Saturday Covfefe: How Did F-35 Parts End Up in China’s Hands?

Martial law talk. Midterms. Missing ICE detainees. What exactly is going on here?

September 26, 2026

It’s officially fall, y’all. 🍂

The coffee is hot, the leaves are turning, and somehow parts of an F-35 ended up in Hong Kong. So much for easing into sweater weather.

No foam, no filter, let’s go.

1. ICE Is Making Detainees Disappear From Its Public Locator

No, that headline is not hyperbole.

Since September 15, ICE has stopped showing immigrants with final deportation orders in its Online Detainee Locator System, the database families and attorneys use to find people in federal immigration custody. The change came without a public announcement.

This database exists for a reason. The Obama administration created it in 2010 after investigations into horrific detention conditions. Before that, people could effectively vanish into the system. Families and lawyers sometimes had to call ICE offices one by one looking for them. Some were deported before anyone found them.

And now we’re going backward.

Immigration officers are also reportedly being told not to give attorneys or relatives detainees’ locations over the phone. One legal-services organization says at least 17 clients disappeared from the locator. Eight ACLU clients held at Guantánamo Bay vanished from it as well.

A final removal order doesn’t necessarily mean the legal process is over. Someone may still be appealing, trying to reopen a case or seeking humanitarian protection. Their lawyer needs to know where they are. The government knows where these people are. Their families may not.

We built this system to stop people from disappearing into immigration detention. Now we’re dismantling it.

🔎 Detainees Vanish From ICE’s Locator (WaPo)

2. So, How Did Parts of an F-35 End Up in Hong Kong?

Yes, you read that correctly.

The Pentagon is investigating how components from the F-35, America’s most advanced fighter jet, somehow ended up in Hong Kong. A cockpit canopy and weapons-bay door were being shipped from Australia back to the United States for inspection, repair, or disposal when the shipment was unexpectedly diverted to Hong Kong. The Pentagon is now trying to retrieve them.

How did they get there? Well, that’s apparently the multimillion-dollar fighter-jet question.

Australia’s defense minister says the components aren’t sensitive, and there’s currently no public evidence that China obtained classified F-35 technology from this incident. But that doesn’t make this harmless. Even non-classified military hardware can potentially provide intelligence about materials, manufacturing, engineering, or maintenance. These particular components were coated with radar-absorbing material used to enhance the F-35’s stealth capabilities. The Chinese government reportedly took possession of them.

China has targeted F-35 information before: a 2013 Defense Science Board report said Chinese cyberattacks accessed data from numerous Pentagon weapons programs, including the Joint Strike Fighter.

Congress and the Pentagon are investigating, but officials still haven’t publicly explained how the shipment was diverted, or whether it was intentional or a mistake.

And the timing? Chinese President Xi Jinping was just in Washington for a three-day state visit with President Trump. They talked trade, Taiwan, Iran, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)—and even agreed to start calling AI "super intelligence."

Thus far, there’s no public indication that the F-35 parts came up at all. Interesting. Maybe "super intelligence" could help us figure out how F-35 parts ended up in Hong Kong.

✈️ How Did F-35 Parts End Up in Hong Kong? (AP)

☕ New here? Join us. Subscribe to get Saturday Morning Covfefe and my Deep Dives, straight to your inbox.

3. The Susan Collins Story Is Getting Messier

Quick refresher, because this story has a few layers. Earlier this week, ProPublica revealed that the FBI had been investigating allegations involving U.S. Senator Susan Collins, members of her staff, a pro-Collins super PAC and defense contractor Navatek. At the center was Navatek’s former CEO, Martin Kao, who pleaded guilty to campaign-finance and loan fraud. Kao told investigators he had exchanged political contributions for government contracts. Collins and her office vigorously deny allegations of bribery or pay-to-play, and no one in her orbit has been charged.

Now look at the timeline.

Collins responded to ProPublica by saying the FBI and the Biden Justice Department examined the matter and cleared her in 2021.

But Kao gave investigators new allegations between 2022 and 2024. In September 2024, he sat for a two-day FBI interview and provided a 50-page account. FBI records show agents were still examining his claims in early 2025, and that documents and emails corroborated portions of what he told them. Trump returned to office shortly afterward. The FBI anti-corruption unit handling the work was dismantled amid personnel changes, and the inquiry ended without a conclusion.

An unfinished investigation isn’t proof of guilt…but a 2021 clearance can’t settle allegations investigators didn’t receive until years later.

📂 The Susan Collins Files (ProPublica)

4. Forty Days Before the Midterms, CISA Has an Election Security Plan

Better late than never?

On Thursday, 40 days before the midterms, the federal government’s cybersecurity agency unveiled its first public election-security initiative since the Trump administration dramatically scaled back that work last year. The new 13-page plan offers state and local officials free cybersecurity assistance, including vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, and physical-security assessments. Those are important services.

CISA used to do much of this already. The administration largely froze its election-security work in 2025, reduced staffing and put some of these services on hold. Now CISA’s own assessment says election offices frequently struggle with basic cybersecurity and that voter-registration databases remain attractive targets for foreign adversaries.

I spent years in national security. Finding vulnerabilities before an election is exactly what CISA should be doing. Doing it 40 days out after spending a year scaling back the work? That’s where I start asking questions.

We’re 40 days out, amid federal investigations into alleged voter fraud and continued claims about election interference. Cyber vulnerabilities are not voter fraud. They are not evidence that an election is rigged. And they sure as hell shouldn’t become a predicate to suggest otherwise. I don’t have evidence that’s what’s happening here. But the fact that I’m even asking the question bothers me.

CISA’s plan says election security requires “year-round diligence.”

So why are we rebuilding that trust 40 days before people vote?

⏰ Election Security, 40 Days Out (Politico)

5. Meet the Woman Quietly Rewriting America’s Fertility Rules

You probably don’t know Emma Waters’ name. You might want to.

The 28-year-old Heritage Foundation policy analyst has spent the past few years building a conservative policy agenda around IVF, surrogacy, embryo screening, and reproductive technology. According to a new WIRED profile, those ideas aren’t staying inside Heritage. They’re making their way into legislation and government policy.

Waters’ vision goes well beyond regulating a fertility industry that has faced some ethical and oversight problems. Under the system she favors, IVF could remain, but without destroying, indefinitely freezing, or ranking embryos. Surrogacy would be limited to altruistic arrangements for heterosexual married couples with documented infertility.

Republican Senator Rick Scott has introduced legislation restricting commercial surrogacy involving citizens of foreign-adversary countries. Florida has already enacted a similar restriction. The Texas GOP now calls IVF and commercial surrogacy "destructive practices." Trump has taken action on birth tourism and foreign surrogacy, all areas where Waters has advocated federal restrictions.

This one made me angry. IVF, surrogacy, and whether and how you build a family? It doesn’t get much more personal than that. Yet the ideas developed inside Heritage are increasingly finding their way into the government policies that could determine what choices people have.

Waters isn’t an elected official. Most Americans have probably never heard of her. Apparently, that hasn’t stopped Washington from taking notes.

🍼 The Woman Rewriting America’s Fertility Rules (Wired)

🌮 One Thing For Your Soul

Twelve-year-old Eduin walks from school each day to help his mom run their family taco stand in Montebello, California, where he helps cook the meat, translates for her, and serves customers.

Local firefighter Marco Miranda noticed something else: Eduin was making the trip on an old, rusty bike without a light or helmet. So Miranda quietly bought him a new bicycle, helmet, and light with his own money.

Eduin’s reaction got me: “It’s really cool because no one gave me something like that before.” A firefighter saw a kid working hard to help his mom and decided to make his road home a little easier.

There are good people everywhere. Don’t forget to look for them.

🚲 A New Bike for Eduin (KTLA)

And on that note, you know I love our farmers—so don’t forget to tune in to Farm Aid Saturday night! 🚜🎶

–Olivia