actually Learning How to Fight?

Mike and Neal open episode 63 with a contradiction that should worry anyone paying attention to how the Pentagon actually works: the Army stood up a unit in January with

The Bill Comes Due: America Just Hit $40 Trillion, and the Pentagon Is Picking Up the Tab

America just crossed $40 trillion in national debt for the first time in history—and the number that should really worry you isn't the debt itself. It's what's already mo

The Navy Kept a Carrier at Sea for 260 Days. Trump Says That Wasn't Long Enough.

The USS Abraham Lincoln left San Diego last November for a routine six-month deployment. It has now been at sea more than 260 days with no return date, sailors have repor

America's Nuclear Reactor Made Zero Watts of Power. Welcome to the Golden Era?

On June 4th, a reactor at Idaho National Lab hit something called "zero power criticality"—energy in equaled energy out. The plant won't produce a single usable watt unti

You Are Not the President: What Tuesday's DCA Incident Actually Tells Regular Flyers About Their Safety

A missed radio call at Reagan National this week put the president's helicopter in a near miss with a commercial jet. Nobody died. Nobody even remembers it happened by Th

Nine Carriers vs. None: Why China Builds Ships 230 Times Faster Than We Do — And Who's Actually Fixing It

China's naval intelligence assessment puts Beijing's shipbuilding capacity at 230 times America's. They already have 370 warships to America's 287, climbing to 475 by 203

Oil Executives Cashed Out $400 Million Since the Iran War Began. Who Picks Up the Tab?

Oil and gas executives have sold nearly $400 million of their own company stock since the Iran war started. The ConocoPhillips CEO alone sold $80 million in two separate

China Is Building the Factory. America Built the Chatbot. Are We Winning the Wrong Race?

China is installing five times more industrial robots than the United States and running fully automated dark factories with no human workers. American AI companies are w

Europe Is Cooking and Its Grid Is Shutting Down. Do We Know What's Coming?

Thirteen hundred people are dead across Europe. Train tracks in Leipzig melted, suspending service. France's nuclear reactors are shutting down—not because of an attack o

SpaceX Can Drop Tungsten Telephone Poles from Orbit. Who Controls That Power?

Getting one kilogram to low Earth orbit cost $54,000 on the Space Shuttle. Falcon 9 brought it to roughly $2,500. Starship targets under $200. That 500x reduction is not

AI Is Erasing Entry-Level Jobs. National Service Might Be The Answer.

Three million Americans graduated this year into the worst entry-level job market in two decades. Graduate unemployment is running higher than it did at the peak of the 2

11 Million People, No Power, 90 Miles Away: What's the Cuba Endgame?

In this episode of Hardpoints, Mike and Neal turn to a story that's quietly fallen out of the headlines: Cuba. Ninety miles off the coast of Florida, 11 million people ar