Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - The O'Reilly Update, August 31, 2026

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

More than 100 Americans are missing after catastrophic flooding in Nepal, Iceland rejects membership in the European Union, nine in ten Americans carry credit card debt, and workplace drug-test failures hit a 20-year high. Plus, the Message of the Day, the backlash against AI data centers is a populist revolt against Silicon Valley elites who treat American communities as obstacles. Two Kentucky women who rejected $26 million for their farm is proof that not everything can be bought. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Search free until August 31st. Visit Ancestry.ca for details. Terms apply. Bill O'Reilly here. You are listening to the O'Reilly update. Coming up next, the news with Mike Slater. Thank you, Bill. It is Monday, August 31st, the last day of August, 26. Here's this happening today in America. Hundreds of Americans missing in Nepal. Iceland rejects the European Union. Nine and ten people carry credit card debt. And the number of workers testing positive for drugs, it's a 20-year high. And then I will be back with the message of the day about AI data centers and what this battle

really says about Silicon Valley. But first, more than 100 U.S. citizens are missing after those flash floods swept through Nepal. The official death toll has risen to 800 with another 5,000 people unaccounted for. The catastrophic flood occurred high in the Himalayas after part of a massive glacier collapse. The event was so intense it registered a 5.2 magnitude on the Richter scale. But it wasn't an earthquake. It was just the glacier collapsing. The United States State Department is contributing more than $5 million towards the relief effort. Folks in Iceland rejected a referendum to join the European Union. Fifty-two percent of voters said no when asked that their nation

should enter the EU as the 28th member. When asked a majority of citizens cited inflation, transitioning towards the euro currency, and immigration control as their primary concerns. If someone makes it into the European Union, they could head over to Iceland freely. Iceland said no thanks. Iceland is one of the smallest countries in Europe with a total population of only 400,000 people. That's the same population as Milwaukee. New data from Citibank shows 90% of Americans carry major credit card debt every single month. Just 10% of American adults have a zero balance.

The average family owes $8,000 to the banks. a third have drained their savings account over the last 48 months. 25% of Americans live within $100 of their maximum credit card limit. The percentage of American employees testing positive for narcotics hit the highest level in two decades. 4% of workers failed a mandatory drug test last year. That figure is up 50% compared to 2017, but here's the deal with that. Many companies today no longer screen for substances like marijuana. Marijuana can now be legally consumed in 18 states.

So we have 50% more workers failing the drug test and fewer drugs even on the test. I'm Mike Slater from the podcast, Politics by Faith. I'll be back with the message of the day about AI data centers. And then in the something you may not know segment, 250 years ago, just a couple days ago, was the Battle of Brooklyn with the Maryland 400. We'll tell that story coming up. I'm Mike Slater from Politics by Faith, filling in for the great Bill O'Reilly. for the O'Reilly update message of the day.

AI data centers. We have too short a time here to discuss the pros and cons of these data centers as it relates to individual people, families, towns, the country. There are pros. There are cons. But I want to highlight here about this topic is the absolute disconnect that Silicon Valley people have with the country that they happen to live in, this country that they have zero fondness towards.

You maybe heard the story now of the two. country hicks self-described proud country hicks from kentucky and a big tech company knocked on their door and thought that they were going to be welcomed with the biggest kiss they've ever seen offering these two ladies ten times the value of their farm twenty six million dollars in total and the two kentucky country hicks women said get off my property and don't ever come back the exact words were kick rocks and don't come back. She said, even if I had $26 million, I'd want to sit here on my chair and have my coffee and eat my food where I always do.

How liberating is that? How do you buy someone off if money doesn't mean anything to them? The Silicon Valley mind cannot comprehend. What this highlights is that Silicon Valley people believe that they are the overlords and you are the peasants. you get in their way. Sure, you made them all rich. But so did the peasants in medieval times.

They grew the food. The king feasted. But you're still worthless swine. It speaks to how big tech has no affinity to our country. Big tech is controlled by people who are disinterested or indifferent towards America. It's not run by American businessman, that's for sure. They're A-American. You know, someone's apolitical?

it means they have no interest or involvement or connection to politics at all or apolitical I don't really follow what's going on. These big tech people, they're A-American. They have no interest in America. They're indifferent, apathetic, detached. In many cases, they might as well be Chinese companies first. So one of the major parts of this data center debate

is how big tech in their arrogance and in their foreignness do not give a rip about small towns or the Americans who live there. And they never have, of course. just look at the damage they've done to generations now of kids with social media and with their tech products everywhere. Did they ever stop to think, is this good for people? Of course not, but it's good for their bottom line. Because there's a world of difference between being a businessman and being an American businessman.

Anyone could be a businessman. But do you have what it takes to be an American businessman? That's someone who doesn't just do what's best for shareholder value or for for the bottom line, but someone who does what's best for their employees and for their town. Silicon Valley, they don't care about America. They don't care about the people in it. So this revolt against data centers, it's a revolt against big tech specifically. They betrayed us during COVID.

They were the people who really riled everyone up in the beginning. Then they colluded with the Biden administration to silence dissent. So this is a very understandable populist revolt against our overlords who waltzed in and said AI is going to take all your job. jobs. Oh, and here's a data center we're building by your house and you have no say over any of it. And you're never going to have any say over any of it. Not AI coming into our society and not even the building we're going to build to make it happen. Again, there's pros and cons to these data centers. Just proceed with caution. Make sure you know who you're dealing with. I'm Mike Slater, filling for Bill O'Reilly. Something you might not know. The Battle of Brooklyn. Next. Mike Slater filling in for Bill O'Reilly. Now it's time for something you might not know. Last week was the 250th anniversary of

The American Thermopyla, led by the Maryland 400. Maybe know the story of Thermopyla, the Greeks, the 300 men of Sparta against the Persians. But have you ever heard of the Maryland 400? This is the Battle of Long Island. The British were in Boston, but the colonists kicked them out. So the British went to New York. And they took over the fort in New York, which they took pretty easily because there were a lot of loyalists in New York. It wasn't like Boston.

So the British are in New York, and George Washington moves half of his troops to Long Island. About 9,000 in Long Island, 9,000 in Manhattan. The British then decided to attack our troops in Long Island from the south. We thought there were 8,000 British. In reality, there were 32,000. Not good for us. The British figured out how to outflank the colonists and then come from behind. So the Americans, led by General Washington, are completely surrounded.

So Washington called on the Maryland 400, the first Maryland regiment. They all attack the British line. And this gives Washington time to escape. This was August 27th, just last week, 1776, right in the beginning of the war. The whole thing could have been over right here. Washington could have been captured one month into this whole thing. So our 400 attack the British front lines. Just the can to hand.

Kamikaze style attack. A third of them die of our guys. The rest are able to regroup. They decide to attack again. They lose a number. another third of the men. They regroup again, and they all decide to go back and attack a third time. There was never a chance of winning.

They were attacking an army of 32,000 strong, and the enemy was all around them. So even if it's a miracle, they were able to beat this one section, the British were everywhere, there was no victory here. I should say there was no survival. It was a suicide mission. 400 Americans versus tens of thousands British, hand-to-hand combat, bayonets. Only about 12 Americans made it back alive. George Washington said of these men,

Good God, would brave fellows I must lose this day. But he and the rest of the Continental Army was able to escape and live to fight another day. The communists want nothing more than to erase our history. We need to learn it and be inspired by it. The Battle of Brooklyn, the Maryland 400, 250 years ago this week. Mike Slater, filling for Bill O'Reilly. More coming up next.

Thank you for letting me fill. And for Bill O'Reilly. I host the podcast, Politics by Faith, everywhere you listen to podcast and YouTube.com slash at Politics by Faith. Spread the word.