It’s been an expensive month. I had to get a new dishwasher, quarterly home and car insurance payments were due, and my dog Avery has enlarged lymph nodes that my vet and I are hoping is just due to her current bad bout of allergies (hence buying a lot of medicine) and not cancer. I’ll find out in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed.
The Russiagate Hoax gets investigated, more WINNING, Iran’s nuke program confirmed to be toast, Colbert vs. Math, Gen Z workers get roasted, and The Case of Too Much Moose Meat.
The Department of Justice announced on Wednesday the creation of a so-called strike force to investigate allegations advanced by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that former President Barack Obama and members of his administration led a “treasonous” conspiracy to promote the false claim that Trump colluded with Russia to rig the 2016 election.
The task force announcement came hours after Gabbard released a previously classified House Intelligence Committee report that said the conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s was interested in aiding Trump was based on “one scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence from one of the substandard reports.”
The DOJ strike force will assess the legal options it can take in response to the “alleged weaponization of the intelligence community.”
“Our facilities have been damaged, seriously damaged, the extent of which is now under evaluation,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed in a Fox News “Special Report” interview on July 21.
Later in the interview, Araghchi conceded that “the facilities have been destroyed,” referring to nuclear enrichment sites that were targeted by the U.S. military on June 22. President Donald Trump authorized the strikes amid a nearly two-week aerial war between Iran and Israel.
I’m sure this will completely end any discussion of the effectiveness of the strike in the comments…
The Iranian nuclear sites were bombed 24 days ago. Despite high-profile figures making predictions of near-apocalyptic consequences of that action, the Iranian retaliation, so far, consisted of a missile strike on a geodesic dome used for communications at the Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Parnell said the Iranian response “did minimal damage to equipment and structures on the base.”
(If you think you’re having a tough day, imagine being a salesman for the air-defense systems purchased by the Iranian regime. Israel dismantled Iran’s air defenses within 48 hours. Zohar Palti, former head of intelligence for the Mossad, told Sky News, “This is shocking in a way. This is amazing. We thought that it would be much harder. It was much more fast than we anticipated.” Despite claims from the Iranian government, there are no confirmed shootdowns of Israeli or U.S. planes.)
This morning, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany agreed to restore tough U.N. sanctions on Iran by the end of August if there has been no concrete progress toward a new nuclear deal.
Today, Benjamin Baird, the director of MEF Action at the Middle East Forum, writes at NR, “Congress has already introduced much of the legislation needed to bring the ayatollah to his knees, and committee chairmen need only hold markup hearings to advance these bills and send them to the House and Senate floors.” This legislation would enact crushing sanctions on key parts of the Iranian economy, place an economic stranglehold on Iran’s remaining proxies, rescind Biden-era loopholes, and undermine the Iranian regime’s ability to censor information.
The year 2025 has been a terrible one for the Iranian mullahs, and we’re not even in August yet.
Snip.
“Across every branch of the U.S. armed forces, military recruitment has significantly increased since President Trump took office . . . the Army hitting its goal four months early and the Navy doing so three months early. The Air Force and Space Force have both achieved their recruiting goals three months ahead of schedule.”
Speaking of foreign economies, the official numbers from the Chinese government tell us they’re easily withstanding the trade war and tariffs. But Reuters reports that once you look closer, the Chinese economy is showing signs of strain:
Contract and bill payment delays are rising, including among export champions like the autos and electronics industries and at utilities, whose owners, indebted local governments, have to run a tight shop while shoring up tariff-hit factories.
Ferocious competition for a slice of external demand, hit by global trade tensions, is crimping industrial profits, fueling factory-gate deflation even as export volumes climb. Workers bear the brunt of companies cutting costs.
Falling profits and wages shrank tax revenues, pressuring state employers like Zhang’s to cut costs as well. In pockets of the financial system, non-performing loans are surging as authorities push banks to lend more.
The New York Times warns that China’s “local governments are swimming in debt after decades of building airports, train stations and bridges.” (And if you’ve been reading our Thérèse Shaheen, you know that modern China is beset by four walls closing in on them — environmental degradation, runaway debt, the inherent flaws of a centrally planned economy, and demographics of an aging and declining population.)
Closer to home, the U.S. unemployment rate is 4.1 percent, low by historical standards. The U.S. has 7.8 million job openings. Inflation ticked up a bit last month, to 2.7 percent, which is not great (and a likely consequence of the tariffs), but it’s still down from the 3 percent number in January. The stock market has won back all of its big losses from the spring, and the NASDAQ closed at another all-time high yesterday.
Plenty more winning at the link.
Remember in last week’s LinkSwarm how Alan Dershowitz claimed two federal judges were blocking access to Jeffery Epstein information? Well:
A federal judge in Florida on Wednesday denied a request from the Trump administration to unseal grand jury transcripts from an investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Separately, the House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena for Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s long-time associate, in an attempt to obtain further details about his high-profile clients.
Chairman James Comer of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued the subpoena Wednesday to Maxwell for a deposition at a federal correctional institution in Tallahassee, Florida, on August 11. Representative Tim Burchett made the motion for Comer to subpoena Maxwell, who was convicted for her role helping Epstein solicit minors for prostitution, in a Tuesday House subcommittee hearing. The motion was adopted by voice vote.
Snip.
United States District Judge Robin Rosenberg denied the request in a 12-page opinion Wednesday, saying she could not legally release the transcripts under the guidelines that govern grand jury secrecy set by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit because the government had not requested the grand jury’s findings for use in a judicial proceeding. She further stated that the legal standard for transfer of the petition to another district was not met in this case.
Reeling from their 2024 election loss, Democrats are scrambling to reconnect with the working class—yet their brilliant strategy of embracing socialist and communist candidates, doubling down on un-American woke ideology, shielding criminal illegal aliens, and supporting dark-money NGOs that fuel insurrectionist behavior like the Los Angeles riots—isn’t a comeback plan but just political suicide.
The party of leftist social justice warriors is cracking under the weight of its own failures. Woke culture is imploding, “green” fantasies are backfiring, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Democrat stronghold states of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, where the retirement of stable, affordable fossil fuel power in favor of unreliable solar and wind is driving up energy costs to the highest in the nation this summer and breaking the pocketbooks of working-class families they claim to champion.
Energy policies should balance three key objectives: affordability, reliability, and environmental sustainability — often referred to as the “energy trilemma.” Yet Democrats rammed through climate policies that torched two objectives, affordability and reliability for the environment.
According to the latest EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook for July, the average summer wholesale power prices across the PJM, NYISO, and ISO-NE grids are the highest in the nation. These prices now far exceed those in Texas’ ERCOT, the U.S. average, and even the traditionally high-cost West Coast markets. The blame is squarely focused on the Democrats’ initiative to decarbonize power grids.
“Oh, Look, Another Little-Known Democrat Who’s Going to “Turn Texas Blue.'”
Here we go again. Politico declares that Democratic Texas State Representative James Talarico “might turn Texas blue,” in large part because he recently was a guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Talarico is thinking of running for Texas’s U.S. Senate seat in 2026.
This is a couple months after Politico wrote about the “eye-catching showing of support” Democrats had for Senate candidate Colin Allred, who lost to Ted Cruz by about 960,000 votes in the 2024 Senate race. And about seven years after Politico wrote “Beto-Mania Sweeps Texas.” And the August 2013 “Game On” cover of Texas Monthly. And . . . well, you get the idea.
You know what a Texas Democrat must do to get members of the national mainstream media to write that they have a chance to win that deep red state? Just show up, apparently.
Of course Talarico is making all the usual moderate noises Texas Democrats make when they’re trying to run statewide, and which he would almost certainl;y abandon if elected, like all Democrats seem to. He has a lifetime Freedom Index score of 4%.
In the last midterm, 8 million Texans voted; in the last presidential election, 11 million Texans voted. If turnout is 8 million, and a Democrat is behind by “just” five percentage points, he’s trailing by “just” 400,000 votes.
And yet cycle after cycle, we get not only credulous coverage saying a Democrat could win Texas — sotto voce conceding it is unlikely — last year you could easily find left-of-center columnists who were willing to go on the record predicting Allred would beat Cruz. Again, Cruz won by 959,492 votes or about 8.5 percentage points. It wasn’t close, and it was never close. Every cycle, the “Democrats could win Texas this year” coverage turns out to be pure wishcasting, as farfetched and unlikely as Trump’s quadrennial prediction that he will win his home state of New York.
According to a DHS report, those arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement include individuals guilty of murder, rape, and pedophilia.
“Over the weekend, our brave ICE agents arrested more depraved criminal illegal aliens, including murderers, rapists, and three child pedophiles. These are the types of barbaric criminals our ICE law enforcement is arresting and removing from American communities every day,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
McLaughlin said that despite the rise in assaults against ICE officers, they continue to put their lives on the line to make American communities safe.
DHS highlighted the arrests of nearly a dozen individuals. Among those apprehended is 58-year-old Jose Arinaga-Ramirez, who is in the U.S. unlawfully from Mexico and was arrested in San Antonio by ICE Dallas. He has been convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child.
ICE Dallas also reports that Ramirez has a criminal history of resisting arrest, driving while intoxicated, and has two convictions for illegal re-entry.
Gilmer Vertiz-Bustemante, 37, another illegal alien from Mexico, was arrested by ICE Houston and has a murder conviction in Tarrant County.
Several other ICE field offices across the nation also reported the arrests of illegal aliens guilty of similar crimes, including ICE Los Angeles, ICE Philadelphia, and ICE Boston.
As if stealing their aid money wasn’t enough, LA and California government officials are letting squatters take over the burned lots of fire victims. “Local independent journalist Luke Melchior recently checked out the Palisades and gave this report that squatters are setting up entire campsites, even RVs, on the property of fire victims who are still waiting on permits to rebuild. It’s terrible what’s happening to these people. It begins to make more sense when you learn about a proposed bill in California, which will allow the state to buy up these properties to be used for low-income housing.”
Winning. “U.S. Olympic Committee Quietly Bans Men from Women’s Sports in Compliance with Trump Executive Order.”
You can be like Chris Hayes, Brian Stelter, Vox, The New Republic, Adam Schiff, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and other progressives, and choose to believe you live in a world where the ending of The Late Show is a sinister plot by spineless, cowardly corporate executives who are terrified of irking President Trump and who desperately want the Federal Communications Commission to approve the merger of CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, with Skydance Media. (And, it should be noted, Colbert’s choice to turn the show into a four-nights-a-week version of the speaker list at the quadrennial Democratic National Convention.) That is a dramatic world, with noble heroes and dastardly villains, plotting against the interests of the public, punishing a brave comedian, smashing dissent, and bending the knee in obedience to a ruthless, vindictive, power-mad president.
Or you choose to believe you live in a world where the ending of the show is a reflection of the fact that CBS was losing $40 million each year on the show, as the Wall Street Journal reports today. And as much fun as it would be to blame Colbert for being greedy and making the show unprofitable with his $20 million per year salary, with numbers like that, the show would still be unprofitable even if he worked for free.
Reuters adds, “the show’s ad revenue plummeted to $70.2 million last year from $121.1 million in 2018, according to ad tracking firm Guideline.” If a show’s ad revenue gets nearly cut in half over a six-year period, that is a serious and worsening problem, and an indication that it isn’t a reflection of a one-year blip or temporary economic pressures.
The real problem with CBS’s Late Show isn’t that it needed Letterman to survive, or even that CBS’s recent lawsuit payout to Donald Trump left Paramount/CBS looking to quickly cut a cool $16 million from their operating budget. The Late Show deserved to die simply because it got swallowed by the media trends surrounding it: Colbert used his star power to turn it into a watered-down variant on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. (Or, more often, and infinitely more damningly, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.) He became irrelevant.
Lately, he just doesn’t seem to be bothering at all. NR contributor Becket Adams hilariously noted how many of Stephen Colbert’s guests since taking the helm — on CBS, on a marquee-brand late-night talk show meant primarily to highlight Hollywood’s latest effluvia — have been better suited for The Maddow Report than late-night broadcast entertainment. “Where will I go now for lighthearted, fun celebrity interviews of, uh, CNN staffers, obscure federal administrators, and failed gubernatorial candidates?” Becket asks.
Stacey Abrams helpfully chimed in to salute Colbert on his way out the door, noting that she had appeared four times on the show — which, as Dominic Pino assesses, is a remarkable “2-to-1 exchange rate between Late Show appearances and number of elections lost to Brian Kemp.” And the just-so story to cap it all off: Who was the young Hollywood celebrity joining Stephen Colbert on the day he announced his cancellation? None other than that buxom starlet Adam Schiff, Democratic senator from California — for the full hour.
What is there to say? This was supposed to be a goofy, winkingly subversive late-night comedy show. With Colbert at the helm it has turned into Theme Time Therapy Hour for aging liberals who just want to watch a little TV in bed before turning out the light. “Political comedy” talk shows have infamously been the death of late-night comedy, the substitution of “clapter” in place of “laughter,” which is much harder to earn in any media era, and particularly one dominated by censorious progressive sensibilities. Their ratings trajectories have long since been clear. Why didn’t Colbert ever just try to be funny instead?
Because he’d rather garner the seal-clapping seal of approval for #CorrectThought.
One harbinger of the coming social justice warrior-initiated culture war was Democrats trying to shove tranny bathroom regulations down people’s during the Obama days. Well, returning to sanity is on the current Texas Special Session agenda.
Legislation separating biological males from women’s private spaces and vice versa is set to take the stage once again in the Texas Capitol as one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s items for this year’s first special session after a similar bill died in committee during the regular session.
The “Texas Women’s Privacy Act,” or House Bill (HB) 239, was filed during the 89th regular session by state Rep. Valoree Swanson (R-Spring) — resembling a nearly identical piece of legislation filed in 2017 that was also brought up during a special session, although it ultimately failed to pass.
Swanson filed HB 32, the special session version of the “bathroom bill,” on July 14. Identical to the legislation filed during the regular session, it seeks to establish a “statewide standard” for “private spaces” such as locker rooms or bathrooms in publicly-funded facilities such as prisons or domestic violence shelters. It stated that they “must be designated based on biological sex as stated on a person’s original birth certificate.”
“Belton ISD Teacher Faces Federal Child Porn Charges. Belton High School teacher Pietro Giustino is charged with possessing child sexual abuse material including depictions of minors engaged in sexual intercourse.”
“Three Big Drone Strikes Hit Novocherkassk: Railway, Power Plant and Telecoms Building.” Ukraine has been on a tear hitting infrastructure targets throughout Russia.
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have war between Thailand and Cambodia on my 2025 bingo card. Thailand is a “Major Non-NATO Ally” of the United States, whereas Cambodia is an ally (some say puppet) of China.
“Vance Slams Microsoft For Firing Americans While Applying For H-1B Visas…I don’t want companies to fire 9,000 American workers and then to go and say, ‘We can’t find workers here in America.’ That’s a bullshit story.”
While the Democratic Party increasingly embraces socialist and Marxist-leaning policies, such as the seizure of private property, this idea of government-funded grocery stores appears disconnected from both fundamental economic realities and historical precedent.
Nowhere is this more evident than in East Kansas City, where a nonprofit operates a grocery store on government land that has become a symbol of failure, plagued by the smell of rot and empty shelves.
Local media outlet KSHB 41 Kansas City toured Sun Fresh Market at 3110 Wabash Ave (31st & Prospect) on the city’s Eastside. The store opened in 2018 as part of a multi-million dollar public-private revitalization of the Linwood Shopping Center. Operated by Community Builders of Kansas City, a nonprofit focused on urban development, the store has since become a massive reminder that while socialism may sound great on paper, in practice, it can be an absolute disaster.
KSHB 41’s Alyssa Jackson reported that her news team received a tip from a viewer about empty shelves throughout the dairy section, meat department, bakery aisle, and deli counter.
In capitalist countries, food waits for people. In socialist countries, people wait for food.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media sponsored hundreds of visas over a number of years for foreign journalists to come work for its subsidiary Voice of America, some of which were awarded to employees tied to Chinese state media, according to records reviewed by Just the News.
The agency’s hiring of more than 400 foreign journalists, from about 2009 to the end of the Biden administration, raises questions because of the liberal use of J1 cultural exchange visas, which are not designed for use as a general work authorization.
So Obama started importing communist Chinese and Biden continued it.
Sig Saur’s P320 issues just got a whole lot worse. “An Air Force command is pausing its use of a Sig Sauer pistol following a fatal incident.” The M18 is military version of the P320. (Hat tip: Karl rehn at KR Training.)
Edwin J. Feulner, founder and longest-serving president of the Heritage Foundation, died yesterday at 83. He is survived by his wife, Linda, and their two children.
Feulner founded Heritage in 1973 alongside Paul Weyrich and Joseph Coors. Since his passing, Republican politicians and conservative institutions have remembered him as a courageous and wise defender of truth.
Snip.
Feulner served for 37 years as Heritage’s president before he moved into an advisory role.
“His unwavering love of country and his determination to safeguard the principles that made America the freest, most prosperous nation in human history shaped every fiber of the conservative movement—and still do,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts said. “Whether he was bringing together the various corners of the conservative movement at meetings of the Philadelphia Society, or launching what is now the Heritage Strategy Forum, Ed championed a bold, ‘big-tent conservatism.’”
Though it’s become yet another ossified inside-the-beltway institution, in its heyday under Fuelner, Heritage was a force to be reckoned with The Reagan Revolution probably isn’t half as effective without the studies and policy guides Heritage produced, including the various Mandate for Leaderships.
They FaceTime at their desks, show up in sweats or other inappropriate office attire, and expect a promotion by lunchtime. Some of them even bring their parents to job interviews.
To put it mildly, their older coworkers aren’t impressed. The latest crop of Gen Z workers is attempting to redefine workplace norms, and they’re running into some resistance along the way.
There are several possible explanations for why Gen Zers are struggling to adapt to the corporate workplace. Perhaps it’s because they’re the first generation to grow up entirely online. Or maybe it stems from a lifetime of being coddled—made to feel exceptional by parents, teachers, and other adults. The disruption of remote learning during the pandemic certainly didn’t help. Whatever the cause, many Gen Zers are entering the workforce with little understanding of how to behave in a professional environment.
And yet companies don’t want to hire older workers, either. Make up your mind!
A look at UK’s superheavy “Tortoise” tank, which never saw combat because World War II ended. I saw the one they have at Bovington, and it is indeed massive.
It’s hard to remember a time in technology when Microsoft wasn’t reviled. 1987? Most people seemed to think that Word 3.0 was pretty solid. But even then, it was widely believed in many sectors of the hacking community that MS-DOS had at least partially ripped off Gary Kildall’s CP/M operating system. But even for Microsoft, outsourcing Department of Defense work to Communist China is a new low.
Microsoft is using engineers in China to help maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems — with minimal supervision by U.S. personnel — leaving some of the nation’s most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary, a ProPublica investigation has found.
How could anyone, anywhere at Microsoft or DoD think this is a good idea?
The arrangement, which was critical to Microsoft winning the federal government’s cloud computing business a decade ago, relies on U.S. citizens with security clearances to oversee the work and serve as a barrier against espionage and sabotage.
Why was the arrangement “critical” to Microsoft winning the contract? Because they work cheaper than Americans? “We hire Chinese spies and pass the savings on to you!”
Americans overseeing the work isn’t a “barrier” to anything, since the Americans are presumably several thousand miles. If the Chinese backup American data to thumb drives and ship them off to Beijing in a big red box labeled STOLEN AMERICAN SECRETS, how are these “digital escorts” supposed to know?
But these workers, known as “digital escorts,” often lack the technical expertise to police foreign engineers with far more advanced skills, ProPublica found. Some are former military personnel with little coding experience who are paid barely more than minimum wage for the work.
“We’re trusting that what they’re doing isn’t malicious, but we really can’t tell,” said one current escort who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, fearing professional repercussions.
“We’re just letting the foxes run the hen house and hoping for the best.”
The system has been in place for nearly a decade, though its existence is being reported publicly here for the first time.
Microsoft told ProPublica that it has disclosed details about the escort model to the federal government. But former government officials said in interviews that they had never heard of digital escorts. The program appears to be so low-profile that even the Defense Department’s IT agency had difficulty finding someone familiar with it. “Literally no one seems to know anything about this, so I don’t know where to go from here,” said Deven King, spokesperson for the Defense Information Systems Agency.
Oh, that’s great. Microsoft outsourced DoD work to China and nobody knows anything about it.
National security and cybersecurity experts contacted by ProPublica were also surprised to learn that such an arrangement was in place, especially at a time when the U.S. intelligence community and leading members of Congress and the Trump administration view China’s digital prowess as a top threat to the country.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has called China the “most active and persistent cyber threat to U.S. Government, private-sector, and critical infrastructure networks.” One of the most prominent examples of that threat came in 2023, when Chinese hackers infiltrated the cloud-based mailboxes of senior U.S. government officials, stealing data and emails from the commerce secretary, the U.S. ambassador to China and others working on national security matters. The intruders downloaded about 60,000 emails from the State Department alone.
Snip.
Microsoft uses the escort system to handle the government’s most sensitive information that falls below “classified.” According to the government, this “high impact level” category includes “data that involves the protection of life and financial ruin.” The “loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability” of this information “could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect” on operations, assets and individuals, the government has said. In the Defense Department, the data is categorized as “Impact Level” 4 and 5 and includes materials that directly support military operations.
“Hey, let’s ask our outsourced experts in Guangdong if we have enough missiles in place to defend Taiwan!”
WHY. THE. FUCK. WAS. THIS. OUTSOURCED????
John Sherman, who was chief information officer for the Department of Defense during the Biden administration, said he was surprised and concerned to learn of ProPublica’s findings. “I probably should have known about this,” he said. He told the news organization that the situation warrants a “thorough review by DISA, Cyber Command and other stakeholders that are involved in this.”’
Asleep at the switch all the way down.
In an emailed statement, the Defense Information Systems Agency said that cloud service providers “are required to establish and maintain controls for vetting and using qualified specialists,” but the agency did not respond to ProPublica’s questions regarding the digital escorts’ qualifications.
There’s a lot more details about the “escort” system, but potential flaws in the system are way beside the point of the central fact that Chinese nationals should never have access to to any Department of Defense system or data. Anywhere. Ever. Not even to maintain the website for the Pentagon cafeteria.
“No, really, we’ve got a great system for storing fireworks in the welding shop!”
Remember, when you have your data in “the cloud,” that just means it exists “on someone else’s computer.” Sometimes that’s fine. If you’re a private company looking to get speed to market on your product, that might be the way to go. But handing Uncle Sam’s military data to Chinese nationals and hoping for the best is simply insane.
A shocking budget surplus, the most boring phrase in politics makes a comeback, Trump tours Texas, Paxton slams a scammer, Soros backs the commie, more corruption from Democrats in New York and California, and Stellantis does what it does best: Ruins everything it touches. Plus a bit about Jeffrey Epstein.
I am sure that Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent don’t want to say “I told you so,” but…
Yes, according to CNBC the United States just posted some big economic dubs, with the budget hitting a surplus thanks to the tariffs that – one day, I am constantly assured – will tank the economy.
The U.S. government posted a surplus in June as tariffs gave an extra bump to a sharp increase in receipts, the Treasury Department said Friday.
With government red ink swelling throughout the year, last month saw a surplus of just over $27 billion, following a $316 billion deficit in May.
I just created a tag for “surplus”…
Back in the dim mists of time, someone at National Review noted that “Enhanced Rescission Authority” was possibly the most boring phrase in the English language. Boring or not, it’s now helping Trump cut the deficit.
Vice President JD Vance cast two decisive tie-breaking votes in the Senate on Tuesday to advance a $9.4 billion spending rescissions package backed by President Donald Trump. The measure, which would claw back federal funding from a range of programs, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and public broadcasters NPR and PBS, is now headed into a marathon floor debate.
The Senate twice deadlocked at 50-50 on procedural votes to begin debate on the controversial bill. In both instances, Vance stepped in to break the tie and push the measure forward. The rescissions package, approved by the House of Representatives last month, would eliminate approximately $8.3 billion from USAID and $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
Amid the destruction and mourning in Kerrville after the flooding disaster last week, President Donald Trump held a press conference with a number of Texas elected officials where they provided updates on ongoing recovery efforts.
“Well, this a tough one,” Trump somberly stated at the beginning of the press conference. “It’s hard to believe the devastation.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this.”
First Lady Melania Trump also spoke about the stories she has heard from families impacted by the floods.
“We are grieving with you. Our nation is grieving with you.”
Ahead of the Trump press conference, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that the federal government has updated the Presidential Disaster Declaration to include additional Texas counties eligible for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Individual Assistance program.
“We remain committed,” Abbott said during the roundtable, “we’re here for the long run.”
“We will maintain our operations to find everybody that we can, as well as ensure that we build this community from Hunt to Camp Mystic to Kerrville, to down below. We are committed for the long run, not just to rebuild, but to rebuild in a better way.”
At least 160 people remain missing since the floods. Abbott stated during a press conference earlier this week that 109 have been confirmed dead.
“Attorney General Paxton Demands Alleged Texas Flood Fundraising Scam Cease Operations. “In the wake of devastating floods across Central Texas on July 4, a plethora of fundraisers were launched in order to assist affected victims, volunteers, and first responders — one of which Paxton accuses of scamming Texans. Addressed to Tray Coppola, organizer of a GoFundMe marketed as supporting Kerrville flood victims, the letter from the Office of the Attorney General formally demands that he maintain and preserve all records for legal purposes.” Coppola responded to the accusations by screaming racism…
“Illegal From Weed Farm Where Minor Girls Worked Had Convictions for Attempted Rape, Child Molestation.” There’s no illegal alien scumbag whose crimes are too heinous for social justice Democrats hearts to bleed for.
Pay to play, California style: “Corporate Donors Gave Big to a Newsom Family Charity. Then the California Governor Took Their Side on State Issues.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom doesn’t typically get involved in disputes between rival Native American tribes. That changed last year, when Newsom used his office to try to block a small tribe from opening a casino in Northern California.
In August 2024, Newsom’s office sent a letter on his behalf to the Biden Interior Department urging it to reject a $700 million proposed casino project north of San Francisco by the Koi Nation, a tribe with fewer than 100 members. But the Biden administration approved the project anyway, so in May, Newsom sued the Trump administration in a last ditch effort to block the Koi Nation’s casino. Should Newsom get his way, it would be a major win for the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, a major California political donor which operates its own gambling compound just 15 miles away from its rival’s proposed site, which broke ground on a $1 billion expansion in 2023.
A little-known California government disclosure database may shed light on why Newsom took Graton Rancheria’s side in the high-stakes dispute.
In April 2024, a few months before Newsom sent his letter to the Biden Interior Department, the Democratic governor requested Graton Rancheria to contribute $500,000 to his wife’s charity, the California Partners Project. And in April 2025, one month before Newsom filed his lawsuit against the Trump administration, he again asked Graton Rancheria to contribute another $500,000 to his wife’s charity. The tribe cut those checks specifically at Newsom’s request, according to California’s “behested payments” database, which discloses whenever state elected officials request others to make donations on their behalf.
Waste and fraud, New York Governor Grannykiller style: “Governor Andrew Cuomo, before he was unceremoniously forced out of office, convinced state lawmakers to shell out over $100 million to purchase decorative LED lights to enhance the beauty of some of New York’s most iconic bridges…At least $108 million was spent on Cuomo’s “Harbor of Lights” project, which was supposed to install specialty LED lighting on several New York State bridges. The project was pitched as a way to boost tourism, but the lights ended up sitting unused in a warehouse for more than seven years until they were recently auctioned off for less than half a percent of the project’s overall cost.” Plus they paid millions to store them. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
In response to an open records request, the Harris County Housing & Community Development department revealed that it spent $2,071,676.21 in 2024 paying for legal services for illegal aliens.
The services are also available for illegal aliens with criminal records.
Harris County first spent $2,000,000 launching a program called the Immigrant Legal Services Fund (ILSF) in 2020 and has been making payments to the fund since then.
ILSF provides free legal representation in Harris County for people facing deportation from Houston-area detention centers.
Where is the enumerated statute that authorizes Harris County to spend money for illegal alien legal services?
Legal eagle Alan Dershowitz claims that the Trump administration isn’t hiding the names of the alleged pedophiles associated with Epstein; two judges are.
The Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the “blockbuster” story alleging a letter Trump wrote to Epstein for his 50th birthday included some tawdry elements previously worked for Main Justice (his only prior reporting experience listed in his bio).
Main Justice was Glenn Simpson’s wife’s publication. Simpson founded Fusion GPS, which was paid by Hillary Clinton/the DNC (through Perkins Coie) to produce the Steele Dossier at the center of the Russian hoax against Trump.
As the Democrats’ policies grew progressively more anti-American, the gang of hacks, DEI hires, and grifters that once proudly styled itself as the Party of Jefferson and Jackson did everything it could to make people think pointing out that increasingly obvious fact was both ridiculous and offensive. And so, ever fewer people have dared to do so, even as it became even more obvious that hating America and having a taste for Marxism went with being a Democrat like arrogance and self-righteousness went with being Barack Obama.
Now, however, it’s impossible to deny. The best and the brightest among young Democrats are all avowed socialists. The party would have chosen a socialist, Bernie Sanders, as its candidate for president in 2016 and likely also in 2020 if party top dogs hadn’t stepped in and arranged for the candidacy of someone who was at least outwardly more mainstream.
All the while, Democrats insisted their socialism was nothing to be worried about, but was of an extremely cuddly variety. One of the foremost among the party’s up-and-coming new socialists, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Swizzle Stick), maintains that what she has in mind isn’t the bad old socialism of the Soviet Union, Communist China, Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea and the rest, but a type involving more unicorns and moonbeams. “So when millennials talk about concepts like democratic socialism,” she explained, “we’re not talking about these kinds of ‘Red Scare’ bogeyman.” Yeah, tell all the victims of Stalin and Mao that it was just a “scare.” Those hysterical right-wingers were having the vapors over nothing.
Ocasio-Cortez continued, “We’re talking about countries and systems that already exist, that have already been proven to be successful in the modern world. We’re talking about single-payer health care that has already been successful in many different models, from Finland to Canada to the UK.” Great, but none of those countries are actually socialist. Foreign Policy pointed out in 2021 that “Nordic countries are often used internationally to prove that socialism works. It’s true that social democratic parties are enjoying success in this part of the world.” However, it’s not the kind of success that AOC would want to encourage: “Today, the Nordic social democrats have adopted stricter immigration policies, tightened eligibility requirements for welfare benefit systems, taken a tougher stance on crime, and carried out business-friendly policies.”
The brand of socialism that is getting more popular among U.S. Democrats is nothing like that. Instead, we have Zohran Mamdani, who will likely be the next mayor of New York, and has called for “seizing the means of production,” as well as transforming “housing from a private commodity to a public one.” And now there’s Omar Fateh, a candidate for mayor of Minneapolis, who also wants state-owned housing, along with wage rates set by the state. That’s not cuddly Scandinavian socialism. That’s Marxism. Do we have to have actual gulags on American soil to know where it leads?
The Communists are clearly the future of the Democrat Party. Arrayed against their spectre are the party top dogs, not because they’re against their ideology, but because they want to continue the illusion that their party still champions American values. There are still some rubes out there who can be fooled on this point.
Is Mamdani getting money from George Soros? Of course he is.
But in less than a decade, Soros’ ultra-woke grant-making network Open Society Foundation has indirectly funneled a combined $37 million to the Working Families Party and at least other nine left-wing groups whose endorsements and get-out-the-vote groundwork played a pivotal role in helping Mamdani upset ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary, the foundation’s records show.
Since 2016, the far-left, socialist-friendly WFP — which helped score Mandani the Democratic line by brokering cross-endorsement deals that squeezed out Cuomo — has pocketed a staggering $23.7 million from Soros through its nonprofit fundraising arm Working Families Organization Inc.
And at least another $13,944,005 went to the nine nonprofits and their offshoot fundraising entities — including the Make The Road Action ($3,515,00), and social justice nonprofits Community Voices Heard ($2,635,000) and Move On ($2.3 million), and the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace Acton ($650,000), according to records.
Russia will face severe sanctions and tariffs if the country does not sign a ceasefire deal to end the war with Ukraine in 50 days, a White House official confirmed to National Review. President Donald Trump made the announcement in the Oval Office Monday.
“We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days,” he said.
The U.S. will impose secondary tariffs on the country at 100 percent, he said. The secondary tariffs would place monetary sanctions on countries that trade with Russia.
The president made the announcement during a meeting with Mark Rutte, secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Rutte has been coordinating European efforts to send more weapons to Ukraine to defend itself against Russian invasion. Under the arrangement, NATO would buy American weapons and pass them on to Kyiv. The president said the U.S. will send billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine through NATO allies in this way.
“We are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them,” Trump said.
Ukraine will get massive numbers of missiles, air defense systems, and ammunition through the deal, according to Rutte, who said Russian President Vladimir Putin should reconsider peace negotiations.
Undernews: “US Has Launched Over 50 Airstrikes In Somalia In 2025 But Virtually No MSM Coverage…AFRICOM said that the strikes targeted the ISIS affiliate in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region, to the southeast of the port city of Bossaso.” The group is al-Shabaab, which is also affiliated with
Winning: “Trump Announces Trade Deal With Indonesia, Opening Entire Market to U.S.”
This morning I finalized an important Deal with the Republic of Indonesia after speaking with their Highly Respected President Prabowo Subianto. This landmark Deal opens up Indonesia’s ENTIRE MARKET to the United States for the first time in History. As part of the Agreement, Indonesia has committed to purchasing $15 Billion Dollars in U.S. Energy, $4.5 Billion Dollars in American Agricultural Products, and 50 Boeing Jets, many of them 777’s. For the first time ever, our Ranchers, Farmers, and Fishermen will have Complete and Total Access to the Indonesian Market of over 280 million people. In addition, Indonesia will pay the United States a 19% Tariff on all Goods they export to us, while U.S. Exports to Indonesia are to be Tariff and Non Tariff Barrier FREE. If there is any Transshipment from a higher Tariff Country, then that Tariff will be added on to the Tariff that Indonesia is paying. Thank you to the People of Indonesia for your friendship and commitment to balancing our Trade Deficit. We will keep DELIVERING for the American People, and the People of Indonesia!
“DOJ Fires Former FBI Director’s Daughter, Prosecutor Who Worked on Epstein, Diddy Cases. The U.S. Department of Justice has fired Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey and a Manhattan federal prosecutor.”
Good news, everyone! “Department of Justice to Continue Bribery Case Against Congressman Henry Cuellar.” Despite the indictment, Cuellar managed to win reelection over Republican Myra Flores for the Texas 28th Congressional District in 2024. Flores is already raising money for a rematch.
56-year-old Adermis Wilson-Gonzalez, was arrested on June 29 by ICE. He was convicted of hijacking an airplane 22 years ago; the plane he attacked was reportedly flying from Cuba to Key West, Florida.
Among the convictions received by the four illegal aliens from Mexico — Arnulfo Olivares Cervantes, Luis Pablo Vasquez-Estolano, Jose Meza, and Javier Escobar Gonzalez — were offenses for homicide, possession of various illegal substances, sexual assault of a minor, driving while intoxicated, attempted murder, burglary, and unauthorized use of a firearm.
Interesting: “Almost 200 Texas Public School Districts Adopt Four-Day Week.”
In 2015, Kelly Sue DeConnick was praised for “saving comic books.” Instead, she almost killed them. No points for guessing her political agenda…
Steve Miller cancels concert tour due to “climate change.” So no more big old jet airliners for him, and he won’t keep rockin you, baby…
“Memorabilia dealer found dead after alleged $350 million counterfeit confession on Facebook. Brett Lemieux, 45 of Westfield, Ind., was the founder of noted sports memorabilia site MisterManCave, which he claimed sold more than four million counterfeit items.” Caveat emptor. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
I don’t know how much faith to put in the following information (“China is a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a memecoin” said some famous wag (all quotes approximate)), but several people who read the tea leaves of the Chinese Communist Party say that President Xi Jinping has quietly been relieved of power.
Between late May and early June, Chinese President Xi Jinping simply disappeared. No parades. No spotlights. No front pages in People’s Daily that once displayed him daily. Instead, other senior Communist Party leaders hosted visiting dignitaries in Beijing’s grand halls.
According to CNN-News18, top intelligence officials say, “Xi Jinping’s absence is not unusual, and China has a history of sidelining prominent leaders.” The method is familiar — big names stay on paper, power moves quietly elsewhere.
When Xi reappeared in early June, it was not the spectacle the world expected. He sat down with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, but the setting was unusually small. Gone was the red-carpet flourish. “Xi appeared tired, distracted, and generally unwell at a meeting with the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in early June,” noted the Belarusian presidential press service.
Even stranger, Xi’s personal security detail has been halved. His father’s grand mausoleum has lost its official status.
When they dishonor your ancestors, that’s a big sign things aren’t hunky dory.
And after a recent call with Donald Trump, Chinese state TV did something unheard of — it referred to Xi without any title. Later they patched it up, but the slip revealed cracks.
While Xi’s health and image fade, power appears to shift. General Zhang Youxia, who helped Xi secure an historic third term, is now rumoured to be calling the shots in the People’s Liberation Army. But he fell out with Xi soon after.
One source said: “Currently, real power lies with General Zhang Youxia, the First Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), who is backed by CCP seniors from the Hu Jintao faction.”
Dozens of generals loyal to Xi have vanished or been replaced. Rumours swirl about secret purges. “The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has previously done this with three notable leaders, reducing their operational authority to mere ceremonial roles,” top intelligence officials told CNN-News18.
Whispers of a new face have also emerged. Wang Yang, who once served as a respected technocrat, is now spoken of as Xi’s likely replacement. Reports claim, “Wang Yang, recently appointed to lead the Chinese Communist Party, has been spoken of as a successor to Xi Jinping.”
Once lifted by Deng Xiaoping from obscurity, Wang represents reform. He is seen as calm, pro-market and less confrontational. Intelligence insiders told CNN-News18, “Wang Yang is being groomed as a reform-oriented future leader and technocrat.”
Back in 2022, the world watched as Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao was guided off the stage at the Party Congress in full view of cameras. China’s Xinhua agency said Mr Hu felt unwell. But Hu looked reluctant. BBC’s Stephen McDonell noted, “Mr Hu, 79, appeared reluctant to move.” He even reached for Xi’s notes before the sitting President brushed him off.
You know that had to sting. But evidently Hu still had a lot of pull behind the scenes.
What many saw then as a power play now takes on new meaning. The silent exit of Hu — once a symbol of collective leadership — marked Xi’s total grip. Or so it seemed.
China’s economic engine is spluttering. Youth unemployment is stuck at 15 per cent. Real estate sits stagnant. Semiconductor plans have collapsed. National debt has ballooned to over $50 trillion. Local protests and factory unrest are flaring up.
Gregory W. Slayton, a former US diplomat, summed it up: “With over $50 trillion in total debt… and an unemployment rate in depression territory… it is not surprising that local riots, factory arsons and anti-government protests have flared all over China.”
Lei’s Real Talk (see here for a brief discussion of that channel) also sees signed that Xi has lost an internal power struggle:
“CCP politics is getting wild. Today we’ll discuss Xi Jinping’s new boss and his rival Zhang Youxia’s relentless purge in the military. And the two are related. Okay, let’s get started. So for months rumors and whispers have swirled that Xi Jinping has lost control of the party to Zhang Youxia and the party elders.”
“Xi Jinping supposedly has lost control uh to Zhang Youxia and the party elders. But this isn’t a simple case of one faction overpowering another. Even within the ranks of the party elders, there are competing priorities for what China’s next phase should look like. Some want to save the regime from collapse. Others want to push for political reforms. Some focus on reviving the economy. And there are those who want absolute control just to survive this life and death struggle.”
“Youxia has supposedly gambled everything to take down Xi Jinping.”
“For a few weeks, the political center in Beijing appeared deadlocked. Xi Jinping disappeared, and then resisted change. Zhang Youxia, backed by military force, demanded it, and the party elders were caught in the middle trying to maintain a fragile balance.”
“Then, in the last week or so, Xi Jinping suddenly re-emerged in public with greater visibility. He scored a minor win when Beijing announced that she would appear at the September 3rd World War II Victory Day parade. Whether he will inspect the troops or simply give a speech remains unclear.”
“Meanwhile, Zhang Youxia has been steadily expanding his grip. Miao Hua, one of Xi Jinping’s most trusted generals, was officially removed. Zhang has started moving into the Navy and the Air Force to root out Xi’s remaining loyalists.”
“All the signs and rumors pointing to Xi Jinping’s loss of power reached a new phrase yesterday when Xi Jinping himself made an announcement on behalf of the party. In effect, he confirmed his own decline.”
After not announcing Politburo meeting minutes in May, the CCP made a single terse announcement at the end of June, saying the meeting was to review “regulations on the work of the Central Party Decision Making and Consolidation Body.”
“This body basically assumes the very role that Xi Jinping once held in making decisions. Meaning Xi is no longer the highest authority in the CCP. He now has a boss, and that boss is this new decision-making body.”
“This new body isn’t just for advice. It controls the full chain of power from policy formation to execution. In fact, in effect, it is now the de facto highest governing body of the CCP.”
This body “has already been operating in secret for some time.”
“His opponents are forcing [Xi] to be the one who announces it, in order to make the power transition appear orderly, legitimate, and as if it were orchestrated by Xi Jinping himself.
There’s much more in the video, including a several People’s Liberation Army generals thought to be close to Xi who have been suddenly relieved of command, including members of Xi’s “Fujian Clique” and members of his beloved Rocket Force, “Since Miao’s downfall last fall, a wave of senior officers have been arrested or investigated. And these individuals share two things in common. One, they all belong to Xi’s loyalist faction. And two, they mostly come from the air force, the navy, or the rocket force. Almost none from the uh the army or the ground forces. Why? Well, because Xi Jinping’s plan to invade Taiwan relied primarily on those three branches. Meanwhile, the ground force which long has been Zhang Youxia’s base or domain, was largely sidelined under Xi Jinping. But now, after a sweeping purge of the air force, the navy and the rocket force, it has become painfully clear who has been purging these generals, and who truly holds military power in China, and it is not Xi Jinping.”
Is Xi Jinping actually out of power? I’m not one capable of reading these tea leaves directly, but the one who can seem to think so. Indeed, rumors of a purge of Xi loyalists in the military date back to March.
Does this mean an invasion of Taiwan is off the table in the near term? Very possibly. In addition to leadership purges of the very forces tasked with carrying out such an invasion, Zhang Youxia evidently told Xi Jinping that his 2027 invasion deadline wasn’t practical. Then again, since Zhang was previously head of the PLA’s General Armaments Department, maybe he just wants to wait until China has better weapons.
Does it mean a less confrontational stance by China to the United States and the west in general? Again, very possibly. Hu Jintao was notably less confrontational than Xi, and possible presidential successor Wang Yang (as well as possible CCP premier pick Hu Chunhua) are considered Hu Jintao proteges.
Also, President Trump may the CCP shakeup as an opportunity to negotiate an even-more-favorable trade deal, and maybe clear up other points of friction (such as the South China Sea).
It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out…
President Trump (and parents) rack up Supreme Court wins, more Iran nuke damage assessments, a whole lot of Democrats want to die on the hill of taxpayer subsidies for mutilating your children, and some fast cars. Plus a weird assortment of violent lunatics.
The Supreme Court on Friday handed the Trump administration a win by limiting the ability of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions blocking the president’s agenda.
The justices ruled 6-3 along ideological lines in Trump v. Casa, siding with the Trump administration’s challenge to the scope of nationwide injunctions issued against Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order. The Court did not, however, weigh-in on the legality of the birthright-citizenship order itself.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion, finding that universal injunctions exceed the authority Congress has given to federal courts. Barrett was joined by the Court’s five other conservative justices.
The High Court ruled that lower courts cannot prevent the federal government from enforcing its policies against nonparties to the specific case they’re ruling on. For the time being, the justices have partially halted the nationwide injunctions against Trump’s executive order. They halted the injunctions in areas where their authority is too broad and prevent the executive branch from developing public guidance related to Trump’s executive order.
They punted on birthright citizenship, but a win is a win, and hopefully lower courts will now stop trying to reimport convicted and deported illegal alien felons.
Suchomimus has clear satellite images of the damage Operation Midnight Hammer did to the Isfahan and Natanz nuclear complexes.
UN Nuclear Watchdog Chief: ‘Night and Day’ Difference Between Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities Before and After US Strikes. ‘It is clear that there is one Iran—before June 13, nuclear Iran—and one now,’ says IAEA’s Rafael Grossi.
The U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities set back the Islamic Republic’s program “significantly,” the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog organization said Tuesday.
“I think the Iranian nuclear program has been set back significantly, significantly,” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Rafael Grossi said in a Fox News interview. He noted that “it is clear that there is one Iran—before June 13, nuclear Iran—and one now,” describing the difference as “night and day.”
Just before the Tuesday afternoon interview, the IAEA revealed that it detected “extensive damage at several nuclear sites in Iran, including its uranium conversion and enrichment facilities.” That damage caused a radioactive release, according to the organization.
“Our assessment is that there has been some localized radioactive as well as chemical release inside the affected facilities that contained nuclear material—mainly uranium enriched to varying degrees—but there has been no report of increased off-site radiation levels,” Grossi said in the IAEA statement. The organization observed “two impact holes from the U.S. strikes” at Iran’s Natanz enrichment site above “the underground halls that had been used for enrichment as well as for storage,” according to the statement, in which Grossi also said he saw “extensive damage at several nuclear sites in Iran, including its uranium conversion and enrichment facilities.”
After a week’s worth of pounding from the Israel Defense Forces, the Iranian regime was disoriented and defenseless, helplessly exposed to Israeli and American air superiority, like a turtle flipped on its shell and baking underneath the pitiless desert sun. Now was the time to finish the job, not two weeks from now, after (what was left of) the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command structure had time to regroup.
So we finished the job. It was the right thing to do. In fact, I will go further than that: If Donald Trump’s finest moment as a politician is forever destined to be that dark day when he arose bleeding from an assassin’s bullet to throw a reassuringly defiant fist to a terrified crowd, then there is good reason to think that Saturday will ultimately rank second. Not because of any one image or moment from the day’s events — although Trump’s charmingly direct invocation of the Creator at the end of his press conference (“I just want to say, we love you, God,”) has immediately entered my bedtime prayer rotation — but because of the foreign policy legacy it has the potential to represent.
I operate by rather simple logic, myself. The Iranian regime — whose unofficial motto is “Death to America,” and which openly calls for the destruction of Israel, our sole true ally in the region — seeks a nuclear weapon to achieve this goal. I have yet to see anyone other than Ben Rhodes, or those quietly receiving funding from Qatar, argue that Iran should be allowed to acquire or build one. That point having been settled, the question then turns to what cost would be worth paying in order to prevent such a thing from happening.
If the price is merely a few bombs from a B-2, then the question is easily answered. Iran’s nuclear program has either been destroyed permanently or set back decades. The mullahs are very upset, as one imagines murderous religious fanatics tend to be, but also seemingly powerless to do much more than cause a temporary economic ruction by laying mines across the Strait of Hormuz. (Note: In a late-breaking development after this piece had gone to press, Trump announced last night that he had in fact brokered a cease-fire between Iran and Israel.)
This is an unalloyed victory for the forces of sanity and civilization. To those who point to the inevitability of unforeseen “blowback,” I will remind you that Iran and its proxies have been engaging in low-level conflict with America for well over a decade now — who do you think was funding and training the people killing our boys in Iraq and Afghanistan all those years? — and now it is free to try its hand at more of the same, if it wishes, this time without a looming nuclear threat to back it up. America has come out ahead on this in concrete, measurable, and hugely valuable geostrategic ways.
Most importantly of all, none of this would have happened if Kamala Harris were president. Think about that for a moment; think about the road not taken. One can only speculate about hypotheticals, but . . . c’mon now. Look into your heart, you know it to be true. Imagine a President Harris, sitting uneasily atop a Democratic coalition barely held together at the seams: Would she have encouraged Netanyahu in his initial campaign against Iranian military and nuclear assets? Would she have provided the final air support and ordnance necessary to get the job done? With people such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, David Hogg, and Zohran Mamdani calling the shots among large segments of her base?
To ask the question out loud is to answer it: no. For that reason alone, it is no exaggeration to say that the shape of the world perceptibly turned for the better on the outcome of last November’s election. You can draw a straight line between Donald Trump’s winning the 2024 race and Iran’s nuclear weapons program now being best described as a series of variably sized craters. If you supported Donald Trump and voted for him in 2024, you should feel proud of it today: Saturday is the most obvious evidence yet of why your vote mattered.
It is hard even to digest the incredible train of events of the last few days in the Middle East.
Iran had been reduced to an anemic, performance-art missile attack on our base in Qatar—the last Parthian shot from a terrified regime, desperate for an out—and a ceasefire.
Iran would have been better off not launching such a ceremonial but ultimately humiliating proof of impotence.
Even worse for the theocracy, Iran’s temporary reprieve came from the now magnanimous but still hated Donald Trump.
So ends the creepy mystique of the supposedly indomitable terror state of Iran, the bane of the last seven American presidents over half a century.
For Supreme Leader Khamenei, it was hard to swallow that U.S. bombers got their permission to fly into Iranian airspace from the Israeli air force.
A good simile is that Trump put a pot of water on the stove, told Iran to jump in, put the lid over them, then smiled, turned up the heat—and will now let them stew.
As postbellum realities now simmer in Iran, the theocracy is left explaining the inexplicable to its humiliated military and shocked but soon-to-be-furious populace. All the regime’s blood-curdling rhetoric, apocalyptic threats against Israel, goose-stepping thugs, and shiny new missiles ended in less than nothing.
A trillion dollars and five decades’ worth of missiles and centrifuges are now up in smoke. That money might have otherwise saved Iranians from the impoverishment of the last fifty years.
How about the little Satan Israel, to which Iran for nearly 50 years promised extinction?
Israel had destroyed Iran’s expeditionary terrorists, Iran’s defenses, its nuclear viability, and the absurd mythology of Iranian military competence. And worse, Israel showed it could repeat all that destruction when and if it is necessary.
So, the most hated regime in the world crawled into the boiling pot because it looked around in vain for someone to void Trump’s ultimatum for a cease and desist.
But there were no last-minute saviors to rescue them.
The dreaded decades-long Iranian nuclear threat?
It is either gone for now, or if it resurfaces, it will be again far easier to vaporize at will than to rebuild a lost trillion-dollar investment.
Russia? Its former Obama-Kerry re-invitation back into the Middle East lasted only a decade.
It will now cut its losses like it did with the vanished Assad kleptocracy in Syria. Putin exits the Middle East not entirely displeased that his lunatic Iranian client did not get a bomb—but did get its just desserts. A tense Middle East tends to prop up Russian export oil prices.
Did China come to the mullahs’ aid?
No, they were not shy about ordering their Iranian lackey to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, through which 50 percent of Chinese-purchased oil passes.
For President Xi, the Iranians are treated as little more than Uyghurs with oil.
The world decided that it was tired of a half-century of crybully terrorism, empty nuke threats, mindless mobs screaming scripted banalities, cowardly murdering, and medieval theocrats threatening the general peace.
So, the world turned its back on Iran. And with a wink and nod, it let Israel and the U.S. do what they must.
We recently learned of a previously concealed tranche of documents likely to shed new light on the past decade of American political controversies. This potentially earth-shaking information is known as “Prohibited Access.”
It was only recently discovered that the FBI’s information system, called Sentinel, had a level of access previously unknown to anyone outside the Bureau and known only to a select few inside. In essence, this was a concealed cache used to hide documents the FBI wanted hidden from discovery.
There is one part of the Sentinel system that is devoted to classified and confidential information, termed “Restricted Access.”
It turns out there is a higher, more secretive level called “Prohibited Access.” To any outside observer or investigator, it would appear that there was no record of Prohibited Access information, even though the existence of Restricted Access documents would be shown.
Accordingly, when prosecutors like John Durham or investigators such as Congressman James Comer were investigating various potential misdeeds, they would not have learned of the existence of documents relevant to their investigation that were kept in Prohibited Access.
Although it remains unclear, there is reasonable suspicion that even FBI Inspector General Michael Horowitz was not aware of this document cache. Alternatively, Horowitz may have known about it but also may have agreed to keep its existence secret, a dismaying possibility for one charged with enlightening Congress and the public.
Logic tells us that, broadly, there could be only two related purposes for this concealed tranche because it prevents those investigating the FBI or its favored parties from even knowing about the existence of the documents; such suggests concealment of information inculpatory to the senior levels of the FBI and/or its favored politicians, as well as exculpatory information about the targets of its biased investigations.
If, by way of a wild hypothetical example, James Comey and Andrew McCabe broke laws to make an innocent Donald Trump appear guilty of “Russian Collusion,” they would not wish a trail of their ugly misconduct to see the light of day, nor reveal proof of Trump’s innocence.
Pam Bondi and Kash Patel should shine a lot of disinfecting sunlight here.
Winning: “Supreme Court Allows States to Cut Off Medicaid Funding to Planned Parenthood.”
The Supreme Court is allowing South Carolina to cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, a win for pro-lifers that will likely clear the way for red states across the country to stop taxpayer dollars from funding abortion.
The justices ruled 6-3 along ideological lines Thursday to permit South Carolina to cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion for the Court, siding with the state against a private challenge brought by the abortion provider and a patient.
The plaintiffs in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic argued that Medicaid patients should be free to sue in order to choose their own health-care providers, while the state claimed they lacked the right to sue.
“By rejecting Planned Parenthood’s lawfare, the Court not only saves countless unborn babies from a violent death and their mothers from dangerously shoddy ‘care,’ it also protects Medicaid from exposure to thousands of lawsuits from unqualified providers that would jeopardize the entire program,” said Katie Daniel, director of legal affairs at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
The 1965 Medicaid Act grants patients the ability to choose a willing and qualified provider. Medina dealt with whether patients have the right to sue to go to their preferred provider and whether Planned Parenthood qualified as a provider. Planned Parenthood operates two clinics in the state and argued the case was about healthcare access, not abortion.
South Carolina stopped allowing Planned Parenthood to participate in its Medicaid program in 2018 because of state law barring the public funding of abortion. The move was immediately blocked in court in response to a challenge brought by Julie Edwards, a South Carolina woman who claimed she preferred Planned Parenthood for gynecological care and needed Medicaid coverage.
“States should be free to fund real, comprehensive care and exclude organizations like Planned Parenthood that profit off abortion and distribute dangerous gender-transition drugs to minors,” said Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel John Bursch. The Alliance Defending Freedom represented the South Carolina Department of Health in the case.
Abortion is not “woman’s health care” and should not be treated as such.
SB 12 includes a prohibition on schools assisting in the “social transitioning” of students and also restricts the instruction of “sexual orientation or gender identity,” while providing that it does not “limit a student’s ability to engage in speech or expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment … that does not result in material disruption to school activities.”
In a press release Monday, the ACLU of Texas, along with Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT), called SB 12 “one of the most extreme education bans in the country.”
“This ban on education harms Texas schools by shutting down important discussions and programs that mention race, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation,” Brian Klosterboer, senior staff attorney for ACLU Texas, stated in the press release.
“Students should be free to learn about themselves and the world around them, but S.B. 12 aims to punish kids for being who they are and ban teachers from supporting them.”
Another Supreme Court win: “Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Maryland Parents in Challenge to Mandatory LGBTQ Curriculum.” Which part of “Get your groomer hands off children” was unclear?
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement recently carried out a multi-state operation targeting eleven Iranian nationals in the U.S. illegally as the threat of Iranian terror cells attacking the U.S. intensifies.
Over the last 48 hours, federal agents arrested the eleven Iranians and a U.S. citizen who harbored an illegal immigrant from Iran, a Department of Homeland Security official told NR.
“Under Secretary Noem, DHS has been full throttle on identifying and arresting known or suspected terrorists and violent extremists that illegally entered this country, came in through Biden’s fraudulent parole programs or otherwise,” DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
“We have been saying we are getting the worst of the worst out—and we are. We don’t wait until a military operation to execute; we proactively deliver on President Trump’s mandate to secure the homeland.”
ICE agents arrested former Iranian army sniper Ribvar Karimi in Alabama on June 22. Karimi possessed an Iran army identification card upon his arrest and is currently being held in ICE custody. He entered the U.S. in October 2024 under a K-1 marriage visa but never updated his immigration status.
In Houston, ICE agents arrested Behzad Sepehrian Bahary Nejad, an illegal alien who was armed with a loaded pistol at the time of his arrest. Nejad was previously arrested in August 2017 for assaulting a family member and had a final order of removal prior to his latest arrest. Also in Houston, ICE arrested Hamid Reza Bayat, who a judge had ordered removed from the U.S. 20 years ago. Bayat was convicted twice on drug charges and again for driving with a suspended license.
In Tempe, Arizona, where they nabbed Mehrzad Asadi Eidivand, an Iranian convicted of threatening a law enforcement officer and possessing a firearm as an illegal alien, and U.S. citizen Linet Vartaniann for threatening law enforcement and harboring Eidvand. The pair were arrested after ICE obtained a search warrant and they now face federal charges.
Likewise, ICE arrested two Iranian nationals living together in Colorado Springs, Mahmoud Shafiei and Mehrdad Mehdipour. Shafiei was ordered removed decades ago and has criminal convictions related to drug crimes, and arrests for assault and child abuse. Border patrol encountered Mehdipour in June 2023 and processed him for expedited removal. Both are now in ICE custody as they undergo removal proceedings.
Another Iranian national ICE nabbed is Mehran Makari Saheli, a former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who was located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Sahei was previously convicted for being a felon in possession of the firearm and was illegally staying in the U.S. after a judge ordered him removed in 2022.
ICE agents arrested several other Iranian nationals in numerous other states and localities, almost all of whom had criminal convictions for various offenses and are now in federal custody.
How many Democrat district judges had decisions half-written forbidding deportations when the Supreme Court decision came down?
Moderate Democrats, business leaders, and Republicans — concerned about the prospect of a Mayor Zohran Mamdani — are plotting ways to keep the Democratic Socialist out of Gracie Mansion.
Shocked by the 33-year-old state assemblyman’s upset win in the Democratic mayoral primary last night against a former New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, these Cuomo backers, reluctant Cuomo backers, independents, and Republicans say the only way to beat Mr. Mamdani is to all back one candidate.
“The horse they’re going to back is Eric Adams,” a grocery store magnate and former Republican candidate for New York City mayor, Jon Catsimatidis, tells The New York Sun. “He is backed by the White House, by Washington, and he’ll make sure crime is cleaned up.”
When asked what that means for the Republican nominee for mayor, Curtis Sliwa, whom Mr. Catsimatidis employed at his radio station, the billionaire replied, “He’ll clean up the crime.”
Mr. Catsimatidis ended the call. He didn’t respond to a text asking if he is personally planning to back Mr. Adams. He said to tune into his radio show this evening.
Mr. Catsimatidis told the press earlier this month that he may sell his grocery store empire or move his business out of the city if Mr. Mamdani becomes mayor.
Always with the trannies: “Zohran Mamdani Wants To Spend $65 Million on Medical Gender Treatments for Minors and Adults.”
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist candidate for New York City mayor, has quietly proposed channeling tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to pay for medical gender-transition treatments for residents of all ages – including for minors. This city spending would counteract the sustained assault on these medical interventions – coming from the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans – which threatens treatment programs even within blue cities and states.
The controversial method of providing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sometimes gender-transition surgeries — such as breast removal — to minors in particular is now at the apex of the culture wars. It has also become a flashpoint in Democrats’ battle to redefine themselves in the wake of their brutal losses in the November election.
Authorities in Austin, Texas, have arrested Brian Johnson, known online as the social media influencer “Liver King,” according to jail records.
He faces one charge of terroristic threat, a Class B misdemeanor.
Snip.
The so-called Liver King rose to viral fame with social media posts depicting a barbarian-like “ancestral lifestyle,” including the consumption of raw animal organs, as depicted in the recent Netflix documentary “Untold: The Liver King.”
His persona and the story behind the physique fell apart in December 2022, however, when he admitted in a YouTube video to using steroids.
Speaking of crazy, violent lunatics: “51-year-old Adam Christopher Sheafe has now confessed to crucifying and killing Pastor William Schonemann in Phoenix in the early hours of Easter Sunday, 2025.”
“U.S. Department of Justice Closes Investigation into Muslim-Centric EPIC City, No Charges Filed.” As I’ve mentioned before, while investigation was certainly warranted, right now EPIC City looks more like a failed speculative real estate venture than an actual Muslim city in the offing, especially now that the developers have sworn up and down that they won’t discriminate against buyers based on religion. Awful nice of them to agree to obey the law…
This is breach of contract action against Mr. Biden for unpaid legal fees,” reads the complaint filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by Winston & Strawn LLP – which notes that the 55-year-old bagman-in-chief hired the firm “to represent him in several complex matters, including criminal trial in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware,” and that the firm provided him “with extensive legal services in those matters which generated a substantial amount of fees.”
According to the law firm, Hunter has dodged “repeated” efforts to collect those fees.
“Morrissey cancels Stockholm show, saying he and band are ‘travel-weary beyond belief’, citing “’bsolutely zero music industry support’ for full Scandinavia tour.”
“No label will release our music, no radio will play our music … and yet our ticket sales are sensational. What does this tell us about the state of Art in 2025?”
Last year, he said he had bought back the rights back to the album, as well as his 2014 record ‘World Peace Is None Of Your Business’. He later told Medium that “there are two albums” that he has completed but is unable to release, the other being ‘Without Music, The World Dies’.
“The second one was re-recorded in France in late 2023, and given a new title. We scrapped half of the tracks and we recorded six new ones, and so it is not the album from the beginning of 2023.”
He added: “Labels say that they are both fantastic high-quality pop albums but they say that they can’t release them because they don’t want the wrath of The Guardian making their lives hell. The harassment campaign against me by The Guardian is worldwide knowledge now, and it is effective in the sense that labels do not want to become involved with this Gotcha! Journalism.”
Evidently Morrissey figured out that unlimited, unassimilated Muslim immigration to the UK was a bad idea way back in 2019. Obviously The Guardian must punish him for his #wrongthink.
I’m not a Morrissey fan, and a significant percentage of my impression of him is everyone from MST3K to Mojo Nixon making fun of him. I can certainly see a musician cancelling a show due to exhaustion, and Morrissey is no spring chicken. But as for “zero music industry support,” dude, it’s 2025. Major labels don’t support anyone unless they can own your entire output, or at least get their sticky fingers into every possible revenue stream. Just pay to have your own CDs pressed and sell them at your (evidently successful) shows.
Israel continues to pummel Iran’s nuclear program, President Trump sets a deadline, illegal alien border crossings are down radically, Democrats are bankrupt (financially, not just morally), more horrifying sex offenders, and a new face for the Texas Democrat Party.
The big news of Wednesday, reported in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere: “President Trump told senior aides late Tuesday that he approved of attack plans for Iran, but was holding off to see if Tehran would abandon its nuclear program, people familiar with the deliberations said.” This feels like a strategic leak to reinforce to the Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that he faces the choice of giving up his country’s nuclear weapons program or war with the
There’s an important distinction between approving the attack plan and ordering the attack plan. Our military forces are poised to strike, but at least as of Tuesday, no U.S. fighters are in Iranian airspace, according to Pentagon officials.
“I don’t know how much longer it’s going to go on,” Trump said. “They’re totally defenseless. They have no air defense whatsoever, totally captured. We totally captured the air.”
There’s that “we” again. One of the reasons people keep wondering if the U.S. is covertly helping Israel in an offensive manner as well as the revealed defensive manner (helping shoot down incoming ballistic missiles) is that Trump keeps using “we” to describe Israel’s actions in the war. “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” “We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”
I know, I know, everybody’s obsessed with which pronouns you use these days.
Yesterday at the White House, Trump continued:
Q: What does unconditional surrender mean?
Donald Trump: Well, you know what it means, unconditional—
Q: Can you explain—
Donald Trump: Two very simple words, very simple: unconditional surrender. That means I’ve had it. Okay, I’ve had it, I give up, no more. Then we go blow up all the nuclear stuff that’s all over the place there. They had bad intentions. For 40 years, they’ve been saying death to America, death to Israel, death to anybody else that they didn’t like. They were bullies. They were schoolyard bullies and now they’re not bullies anymore, but we’ll see what happens. Look, nothing’s finished until it’s finished. War is very complex, a lot of bad things can happen, a lot of turns are made. So, I don’t know. I wouldn’t say that we won anything yet. I would say that we sure as hell made a lot of progress and we’ll see. The next week is going to be very big, maybe less than a week, maybe less.
Snip.
The Economist has a scoop about the Israeli intelligence that spurred its decision to launch this military operation:
We understand that the information presented by Israel includes a detailed account of a recent, more urgent, push by Iranian scientists towards “weaponization”, or the creation of an explosive nuclear device. The dossier provides two key pieces of reported evidence for this claim. The first is that an Iranian scientific team has squirrelled away a quantity of nuclear material, of unclear enrichment status, that is unknown to the monitors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a UN watchdog (on June 9th the IAEA assessed Iran had official stockpiles of over 400kg of highly enriched uranium). The second piece of reported evidence is that the scientists have accelerated their work and were about to meet commanders of Iran’s missile corps, apparently to prepare for the future “mating” of a nuclear warhead with a missile. . . .
In a report published on May 31st, the IAEA noted that in 2003 Iran had planned to conduct what the Institute for Science and International Security, a think-tank, calls a “cold test” — a simulated nuclear weapon which uses natural or depleted uranium rather than weapons-grade uranium. . . .
The Israeli intelligence dossiers also contain information that, if correct, is genuinely new. They suggest that roughly six years ago the scientists formed a secret “Special Progress Group”, under the auspices of the former AMAD director, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. This group’s aim was to prepare the way for a much quicker weaponisation process, if and when a decision was made by Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, to rush for a bomb. Mr Fakhrizadeh was assassinated by Israel in November 2020. On June 13th in the first hours of the war, the Israeli government published slides describing this backstory. But we have been told that it also shared further assessments with allies that suggest the Special Progress Group stepped up its research at the end of last year. Iran had a new incentive to advance to a bomb. It was reeling from the limited impact of its missile attacks on Israel, and the depletion of its air defenses by Israeli strikes in October 2024. And it was facing the collapse of its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, in Gaza and Lebanon.
Bonus:
Israel secret services used a fake phone call to trick the top commanders of Iran’s air force into gathering at a single location before taking them out in a targeted strike, an Israeli Channel 12 commentator has said.
In a statement confirmed to the JC by Israeli sources, Amit Segal told the Call Me Back podcast on Monday: “What Israel did was create a fake phone call for 20 members of the air force senior staff an calling them to a specific bunker in Tehran.”
This meant there was no one to give the order to fire the initial salvo of 1,000 ballistic missiles as Iran had previously threatened to do, he added.
According to sources familiar with the operation, Mossad initiated a targeted disinformation effort days before the strike.
Using falsified communications through Iranian channels, they triggered what appeared to be an emergency meeting.
The ruse successfully drew the entire senior leadership of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force, including Commander General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, his deputies, and key technical personnel, into a fortified bunker outside Tehran.
Moments before the strike began, that bunker was hit in a precision airstrike, eliminating Iran’s top missile command.
Border Czar Tom Homan dropped a bombshell on X Tuesday night that should have every American asking why we tolerated four years of Biden’s border catastrophe.
“In the last 24 hours the Border Patrol encountered a total of 95 illegal aliens across the entire southern border,” Homan posted. “That is the lowest number EVER recorded. Compare that to the Biden administration, who surpassed more than 10,000 per day.”
Read that again. Ninety-five. That’s not a typo. For the first time in recorded history, we’re seeing double-digit border encounters. Meanwhile, Biden’s administration was routinely processing more than 10,000 illegal crossings daily. The contrast couldn’t be more stark or more damning for the previous administration.
“Since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history. And we quickly achieved the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever recorded,” he said. “The media and our friends in the Democrat party kept saying we needed new legislation, we must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.”
But here’s where it gets even worse for Biden’s defenders. Homan revealed that the Biden administration released the “vast majority” of illegal immigrants back into American communities. How many were released under Trump in May? “Zero,” Homan revealed.
The numbers are staggering. In May 2024 alone, Biden released 62,000 illegal aliens into the country. Let that sink in: 62,000 people who crossed illegally were simply turned loose on American streets in a single month. This wasn’t immigration policy; it was an authorized invasion.
While ICE arrests and deportations have grabbed headlines, President Trump is also running a separate but complementary “mass deportation” program — one that encourages aliens here unlawfully to go home voluntarily.
And if reports are correct, that plan is more successful than anyone could have imagined.
Based on government data, my organization, the Center for Immigration Studies, has conservatively estimated there are about 15.4 million illegal aliens in the United States, a 50% increase over the four tumultuous years of the Biden administration.
That’s no surprise, given how Biden and his Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ignored congressional detention mandates and ushered millions of illegal migrants into the United States.
Trump rode a wave of concerns about the costs those migrants are imposing on schools, hospitals, housing, and essential government services in cities and towns across the United States to a second term.
Now that he’s back in the Oval Office, it’s up to him, “border czar” Tom Homan, and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to drive the unauthorized population down and restore credibility to our immigration system.
They’ve implemented a two-track plan to tackle this onerous task.
One of those tracks relies on arrests and deportations of aliens unlawfully here, which at the outset has focused mainly on criminals (the “worst first” strategy).
The other track is more subtle but also cheaper for taxpayers and arguably much more effective —encouraging illegal migrants here to self-deport.
It began with an Inauguration Day Trump directive requiring DHS to ensure all aliens present in the United States — legal and otherwise — have registered with the federal government, and to prosecute those who don’t comply.
By late February, Noem had implemented that registration program.
DHS next launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign warning migrants not to enter illegally or, alternatively, to leave voluntarily now and possibly “have an opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American Dream.”
Noem also rebranded the notorious CBP One app — which the Biden administration used to funnel hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants into our country — as “CBP Home,” which aliens can use to “notify the U.S. Government of their intent to depart.”
That rebranding coincided with an offer of financial incentives for aliens who leave voluntarily, a stipend of $1,000. That’s in lieu of costly physical deportation, which can cost taxpayers $17,100 per person on average.
How effective has self-deportation been?
One way to track the program is by checking employment numbers. One financial whiz cited by the Wall Street Journal calculated a decline in the immigrant population of 773,000 in the first four months of Trump II.
The Washington Post claims “a million foreign-born workers have exited the workforce since March.” The Post frames this as “a sign of the weakening labor supply.” Yet the paper also notes, “Average hourly wages accelerated, rising by 0.4 percent over the month, to $36.24 in May, as earnings continue to beat inflation in a boost to workers’ spending power.”
In other words, with fewer illegal immigrants, businesses have had to raise wages to attract workers.
Win-win-win for everyone except Democrats, illegal aliens, and the businesses addicted to cheap, illegal labor.
ICE raid nabs more than 100 illegal aliens at a meat packing plant. Americans applying for jobs ensues. The “jobs Americans won’t do” canard was always a lie.
Kash, who just shared the documents with Congress, then shared the accompanying article from Just the News to shed more light:
Officials who have seen the documents told Just the News the FBI had a relatively new confidential source who provided information in summer 2020 that the Chinese government was manufacturing and exporting fake U.S. driver’s licenses as part of a plot to create voter identities for Chinese residents living in the United States so they could vote with fake mail-in ballots.
The intelligence source claimed the plot was specifically designed to benefit Biden, officials said.
Wait, you’re telling me that China wanted “10% for the Big Guy” Joe Biden, a man whose family made money by peddling political influence with Chinese businessmen, to be the US president?
🚨 BREAKING 🚨
In a 2018 email, a bank flagged serious concerns about the China money Hunter Biden received – $40,000 of which ultimately landed in Joe Biden’s bank account.
In the email, the bank’s money laundering investigator highlighted:
Hmmm. “The U.S. Navy now has five guided-missile destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean, according to U.S. defense officials. This is a significant increase. Earlier this week, the U.S. had just one in the eastern Med.” (Previously.)
Even God has taken a crack at Iran. “A 5.2 magnitude earthquake has just struck Central Iran as Israel continues its attack on Tehran. The quake’s epicentre was just outside the city of Semnan, around 210km east of the capital.”
The Democratic Party is struggling. In every way a political party can be dysfunctional, the Democrats are careening toward an implosion.
Riven by poisonous factionalism, running out of cash, and devoid of purpose and plan, the oldest political party in the Western World is falling apart right before our eyes.
How bad is it? When the New York Times gives space to a 1,800-word, five-alarm article giving excruciating detail about your party’s travails, you know it’s not time to pop the champagne cork and celebrate.
To make matters worse for the Democrats, on the same day the Times aired the party’s soiled panties for all to see, the other Democratic Party house organ, Politico, laid 1,600 words of criticism on party chairman Ken Martin.
The media couldn’t be quiet about it. With 17 months to go before the 2026 midterm elections, the Democrats find themselves in an existential crisis. Half the party wants to abandon the radical left, while the radical left wants to give the heave-ho to anyone to the right of Karl Marx.
Let’s start with Ken Martin as a point of contention. Barely four months into the job, he’s already made plenty of enemies. Worse, those enemies aren’t going quietly into that good night. They are sniping at him from the sidelines, drawing blood with criticisms no party chair has ever heard before.
David Hogg section skipped. Judging by Kolby Duhon (see below), Hogg really was too masculine for the DNC.
“This is worse than some high school student council drama,” said Wisconsin Democrat Representative Mark Pocan. I’d say that’s right on the mark.
One DNC member told Politico that Martin looked “weak and whiny,” and another said he has been “invisible.” Similar sentiments were expressed by other DNC members.
These aren’t Republicans talking about their leaders. It’s the supposed leadership caste of the Democratic Party.
Awesome, isn’t it?
Snip.
The biggest blow to the party may have been the recent exit from the DNC of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and AFSCME President Lee Saunders. Together, they represent millions of members and tens of millions of dollars in contributions.
“The DNC is weaker than I have ever seen it… They have shown zero ability to chart a post-24 vision for Democrats,” a Democratic strategist with close ties to labor unions, told Politico.
Weingarten and Saunders couldn’t “in good faith continue to rubber-stamp what was going on with the DNC,” the strategist said.
Instead of developing a strategy for 2026 and preparing the battlefield for 2028, Martin and the DNC are bogged down in the minutiae of organizational warfare. There’s no plan, no purpose behind the DNC’s pronouncements. Martin is too busy putting out political brushfires and soothing bruised egos to get anything organizationally done.
No one is going to wave a magic wand and put the party back together.
Unspoken in this piece: The Social Justice hard left would literally rather kill the Democrat Party than give up control of it. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“The Supreme Court upheld the state of Tennessee’s ban on irreversible transgender procedures for minors, a major victory for parental rights advocates and those seeking to protect distressed children from harmful operations. The justices ruled 6-3 in United States v. Skrmetti, with all of the conservative justices opting to allow Tennessee’s ban to remain in place and the liberal justices dissenting. The ruling will likely allow similar bans in more than 20 other red states to be upheld in the face of legal challenges.” Decision by decision, the transsexual madness is finally being beaten back.
The man suspected of assassinating a Minnesota Democratic state lawmaker and attempting to kill another is being brought up on federal murder and stalking charges and could face the death penalty, prosecutors said Monday, hours after he was arrested following a days-long manhunt.
Acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Joe Thompson said during a press conference that Vance Luther Boelter went to the homes of four Minnesota lawmakers with the intent of killing them….
Boelter, 57, is facing six federal counts: two stalking charges, two firearm offenses for the non-fatal shooting of State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, and two murder charges for the killing of former State House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. He faces anywhere from 20 years in prison to a potential death sentence for the federal murder charge.
The case had a lot of weird aspects to it, from him being a Tim Waltz appointee to the suspect’s wife being stopped with cash and passports in her car to the supposed anti-abortion motive to the No Kings flyers in his car to the murdered lawmaker being the only Democrat to vote for repealing taxpayer frunded illegal alien health care. A bunch of things don’t add up, especially how quickly the story seemed to disappear off news radar…
Finally. “Feds Crush Violent Antifa Uprising Outside Portland ICE Facility.” Now the feds need to start looking into RICO charges against Antifa funders…
Speaking of antifa behaving badly, they just attacked two more journalists, Cameron Higby and Brandi Kruse.
“DOJ charges another Chinese researcher with smuggling ‘biological materials’ into US. The new case accuses Chinese researcher Chengxuan Han of trying to smuggle packages containing concealed biological material related to round worms into the country by sending multiple packages that contain the material to a lab in the U.S.” It looks like we need to check the lab of every Chinese national studying biology in the U.S. for possible biological warfare material. Indeed, given these arrests, we may already be doing so. (Hat tip: TPPF.)
“New Law Protects Property Owners, Assists in Removing Squatters.” Good to see Texas getting ahead of the issue.
We don’t cotton to cop killers in Texas. “El Salvadoran Illegal Alien Receives Death Penalty for Murder of Harris County Deputy. Oscar Rosales never disputed that he killed Deputy Corporal Charles Galloway in a January 2022 shooting.” El Salvador, eh? Maybe we can pay El Salvador to keep him in CECOT while his appeals play out, then fly him back to execute him…
Trigger warning: Another case of two gay men adopting a baby and raping it to death.
That’s the face (and haircut) Democrats want to put forward as representing their party.
Over the weekend, Texas Democrats elected Kolby Duhon as their new vice chair for finance. The position is responsible for a variety of duties related to the party’s raising and spending of money.
Duhon filled a vacancy that opened when the previous vice chair, Kendall Scudder, was elected party chairman in March.
His X feed reveals his radical views.
Duhon describes himself as a “pansexual.” Advocates claim “pansexuals” do not take gender or sexuality into account when choosing a partner. In 2020, Duhon tweeted his admiration for State Rep. Mary Gonzalez (D–San Elizario) and claimed she inspired him to run for a position with the Texas Young Democrats on an “openly Pan” platform.
By “pansexual” I assume he strikes out with both men and women. And what self-respecting gay would want to be seen with someone with that hairstyle?
Duhon uses “they/he” pronouns and helped found the Socialist Caucus of the Texas Young Democrats in 2017.
Beyond his lifestyle choices and political affiliations, Duhon has expressed views on subjects including Israel, policing, and racism that place him on the far-left end of the political spectrum.
Duhon has repeatedly posted in favor of pushing gender confusion on so-called “trans kids.”
Of course he has.
Here’s the perfect face for the modern Democratic Party: A freakshow all the way down…
More signs of the decline of the Democratic Party in Texas. “Tarrant County Democratic Party Chair Resigns Months After All Staff Laid Off. [Crystal Gayden] will continue as chair until July 7 when an election will take place to decide her successor.”
Just a couple months after laying off all of its paid staff, the Tarrant County Democratic Party will need to find a new party chair as incumbent chair Crystal Gayden announced her resignation at the beginning of June.
Gayden, who became party chair back in July 2023, stated in her announcement that she had overseen the strengthening and re-energizing of the party, which had expanded its precinct chair network, prioritized turnout in local elections, grown its supporter base, and increased party visibility, among other things.
For those outside Texas, Tarrant County is home to Ft. Worth and is the third largest county in the state, so the Democrats having no staffers there is a kind of big deal.
As far as “prioritizing turnout,” it’s certainly not visible in national elections. Biden’s recorded vote total in Tarrant County in 2020 was 411,567, edging Trump by just under 2,000 votes. In 2024, it was 384,501 votes, or more than 40,000 votes under Trump’s total. Some triumph of turnout…
“State Sen. Kelly Hancock has officially entered the race for Texas Comptroller with the backing of Gov. Greg Abbott, resigning from the Senate and being sworn in as chief clerk of the agency by outgoing Comptroller Glenn Hegar.”
The move is designed to sidestep a 2002 legal opinion from then-Attorney General Abbott, which held that a sitting state senator cannot be appointed to a position requiring Senate confirmation during the term for which they were elected.
By resigning and taking on the role of “chief clerk,” Hancock avoids triggering the Senate confirmation process while still stepping into the agency’s top position for the remainder of Hegar’s term—through January 2027.
Hegar, who will officially take over as chancellor of the Texas A&M University System on July 1, praised Hancock as his successor.
Snip.
In 2023, Hancock was one of only two Republican senators who sided with Democrats to attempt to remove Attorney General Ken Paxton from office following his impeachment trial. During this most recent legislative session, he was one of seven Republican senators who voted to water down Senate Bill 19—intended to ban taxpayer-funded lobbying—by supporting an amendment that exempted organizations like the Texas Association of School Boards from the ban.
Snip. Don Huffines:
“The political elite are manipulating the system to install another go-along-to-get-along lap dog as State Comptroller, because they know President Trump’s DOGE-style transparency would expose everything. But they don’t just fear me. They fear you—the taxpayers, the grassroots. And they should. The conservative base in Texas is wide awake, fed up, and ready to take back control. And they know we will win,” said Huffines, pointing to endorsements from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Charlie Kirk, Riley Gaines, Ron Paul, and a majority of the State Republican Executive Committee.
Another declared candidate, current Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick, responded by pointing to her statewide record.
“No matter who else enters the race, I’ll put my record up against anyone,” said Craddick. “I’m the only candidate in this race with statewide experience and a proven record running one of Texas’ most important agencies, cutting red tape, generating billions in revenue from oil and gas, and delivering results that fund our schools, roads, and first responders.”
Been a while since we had a juicy crazed poisoner story, so here’s one. Did it not occur to to supergenius (accused) perp that two former lovers both being poisoned by cyanide was pretty handily going to mark him as a suspect?
How many of these classic prog rock intros can you name? Harder than you might think, though I got “The Musical Box” off Genesis’ Nursery Crime on the very first note…
Israeli’s strike on Iran may be shocking to some, but I remember talking to co-workers about the possibility literally two decades ago. The Ayatollah Khomeini made the complete destruction of Israel a stated policy goal at the very outset of the Iranian revolution. Multiple Israeli PMs and American Presidents have made it clear to the Islamic Republic of Iran that they would not be allowed to produce nuclear weapons. Now the mullahs are reaping the whirlwind. And the strikes are still going on. As of this writing, there have been at least nine waves of Israeli strikes on Iran.
Other news: Trump racks up more legal victories, somebody SWATs the head of the FBI, more illegal alien felons deported from Houston, and a couple of callbacks to the 1970s. Plus a whole lot of bullet lists.
“It’s a complete embarrassment for the air defense here. Zero confirmed interceptions of missiles and aircraft so far.” Which is what you would expect after Israel took out Iran’s shitty Russian SAM systems. Not to mention the fact that Iran’s most capable fighter aircraft are pre-revolutionary F-14s…
WILD FOOTAGE! Mosaad had bulit an entire drone facility deep inside Iran, which was activated as the IAF struck with 200 aircraft. The drones took out many surface-to-air missile launchers and ballistic missiles aimed at Israel. The entire Iran now has zero air defenses left. pic.twitter.com/x9IxtfiO1V
If you’ve followed the Middle East at all over the past few decades, you’ve understood that the region was on a path to a conflict — the mullahs in Iran kept inching closer to a functioning nuclear weapon, and Israel — and multiple American presidents — kept declaring that that outcome was unacceptable and had to be prevented at all costs. On June 12, 2025, the Israeli military did something about it. Read on.
Last night’s Israeli air strike was surprising, but also inevitable.
Israel could not live in a world where the Iranian regime had nuclear weapons — or to put it another way, once the mullahs in Tehran had a nuclear weapon, Israel was certain to die, it was just a matter of when. It was just about inevitable that the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism — the primary sponsor of Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Yemen’s Houthis, among others — would sooner or later use those weapons against Israel.
If America were hit by half-dozen nuclear bombs, the effects would be devastating, but America would still function and carry on. If Israel were hit by six nuclear bombs — say one each in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and three other targets of your choice — it would likely cease to exist as a state. Almost three-quarters of Israelis live in cities. Israel’s land area is smaller than New Hampshire.
Two months ago I gave Iran a 60 day ultimatum to “make a deal.” They should have done it! Today is day 61. I told them what to do, but they just couldn’t get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!
Also:
Two Israeli officials claimed to Axios that Trump and his aides were only pretending to oppose an Israeli attack in public — and didn’t express opposition in private. “We had a clear U.S. green light,” one claimed.
The goal, they say, was to convince Iran that no attack was imminent and make sure Iranians on Israel’s target list wouldn’t move to new locations.
Netanyahu’s aides even briefed Israeli reporters that Trump had tried to put the brakes on an Israeli strike in a call on Monday, when in reality the call dealt with coordination ahead of the attack, Israeli officials now say.
While mainstream news outlets, cable networks and social media obsess over Elon Musk’s latest antics, they have neglected a far more important story — the Trump administration is accumulating a significant catalogue of appeals court and SCOTUS victories. Last Friday alone three more wins were added to the list. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the White House may exclude AP from its press pool while SCOTUS stayed a district court order requiring DOGE to heed a Freedom of Information Act request and ruled that it can access Social Security Administration records.
These rulings follow a spate of similar wins last month. On May 30, the Supreme Court stayed a district court ruling that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem couldn’t revoke former President Biden’s parole of 532,000 non-citizens. On May 29, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit stayed a U.S. Trade Court ruling that President Trump’s tariffs are somehow unlawful. On May 22, SCOTUS stayed a district court order reinstating two Biden administration officials fired by Trump. On May 19, SCOTUS stayed a district court ruling that Secretary Noem does not possess the legal authority to terminate the temporary protected status of 350,000 Venezuelan non-citizens.
The seven cases noted above do not exhaust the list of the Trump administration’s wins. During April the administration won three Supreme Court cases. On April 17, Justice Elena Kagan declined to stay a deportation order involving four Mexican nationals without referring the case to the full court. On April 8, SCOTUS stayed a district court order to reinstate 16,000 fired federal employees. On April 7, the Court vacated a district court order blocking deportations pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act. This particular ruling, combined with two others, led the editors of the Wall Street Journal to conclude that the Supreme Court was sending a message to the district courts:
President Trump is exercising executive power in aggressive and often novel ways, and opponents are suing to stop him. But in a trio of recent orders, the Supreme Court has sent lower-court judges an important reminder that they must still respect judicial rules and procedures. A 5-4 majority handed Mr. Trump a partial victory Monday by allowing his Administration to continue deporting Venezuelans believed to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang under the Alien Enemies Act.
The same radical leftists who love burning down cities during their “peaceful protests” are looking to do the same thing this Saturday.
The pro-open-borders riots that have set parts of Los Angeles on fire and have spread to other U.S. cities, including New York, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, were anticipated more than a year ago by Democratic Party operatives gaming out ways to destabilize a second Donald Trump administration. Press reports and war-game scenarios from early 2024 predicted domestic unrest caused by the Trump administration’s arrest and deportation of illegal aliens. Consequently, according to the forecasts, the president’s decision to use the military to quell the violence triggers a crisis at the Pentagon and threatens to split the leadership of the U.S. armed forces.
Whether those scenarios were simply Democratic Party fan fiction or early evidence of a genuine plot to destabilize the government in the event Trump was reelected is likely to become clearer this Saturday. Trump has scheduled a large military parade in the nation’s capital for June 14—the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary, Flag Day, oh, and Trump’s birthday—while his adversaries have planned for a massive nationwide anti-deportation protest the same day. If the point is to overwhelm the capacities of local law enforcement agencies across the country, the administration may have no choice but to mobilize National Guard units and regular troops, like those now on the streets of Los Angeles. And it is the mass mobilization of the U.S. military in American cities, according to the 2024 scenarios, that prompts a crisis in the administration.
According to border czar Tom Homan, the ICE raid that sparked the mayhem in Los Angeles wasn’t detailed to catch illegal aliens, but to serve warrants for a cartel’s money-laundering operation. But to Americans left and right, the protests are about open borders. The Democratic Party base broadly supports the policy, or lack of one, with the radical left leading the violence, and relatively normal Democratic voters believing that it’s a betrayal of American values to refuse anyone a shot at the American dream. Trump voters, on the other hand, expect the president to fulfill his campaign promise to deport tens of millions of illegal aliens. Therefore, Trump couldn’t ignore the riots, even if they directly affected only those who oppose him on open borders, and virtually everything else.
Plans to destabilize the second Trump term have been in the works for at least a year and a half, and the Pentagon was virtually announced as home-base of the next anti-Trump plot.
Copied link
The FBI is investigating “any and all monetary connections responsible for these riots.” But some of the funding streams are already evident—they’re the usual sources of left-wing activist groups and donors, like the Neville Roy Singham-funded Party for Socialism and Liberation—which is to say that money isn’t the crucial factor. For instance, Elon Musk’s shutdown of USAID, which former administrator Samantha Power had used as a slush fund to advance progressive causes here and abroad, emptied only the public sector’s progressive piggy bank. America is teeming with private-sector donors, from “disruptive” tech billionaires to the wan and loveless heiresses who are keen to spend their inheritance on violence that impoverishes others. In America, no leftist will ever go hungry.
The crucial issue is never money but leadership. That top figures and institutions of the Democratic Party have lined up behind the protests already suggests we’re not dealing simply with supposedly fringe elements on the far-left flank of the party. In fact, the operatives who in 2024 gamed out this latest anti-Trump effort are among the party bosses who ran the plot against the president during his first term. Among others, there’s Marc Elias, the Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer who paid for the dossier falsely alleging Trump’s ties to Russia; Mary McCord, a former Barack Obama Justice Department official who oversaw federal law enforcement’s unlawful investigation of the Trump circle; and Rosa Brooks, a former Obama Pentagon official who led the Transition Integrity Project, a 2020 war-game exercise forecasting how Trump was likely to contest the flagrant irregularities that would mark that year’s election and shape its aftermath. TIP was also a communications campaign, feeding press reports that outlined what the Democratic Party and allied institutions—including the court system and Congress—were preparing in order to stop the Republican leader and his supporters.
It seems the same Obama-led crew that’s been targeting Trump since 2015 is still running the same op.
DataRepublican has more info on those funding the protests (with your tax dollars):
🚨 JUST RELEASED: Follow the Money Behind the No Kings Rally 🚨
DataRepublican has launched an interactive, open-source map showing how your tax dollars flow to organizations involved in the No Kings rally.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform is about to focus its investigative powers on Neville Roy Singham, the pro-China Marxist multimillionaire behind many of the destructive far-left demonstrations plaguing the United States in recent years.
The Committee is reportedly issuing a formal document request to Singham over his alleged financial support of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL)—an extremist Marxist group that has been helping to organize violent anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
As the main funder of The People’s Forum, Singham, 71, has also bankrolled the “Free Palestine” protests that erupted after 1,400 innocent Israelis were slaughtered by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The People’s Forum works closely with other organizations in Singham’s network, including PSL and the ANSWER Coalition, all of which have been involved in the anti-Israel protests and anti-ICE riots.
PSL describes itself as a revolutionary socialist party that believes “only a revolution can end capitalism and establish socialism.”
The group supports the Communist Party of China (CCP) and argues that “militant political defense of the Chinese government” is necessary to stave off “counterrevolution, imperialist intervention and dismemberment.”
Trump has shifted the Overton window in the culture away from woke, and it’s hard to imagine it shifting all the way back.
Corporations aren’t going to play ball again the way they did after the death of George Floyd. Trump could well lose his legal battle with Harvard and other schools, but they’ve admitted that they need to change. DEI and other race-conscious policies may go subterranean under different rubrics, although that, in itself, is a sign of weakness. Black Lives Matter has been discredited by scandal, and “anti-racism” now feels more like a relic than the hot new thing.
Let’s hope so, but the left’s embrace of wokeness seems essentially religious (or “religious substitute”) in nature, and religions are notoriously hard to stamp out…
The Wagner Group is bugging out of Mali in favor of new Russian military backed “Africa Corps.”
The Russian Wagner Group formally withdrew from Mali, as the Kremlin continues to transition control of its military operations in Africa to the Ministry of Defense–backed Africa Corps. The shift to more overt Russian state military involvement in Africa creates myriad domestic and geopolitical risks for the Kremlin. Russia may accordingly adapt its engagement in Africa to the detriment of its current and prospective partnerships.
According to this Warfronts (AKA Simon Whistler) video, Wagner is leaving because the Jama’at Nusrat al Islam (JNIM) jihadis have been kicking their ass using motorcycle-based battleswarm tactics, which are well suited for sparsely inhabited, mostly desert environments like Mali.
Harris County gives up on its socialist guaranteed income program.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported 142 criminal aliens from the Houston area to Mexico.
Among them were eight known gang members, 11 convicted child predators, and one individual who had entered the country illegally 21 separate times.
Collectively, the group illegally entered the country 480 times and accumulated 473 criminal convictions for a wide range of serious crimes, including:
11 convictions for child sex crimes
76 convictions for driving while intoxicated (DWI)
43 convictions for aggravated assault and domestic violence
22 convictions for human smuggling
ICE Houston Field Office Director Bret Bradford said, “Unfortunately, this is not an anomaly. For the past few years, there has been virtually no deterrent to illegal entry into the country.”
As a result, millions of illegal aliens, including violent criminals, child predators, transnational gang members, and foreign fugitives, have poured into the U.S.
Among the most egregious cases:
Benito Charqueno Zavala, 60, was convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child and is one of the 11 convicted child predators deported.
Johnny Urbina Carillo, 37, was convicted of sexually exploiting a minor and had prior convictions for cocaine possession and illegal reentry.
Luis Angel Garcia-Contreras, 40, a documented member of the Sureños 13 gang, had illegally entered the U.S. 21 times and had four convictions for illegal entry.
Aaron Reitz, a former deputy attorney general under Ken Paxton and recent Trump administration appointee, announced his campaign for the Republican nomination for Texas attorney general.
Reitz made the announcement Thursday, a day after resigning as assistant attorney general for legal policy under Pam Bondi in the Department of Justice. He previously served as Paxton’s deputy attorney general for legal strategy and as chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
“We are in a fight for the soul of Texas, our nation, and Western civilization itself,” said Reitz in a campaign statement. “This is no time for half-measures or untested cowards.”
“As Attorney General, I’ll use every ounce of legal firepower to defend President Trump, crush the radical Left, advance the America and Texas First agenda, and look out for everyday Texans,” he added.
State senator Mayes Middleton is already in the race.
Finally, an excuse to dig out this classic meme from the depths of time.
Forty electric busses burn in Philadelphia. “They were parked in such a way that there was NO chance for firefighters to do anything. They could[n’t] get close to the fire. The buses were parke[d] so close together that a fire in 1 bus was almost guaranteed to destroy a bunch of them. And with electric buses mixed in, whatever caused the fire, toxic fumes were going to be released.”
Richard Hammond drives the new Morgan Supersport. I’m not a candidate to spend £125,000 on a two seater sports car, even if it were available in the U.S., but that really is a nice looking car.”
Today’s the 81st anniversary of D-Day. Trump and Musk fight over the “big beautiful bill,” the Dutch government collapses, a whole lot of megacorps decide that “Pride Month” is over, hot Skynet on Skynet action, a fake Titanic, “nose ring theory” and a white Black Panther.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Elon Musk is not a fan of the “big, beautiful bill.”
Elon Musk, the former head of the Department of Government Efficiency, on Tuesday dismissed President Trump’s “big, beautiful” spending bill as a “disgusting abomination.”
“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” he said in a post on X.
“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it,” he added.
Musk’s comments on Tuesday represent an even harsher reaction to the bill than his previous criticisms. Last month, he said he was “disappointed” by the House passage of the bill because it undermines the work he has done as the head of DOGE.
“The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday. “It doesn’t change the president’s opinion.”
While the bill aims to cut $1.5 trillion in government spending, it also increases the debt limit by $4 trillion. The U.S. government is more than $36 trillion in debt.
The bill would extend the 2017 tax cuts, introduce new tax cuts such as Trump’s signature “no tax on tips” policy, and add work requirements to Medicaid, among other provisions.
The measure passed 215 to 214 in the House, largely along party lines after Speaker Mike Johnson was able to overcome opposition from members of his caucus who argued the bill should include further spending cuts to offset tax cuts that will add to the country’s deficit.
Musk thoughts mirror my own. They should not have used reconciliation on a bill that doesn’t balance the budget.
Beyond entitlement reform, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget offers users an option in a fix-the-debt-yourself game. Among the options are medical-malpractice reform (saving the U.S. government $40 billion over ten years), allowing private plans to compete with Medicare ($360 billion over ten years), banning state Medicare matching gimmicks ($830 billion over ten years), rescinding Inflation Reduction Act climate tax credits ($780 billion over ten years), and repealing and replacing student-debt cancellation ($320 over ten years). Enact all of those, and that’s another $233 billion per year or so.
The administration of California Governor Gavin Newsom held closed-door talks on trade cooperation with Chinese officials on Monday, ahead of the anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s massacre at Tiananmen Square.
The meeting will take place on the sidelines of the China-California Business Forum, an annual summit hosted by the Chinese consulate general in Los Angeles at the city’s ritzy Biltmore Hotel. That annual gathering gives local and state politicians an opportunity to rub shoulders with their Chinese counterparts.
The Newsom administration’s participation in the meeting comes just ahead of the June 4 anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, which is commemorated by Chinese pro-democracy advocates and human rights advocates.
Should we be relieved that Newsom isn’t actually sleeping with any of them?
You know that illegal alien scumbag gangbanger Democrats were all outraged over his getting deported to El Salvador? Well, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being returned to the U.S….to face charges on human trafficking.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, has returned to the United States to face criminal charges for allegedly transporting illegal immigrants within the U.S., the Department of Justice said Friday.
Last month, a federal grand jury in Tennessee indicted Abrego Garcia, who was deported two months ago from Maryland to El Salvador.
Prosecutors say Abrego Garcia was involved in a nearly decade-long conspiracy to transport thousands of illegal immigrants from Texas to other areas around the country. The illegal immigrants, some of whom were members of the MS-13 gang, came from Mexico and Central America.
“The grand jury found that over the past nine years Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday. “They found this was his full-time job. Not a contractor. He was a smuggler of humans and children and women. He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found, smuggling people throughout our country.”
While the allegations were not included in the May 21 indictment, Bondi said that Abrego Garcia also solicited nude images from a minor and was linked to the murder of a rival gang member’s mother. Co-conspirators also accused Abrego Garcia of assaulting women whom he transported across the country and claimed he was also involved in trafficking firearms and narcotics.
No wonder he’s a poster child for Democrats…
There’s not an Alanis Morissette joke big enough: “A once-prominent Harvard University professor was stripped of her tenure and fired this week for outright fabricating data on numerous academic studies of dishonesty and unethical behavior.”
Francesca Gino was regularly cited as an authority by prominent left-leaning outlets such as National Public Radio and the New York Times. Both outlets now admit that Gino’s research was likely fabricated. Disturbingly, the flaws in her research were exposed not by the allegedly robust university system of peer review, but by a series of posts by science bloggers.
No professor has had tenure revoked at Harvard since the 1940s, when the rules for doing so were formalized, according to the Harvard Crimson. This is the academic nuclear option.
Gino’s first retracted study showed evidence of data fabrication all the way back in 2021, and an investigation into her academic dishonesty lasted for the following two years.
“Paxton Smokes Cornyn 50-28 Percent in Latest 2026 GOP Primary Poll.” Only 600 Republican primary voters, which is on the small side for a poll sample.
Is wokeness dying? A whole lot of Fortune 500 companies have decided that they can now sit “Pride Month” out, including IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Disney, Target, Starbucks, BMW, Bank of America, and even Google. I think most Americans were willing to let adult “LGBs” go off and do their own thing, but every single letter they’ve added to that acronym since (especially the “T”) has marked them as enemies of the people.
Despite the power-sharing cabal ruling the Texas House, a lot of conservative priorities did get get passed and sent to Abbott’s desk. Here’s a roundup.
The Texas Senate succeeded in pushing a majority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s legislative priorities through both chambers during the regular legislative session. Patrick released a list of 40 pieces of priority legislation in the first three months of the year, covering a variety of issues.
Here is the status of the Senate priority bills in the 89th Legislative Session:
Senate Bill 1 – Senate’s Budget for Texas: Passed both chambers.
Senate Bill 2 – Providing School Choice: Signed into law.
Senate Bill 3 – Banning THC in Texas: Sent to Gov. Greg Abbott.
Senate Bill 4 – Increasing the Homestead Exemption to $140,000 ($150,000 for Seniors): Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 5 – Combatting Dementia and Alzheimer’s – Establishing DPRIT (Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas): Signed into law.
Senate Bill 6 – Increasing Texas’ Electric Grid Reliability: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 7 – Increasing Investments in Texas’ Water Supply: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 8 – Requiring Local Law Enforcement to Assist the Federal Government’s Deportation Efforts: Passed both chambers.
Senate Bill 9 – Reforming Bail – Keeping Violent Criminals Off Our Streets: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 10 – Placing the Ten Commandments in School: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 11 – Protecting the Freedom to Pray in School: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 12 – Establishing a Parental Bill of Rights in Public Education: Passed both chambers.
Senate Bill 13 – Guarding Against Inappropriate Books in Public Schools: Passed both chambers.
Senate Bill 14 – Texas DOGE – Improving Government Efficiency: Signed into law.
Senate Bill 15 – Removing Barriers to Housing Affordability: Passed both chambers.
Senate Bill 16 – Stopping Non-Citizens from Voting: Left in House Calendars Committee.
Senate Bill 17 – Stopping Foreign Adversary Land Grabs: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 18 – Stopping Drag Time Story Hour: Left on House General State Calendar.
Senate Bill 19 – Stopping Taxpayer Dollars for Lobbyists: Left in the House State Affairs Committee.
Senate Bill 20 – Stopping AI-Generated Child Pornography: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 21 – Establishing the Texas Bitcoin Reserve: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 22 – Establishing Texas as America’s Film Capital: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 23 – Removing the Cap on the Rainy Day Fund to Secure Texas’ Long-term Financial Future: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 24 – Educating Texas Students on the Horrors of Communism: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 25 – Making Texas Healthy Again: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 26 – Increasing Teacher Pay: Left in the House Public Education Committee.
Senate Bill 27 – Establishing a Teacher Bill of Rights: Passed both chambers.
Senate Bill 28 – Banning Lottery Couriers: Left in House Licensing and Administrative Committee.
Senate Bill 29 – Texas: Open for Business: Signed into law.
Senate Bill 30 – Curbing Nuclear Verdicts: Conference committee appointed.
Senate Bill 31 – Life of the Mother Act: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 32 – Business Tax Relief: Left in the House Ways and Means Committee.
Senate Bill 33 – Stopping Taxpayer-Funded Abortion Travel: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 34 – Wildfire Response: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 35 – Competing for Quality Roads: Left on House General State Calendar.
Senate Bill 36 – Establishing a Homeland Security Division within [the Department of Public Safety]: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 37 – Reforming Faculty Senates: Passed both chambers.
Senate Bill 38 – Stopping Squatters: Sent to Abbott.
Senate Bill 39 – Protecting Texas Trucking: Left in the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee.
Senate Bill 40 – Stopping Taxpayer-Funded Bail: Sent to Abbott.
Not every conservative priority passed, and I don’t agree with every bill (much less every part of every bill), but a lot of progress was made this legislative session. Dan Patrick’s senate seems much better at delivering conservative results than David Dewhurst’s senate ever was.
Columbia U finally gets to the “find out” stage: “Columbia University Failed to Meet Accreditation Standards, Department of Education Finds.”
Columbia University failed to meet accreditation standards due to its inability to uphold civil rights law and punish harassment against Jewish students, the Department of Education announced Wednesday.
Office of Civil Rights (OCR) officials have notified the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the body that sets Columbia’s accreditation standards, that the university is “in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws and therefore fails to meet standards.” Administrators’ unwillingness to address months of anti-Israel activism on Columbia’s campus created an unsafe environment for Jewish students, the department added, putting the university in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“The Dutch government collapsed on Tuesday after the Party for Freedom led by Geert Wilders pulled out of the coalition over the government’s asylum policy. Wilders had been adamant leading up to the collapse that without strict restrictions on immigration, his party would leave the coalition government. Wilders made good on those threats Tuesday.” Europe’s political elites evidently love unassimilated Muslim immigration more than they love life itself.
Marcos Lopez, the Democratic sheriff of Osceola County, Florida decided that, instead of busting an illegal gambling operations, it was a lot more profitable to run it.
Someone asked me why UK Labour PM Keir Starmer was suddenly sounding like an uberhawk, talking about expanding UK’s nuclear submarine building program, etc. Actually, this is nothing particularly new, as he made similar points in February, and even last year. But I think the release of the 2025 Strategic Defence Review is driving much of the current chatter. A lot of it just the usual high-minded blather and buzzwords you find in any such doc, but there’s some meat here. Such as this “list of technologies redefining warfare” on page 27:
Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and data science, improving the quality and speed of decision-making, the resilience of
digital networks, and operational effectiveness. Forecasts of when Artificial General Intelligence (Where AI matches or surpasses humans’ ability to understand, learn, and apply knowledge across a range of situations unaided) will occur are uncertain but shortening, with profound implications for Defence.
Robotics and autonomy, with armed forces increasingly using uncrewed and autonomous capabilities to generate mass and lethality.
Enhanced precision weapons that mean targets can be struck with greater accuracy from ever
greater ranges.
Directed energy weapons, such as the UK’s DragonFire, which have the potential to reduce collateral damage and reliance on expensive ammunition.
Hypersonic missiles, which, travelling at over five times the speed of sound, may offer greater range and greater ability to evade defences.
Space-based capabilities that enable all aspects of modern operations. States are rapidly developing ways to disrupt military and civilian assets in and from space.
Quantum. Advances in quantum computing offer the potential to break encryption, making secure communications much more difficult. Quantum technologies have the
potential to reduce dependence on satellite-based GPS, which may be vulnerable to interference.
Cyber threats that will become harder to mitigate as technology evolves, with AI, quantum technology, and the increasing dependence on satellite communications likely driving the most disruptive changes to the cyber threat landscape.
Engineering biology that creates the potential to enhance the capacity of the armed forces through advances in medicine, healthcare, and wellbeing, possibilities for new energetic and explosive materials, as well as avenues for enormous harm in the shape of new pathogens and other weapons of mass destruction.
A nice list of science fiction story ideas, some even with near-term defense applications.
They’re also buying more subs and planes…
Speaking of future warfare, Lockheed Martin has launched AI “fight club” to test AIs against each other. This is a god idea, if they have their little Forbin Projects properly sandboxed, and if they remember that the map is not the territory. There are always radical surprises in warfare… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Ono, who curiously was the only finalist advanced by the search committee for the job, came with their unanimous recommendation on May 4 and was unanimously approved by the university’s Board of Trustees on May 27. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has pledged that Florida is “where woke goes to die,” remained oddly reticent about Ono—stating first that he trusted the process, and later that the governors (15 of the 17 governors were appointed by DeSantis), should follow their consciences in deciding Ono’s fate.
Other Florida conservatives, including Senator Rick Scott and Congressmen Greg Steube, Byron Donalds, and Jimmy Patronis, denounced the appointment and outright called for a negative vote.
Ono’s rejection by the Florida Board of Governors is an unprecedented, but legally and procedurally correct, use of its powers. Ono’s demise followed a polite but charged meeting in Orlando on the campus of Central Florida University. Public comments included scathing denunciations and trenchant questions about his candidacy based on his well-documented record for supporting DEI, critical race theory, and radical gender ideology, among other leftist shibboleths.
DeSantis should have done more to nip this candidacy in the bud.
The New Harbor Bridge in Corpus Christi is about to open after years of delay. It has numerous innovative features, and I’m including it here for the blog’s bridge and infrastructure enthusiasts (you know who you are).
Speaking of which: “‘Andor’ Creator Says Disney Spent ‘$650 Million for 24 Episodes’ and ‘We Fought Hard’ for Money After Being Told in Season 2: ‘Streaming Is Dead. We Don’t Have the Money We Had Before.’”
This week brought not one, but gully washers to the Austin area, so now I’m fighting a war against a zillion millipedes climbing the walls to invade every nook and crevice of my home, so I’ve been spraying a lot of pesticide around windows. A Supreme Court win for Trump, lots of budget wrangles, a look at the burgeoning Democrat Party civil war, antifa finally gets investigated, and more Harvard-bashing from the Babylon Bee.
The Supreme Court on Friday sided with the Trump administration – allowing them to revoke temporary legal status granted to over 500,000 immigrants by the Biden administration.
In a 7-2 vote, the court granted an emergency application filed by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem that ends the Biden program which granted 532,000 people from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua permission to temporarily live and work in the United States.
This Part 1 report will focus on the George Soros-funded NEO Philanthropy which is funding and orchestrating a massive, nationwide illegal immigration scheme through NEO’s the Four Freedoms Fund.
In the 2024 election, NEO Philanthropy’s Four Freedom Fund sought to raise $5 million to help illegal immigrants stay in the country in the event of a victory by Donald Trump.
A Capital Research report shows NEO Philanthropy and its advocacy sibling received $21 million from the Soros Network to support “advocacy on Latinx rights and empowerment,” change policy in North Carolina, register voters and fund get-out-the-vote efforts among “historically disenfranchised voters” (read: likely Democrats), and boost the Movement for Black Lives.
The Four Freedoms Fund is a donor collaborative of NEO Philanthropy. The Fund primarily focuses on pushing left-of-center immigration policies, including “legalization of undocumented immigrants” through a path to citizenship and comprehensive immigration reform legislation. The Fund is critical of what it calls “anti-immigrant ordinances” created by conservative legislators, including deportations by U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE).
NEO Philanthropy (formerly Public Interest Projects) is a New York-based nonprofit that serves as a fiscal clearinghouse for left-of-center causes. The group serves as a vehicle for left-of-center foundations to pool resources, hosts donor-advised funds, and sponsors various advocacy projects.
The organization is the fiscal sponsor of left-of-center entities, including the Funders Committee on Civic Participation, a voter mobilization group. Disbursing grant money remains one of NEO’s primary functions; NEO Philanthropy gave close to 60 percent of its total expenditures as grants.
Inside Philanthropy described NEO as “an intermediary that doesn’t have its own resources for grantmaking.” The group receives funding from major left-of-center donors institutions including the Atlantic Philanthropies, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Gill Foundation, the Pew Trusts and the Carnegie Corporation, among others. The organization and similar left-of-center groups that engage in “nonpartisan” voter registration have received criticism for appearing to favor the registration of voters exceptionally likely to vote for Democrat candidates.
According to a 2016 report, an Obama administration appointee managed a fund that George Soros used to bankroll election-related activities likely increasing the number of “voters of color” and “improving odds” of electing preferred candidates.
Karen Narasaki, a commissioner of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, managed the Soros-backed NEO-linked Shelby Response Fund. Narasaki worked as a corporate attorney at Russia Collusion hoax conspirator Perkins Coie in Seattle.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis slammed Congressional Republicans on Tuesday over their lack of action on cutting the government waste and abuse identified by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Back in March, Congress passed the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025, which maintained funding for USAID at the FY 2024 level, effectively extending existing funding for the purportedly “rogue agency” through September 30, 2025.
The “Big Beautiful Bill,” which narrowly passed in the House of Representatives last week, reportedly includes $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, including the largest-ever welfare reform.
But because it is a reconciliation bill, Senate rules limit the cuts to “mandatory” spending only, such as Medicaid and Food Stamps, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller explained on X. The DOGE cuts are overwhelmingly discretionary, not mandatory, so they are not addressed in the Big Beautiful Bill.
Many conservatives have expressed disappointment that Republicans have failed to codify any meaningful cuts in wasteful discretionary spending, as identified by DOGE, in separate bills. Meanwhile, the director of the National Economic Council promised last week that “way more spending cuts” are coming later this year.
In a post on X, DeSantis put the heat on Republicans to do just that, pointing out that DOGE Chief Elon Musk “took massive incoming,” which included “attacks on his companies” and “personal smears” while leading the DOGE effort. “He became public enemy #1 of legacy media around the world,” DeSantis wrote. “To see Republicans in Congress cast aside any meaningful spending reductions (and, in fact, fully fund things like USAID) is demoralizing and represents a betrayal of the voters who elected them,” the governor added.
“House Republicans plan to tee up its first Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cut bill next week targeting foreign aid, National Public Radio (NPR) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) revealed on Wednesday.” Call me thick, but I just don’t see how Republicans can beat a Democratic filibuster without reconciliation, and I don’t think they can use that for this bill.
Hispanic moderates increasingly resemble white moderates politically. They are voting their ideology and political views not their group identity. This is further illustrated by examining Hispanic moderates’ more specific political views.
1. Hispanic moderates think the Democrats have moved too far left. In a 2024 YouGov survey for The Liberal Patriot and Blueprint, three in five Hispanic moderates agreed the Democratic Party had moved too far left on economic issues and about the same felt they’d moved too far left on “cultural and social issues.”
2. Hispanic moderates are hawkish on illegal immigration. In the same survey, more of these voters thought “America needs to close its borders to outsiders and reduce all levels of immigration” than believed “people around the world have the right to claim asylum and America should welcome more immigrants into the country.” Most Hispanic moderates endorsed a combination of border security and more legal immigration.
Also in that survey, net support (support minus oppose) among Hispanic moderates for a proposal to “use existing presidential powers to stop illegal migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border” was 59 points (63 percent to 4 percent). Similarly, Hispanic moderates supported by 36 points restricting “the ability of migrants who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border to seek asylum.” And they backed deputizing “the National Guard and local law enforcement to assist with rapidly removing gang members and criminals living illegally in the United States” by 34 points.
3. Hispanic moderates are tough on crime and supportive of law enforcement. Hispanic moderates supported by 53 points a proposal to “increase funding for police and strengthen criminal penalties for assaulting cops.” These voters even supported by 17 points a draconian proposal to “change federal law so that drug traffickers can receive the death penalty.”
4. Hispanic moderates are opposed to Democrats’ stance on transgender issues. In a 2023 YouGov survey for The Liberal Patriot, voters were offered the following three choices:
States should protect all transgender youth by providing access to puberty blockers and transition surgeries if desired, and allowing them to participate fully in all activities and sports as the gender of their choice;
States should protect the rights of transgender adults to live as they want but implement stronger regulations on puberty blockers, transition surgeries, and sports participation for transgender minors; or
States should ban all gender transition treatments for minors and stop discussion of gender ideology in all public schools.
The first position here, emphasizing availability of medical treatments for trans-identifying children (euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming” care) and sports participation dictated by gender self-identification, is unquestionably the default position of the Democratic Party. Indeed, to dissent in any way from this position in Democratic circles is still enough to earn one the sobriquet of “hateful bigot”—or worse. Yet less than a fifth of Hispanic moderates (19 percent) endorse this position. Nearly twice as many of these voters endorse the strictest position: that medical treatments for transgender children should simply be banned, as should discussion of gender ideology in public schools. And 45 percent favor the second position, advocating stronger regulation on puberty blockers, transition surgeries, and sports participation for transgender minors. Together, the latter two positions make it four-to-one among Hispanic moderates against the Democratic position.
5. Hispanic moderates want cheap, reliable energy not a renewables revolution. Cost and reliability is what Hispanic moderates really care about when it comes to energy. Given four choices of their energy policy priorities in a 2024 YouGov climate issues survey for AEI’s Center for Technology, Science and Energy, 49 percent of these voters said the cost of the energy they use was most important to them. Another 25 percent said the availability of power when they need it was most important. Together that’s 74 percent of Hispanic moderates prioritizing the cost or reliability of energy. In contrast, just 21 percent thought the effect on climate of their energy consumption was most important. (Another 4 percent selected the effect on U.S. energy security).
Unsurprisingly given this pattern, it turns out that Hispanic moderates just don’t care very much about the climate change issue. In the survey, voters were asked to assess their priorities for the government to address in the coming year. Among 18 options, climate change ranked 14th, beating out only global trade, drug addiction, racial issues, and the problems of poor people.
In terms of general energy strategy, when presented with a choice among three options—a rapid green energy transition, an “all of the above” energy policy, and emphasizing fossil fuels—Hispanic moderates strongly prefer an “all of the above” approach to energy policy including oil, gas, renewables, and nuclear. Only a fifth support a rapid transition to renewables—actually less than support flat-out stopping the renewables push. Hispanic moderates’ preference for an “all of the above” energy strategy is reinforced by their answers to a binary question asking if they preferred using a mix of energy sources versus phasing out fossil fuels. The overwhelming judgement: 71 to 29 percent against eliminating fossil fuels.
So Democratic Party policy falls into two categories for moderate Hispanics: The ones that are low priority, and the ones they actively hate.
The Democratic Party is indeed in trouble, and once Jeffrey Blehar gets past the requisite NRO anti-Trump sneers, he correctly fingers the social justice culprits.
The Democratic Party is being pulled apart by horses: On one hand, the party is increasingly held in contempt by once reliable voter demographics (Hispanics, African Americans, working-class men) as out-of-touch elitists taking orders from the Ivy League and the progressive ultra-left. On the other hand — and just as relevantly — the party is crippled from within by that same hard-left faction, which has held the ideological whip-hand over Democrats’ social agenda for a decade now.
These people are the problem. The inflexibly ratcheting social demands of the progressive activist/academic elite are the reason Democrats are in enormous trouble and will be even after Trump is forgotten. And these people are both practically and (more importantly for Democratic politics) morally entrenched within the party at all levels except the top strategic layer. They will not concede power easily, if at all. A civil war thus brews in the Democratic Party’s intellectual/activist wing against its reform-minded moderates. (Grab your popcorn.)
I’m not sure that the entire cadre of “reform-minded moderates” with any appreciable role within the party itself could fill a high school basketball arena. Within the ranks of the DNC itself, I doubt they could fill a Denny’s. But the corrupt wing of the party has indeed come to the realization that the policies of the insane wing are so unpopular that the corrupt wing is in danger of longer being able to rake off its usual graft, hence the crisis. Too bad for them that they’ve essentially ceded the Party’s entire ideological apparatus to the insane wing, and the predominately over-60 corrupt wing has no viable way to change course or purge their own institutions.
Another obvious example beckons: The hilarious plight of David Hogg, the whippet-faced punk set to be voted out of his newly acquired vice chairmanship at the Democratic National Committee next month for being a mutinous weasel, is emblematic of how the Democratic Party is currently consuming itself in internecine war. Hogg, recall, was essentially given the gig by a bunch of older, clueless Democratic Party grandees who voted for him in the hopes he would help bring disaffected young progressives back into the fold. Instead Hogg understands himself to be working not for the Democratic Party, but rather for the progressive movement — hence his announcement that he would use his position and powers to support primary challengers to insufficiently woke Democratic incumbents.
The future looks even more grim for the Democrats for structural reasons. The 2030 census is expected to subtract a swath of House seats (and thus electoral votes) from California and New York, in favor of red states like Florida and Texas. While this bodes ill for remaining Republican incumbents in those states (who can expect to be brutally redistricted away by 2032), it bodes in many ways even worse for the remaining Democrats, who will be left fighting over the division of a shrinking pie.
Understand: A significant number of those currently angry with the Democrats are angry at them for their failure to resist Donald Trump volubly enough, not for being too far to the left. These are the people Democrats absolutely must carry reliably as part of any victorious national coalition, given their preponderance within the party electorate. They will make demands accordingly. If anything, expect the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in its biggest states to lean even more progressive in years ahead as the moderates lose internal battles for position.
There are no Democrat moderates, only Zuul. Assuming Zuul is a 400-pound, purple-haired tranny screaming about Gaza…
After five years of letting Antifa run wild in the Pacific northwest, the FBI is finally investigating.
The FBI has indicated it will investigate the attack on a Christian group and the cops who came to intervene after a Memorial Day weekend melee in Seattle.
After the attack and outrageous response by Seattle’s Mayor Bruce Harrell, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino issued this statement: “We have asked our team to fully investigate allegations of targeted violence against religious groups at the Seattle concert. Freedom of religion isn’t a suggestion.”
I claimed in this must-read background story, Seattle Attack Offers More Proof That Antifa Thugs Are Just Democrat Anti-Christian Shock Troops, exactly what the title says, and that these anti-Christian attacks are nothing new. Further, after watching these groups for years, I can attest that the Seattle and Portland Antifa groups intermingle and help each other out, as Andy Ngo points out above.
Hopefully the current investigation will also target their finding sources and start bringing RICO charges against the entire terrorist network. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“[Texas] House Passes Immigration Enforcement Bill Mandating Local ICE Cooperation. Lawmakers approved legislation requiring counties with jails to enter into immigration enforcement agreements with the federal government.”
President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders designed to fast-track the development and deployment of advanced nuclear reactors on Friday culminating a dramatic policy shift aimed at revitalizing the U.S. nuclear energy sector.
Flanked in the Oval Office by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Trump declared nuclear power “a hot industry” and praised it as “very safe and environmental.”
Burgum called it “a huge day for the nuclear industry,” and added, “Mark this day on your calendar. This is going to turn the clock back on over 50 years of over regulation of an industry.”
These orders aim to strip away what the administration describes as decades of regulatory overreach that have stifled innovation and stagnated the industry. “America’s greatness has always come from innovation,” Burgum said. “We led post-World War Two in all things nuclear. But then we’ve been stagnated. We’ve choked it with over regulation.”
The first of Trump’s executive orders directs the Department of Energy (DOE) to accelerate research and development, speed up reactor testing at national labs, and initiate a two-year pilot program for reactor construction.
A second order clears regulatory hurdles for the DOE and the Department of Defense (DOD) to build reactors on federal land — efforts that will bypass the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) entirely by using the agencies’ own regulatory authority.
The Trump administration has intensified the U.S.-China trade war by suspending exports of critical American technologies to China, including jet engine parts, semiconductor design software, specialized chemicals, and industrial machinery. The move follows Beijing’s recent decision to restrict shipments of rare earth minerals to U.S. firms. In a further escalation, Washington also announced plans to begin revoking visas for Chinese students in sensitive research fields.
Snip.
Adding to the trade tensions, sources familiar with the matter told The New York Times overnight that the U.S. Commerce Department had suspended certain export licenses allowing U.S. companies to supply engine parts and technology to China’s state-owned aircraft manufacturer, Comac (Commercial Aircraft Corp of China).
Comac has stockpiled engines and parts in anticipation of potential trade restrictions. Still, over time, the move could significantly undermine China’s aviation. The company’s C919 passenger jet—its flagship jet to challenge rival Boeing and Airbus—relies heavily on GE Aerospace–Safran’s LEAP engines.
Keep in mind that certain semiconductor parts had already been embargoed under Biden. A complete embargo of semiconductor parts is going to screw China’s semiconductor industry, as some of those parts simply can’t be sourced locally, to say nothing of losing access to trained maintenance techs, software upgrades, etc.
Ukraine claimed credit for two explosions in Vladivostok, which is on Russia’s Pacific coast and is a whopping 6,800km from Ukraine.
Saudi Arab wants you to know that he stands with Israel because Palestinians suck:
An Arab man from Saudi Arabia in a message to Palestinians:
"Who are you trying to fool? You have no land and no case. This land belongs to Israel for the people of Israel. You Palestinians are evil in any country you set foot on!"
California starts backing away from letting boys compete in girls events. Timidly and halfheartedly, to be sure, but something vaguely resembling progress. Gavin Newsom’s secret 2028 presidential race polling must show that tranny pandering is killing him in any general matchup…
A bill to make Daylight Savings Time permanent has passed both the Texas house and senate and heads to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk to be signed, but can’t take effect until federal law changes to accommodate it.
MSNBC’s new prime time lineup, which debuted on May 5th, failed to connect with viewers in its first three weeks as the network saw its audience decline to near record lows – especially in the key 25-54 age demographic.
Overall for May, MSNBC dropped 41% in the primetime demo and 34% in the total day demo compared to May of 2024. In total viewers, the network was down 33% across total day and 24% in prime time. MSNBC’s total day demo viewership sank to 49,000 average viewers and 73,000 in prime time – its second worst ever showing for a month behind January of 2025.
Fox News was the only of the big three networks to see year-over-year gains for May, up 21% in total viewers and 22% in total day demo viewers compared to 2024. In prime time, Fox gained 23% in total viewers and was up 32% in the demo.
CNN was down 24% in total day viewers and 27% in the daytime demo, while in prime time the network dropped 18% in total viewers and 21% in the demo. CNN’s prime time average came in at only 426,000 total viewers, compared to Fox News’s 2.5 million viewers and MSNBC’s average of 877,000 viewers.
Why would you even bother to advertise on MSNBC? 79,000 is less people than fill a big college football stadium on a Saturday…
Speaking of CNN, the red-pilling of Jake Tapper continues apace. His son is a gamer and high school football player who wants to be a policeman, so naturally lefty sorts immediately assumed he was a racist.
And despite his book tour, Tapper’s ratings are down as well. Why, it’s like viewers believe Tapper will continue to lie to protect Democrats in the future…
100% of studio headed by woman who won’t hire white people laid off.
The city of Austin wants to spend $5.8 million on art about hybrid plant women for an airport expansion.
The Austin City Council is set to vote again on art for the airport expansion. After postponing the vote because of outrage for using out of town artist. Well they're back at it. 🧵 1/5 Item 1 the biggest chunk: Saya Woolfalk not to exceed $5.8 million is out of NYC pic.twitter.com/SiApWQVc4P
In 2018, Liangbing Hu, a materials scientist at the University of Maryland, devised a way to turn ordinary wood into a material stronger than steel. It seemed like yet another headline-grabbing discovery that wouldn’t make it out of the lab.
“All these people came to him,” said Alex Lau, CEO of InventWood, “He’s like, OK, this is amazing, but I’m a university professor. I don’t know quite what to do about it.”
Rather than give up, Hu spent the next few years refining the technology, reducing the time it took to make the material from more than a week to a few hours. Soon, it was ready to commercialize, and he licensed the technology to InventWood.
Now, the startup’s first batches of Superwood will be produced starting this summer.
“Right now, coming out of this first-of-a-kind commercial plant — so it’s a smaller plant — we’re focused on skin applications,” Lau said. “Eventually we want to get to the bones of the building. Ninety percent of the carbon impact from buildings is concrete and steel in the construction of the building.”
To build the factory, InventWood has raised $15 million in the first close of a Series A round. The round was led by the Grantham Foundation with participation from Baruch Future Ventures, Builders Vision, and Muus Climate Partners, the company exclusively told TechCrunch.
InventWood’s Superwood product starts with regular timber, which is mostly composed of two compounds, cellulose and lignin. The goal is to strengthen the cellulose already present in the wood. “The cellulose nanocrystal is actually stronger than a carbon fiber,” Lau said.
The company treats it with “food industry” chemicals to modify the molecular structure of the wood, he said, and then compresses the result to increase the hydrogen bonds between cellulose molecules.
“We might densify the material by 4x and you might think, ‘Oh, it’ll be four times strong, because it has four times the fiber.’ But it’s actually more like 10 times stronger because of all these extra bonds that get created,” Lau said.
The result is a material that has 50% more tensile strength than steel with a strength-to-weight ratio that’s 10 times better.
Some grains of salt are probably in order here, as this sounds just a little too good to be true, and there are always concerns about material longevity. But materials science is constantly advancing, so maybe this actually will pan out.
“Elon Musk Leaves Job Of Making Government More Efficient For Much Easier Job Of Sending Humans To Mars.”
Memorial Day weekend looms, $96 billion in green fraud, two terminal cases of prostate cancer revealed, Bernie admits Democrats are a threat to democracy, the Supreme smacks down the idea than transsexual rights are more important than democracy or free speech, plus Chinese doctor hanky-panky, revenge porn, a weed heist and a Nazi Muslim Only Fans model.
Former President Joe Biden, the oldest president in U.S. history, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his personal office announced on Sunday afternoon.
Biden, 82, was diagnosed last week after he had dealt with increased urinary symptoms and is currently reviewing treatment options.
“Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms. On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone,” a spokesman for Biden’s personal office said in a statement….
The Gleason score of 9 in Biden’s diagnosis suggests an aggressive form of cancer likely to spread quickly. He will likely require chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and forms of pain management to tackle the illness.
What are the odds they’ve known he had cancer for years and didn’t tell the American public so the ghost in the machine could keep pumping out billions in graft? Speaking of which…
During a blistering Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) was visibly floored after Energy Secretary Christopher Wright dropped a bombshell: the Department of Energy handed out a staggering $93 billion in loans and commitments during the final 76 days of the Biden administration, a figure that more than doubled the loan total from the previous 15 years combined.
Kennedy, in classic fashion, drilled in with precision. “The 76-day period you’re talking about, that’s the period between the time that President Trump was elected and President Biden left office. Is that right?”
“That is correct,” Wright confirmed.
Kennedy didn’t mince words when he asked how any agency could properly vet such massive spending in such a short window. “How do you do due diligence on one loan, much less $93 billion?” he asked.
Wright’s answer was damning.
“I think it’s probably pretty clear it wasn’t done in many cases,” he said. “There were commitments made from businesses that provided no business plan, no numbers about their own financial solvency, or how this project actually worked.”
The senator appeared almost incredulous and asked for clarity: “So, so you’re telling me that the Department of Energy in the 76-day period before their boss was gonna leave office, gave or loaned money to, to entities that had no business plan?”
Andrew: Over the last four elections, Democrats – we felt – that we didn’t have a say on who could be president … I felt like the Democratic Party completely removed the democratic process from its constituents, and I think they need to have some accountability of that.
Bernie: No argument here.
Andrew: 2016 … it felt like they stole it from you. And I’ll be honest, it broke my heart when you supported them.
…
Akassh [Singh]: Could we not also say ostensibly there hasn’t been a fair primary for the Democrats since 2008, are they not also a threat to democracy?
Bernie: Yes. Fair enough. That is, yeah. I’m not gonna argue with that point.
The Supreme Court ordered the Maine House of Representatives on Tuesday to restore the vote of a Republican lawmaker who was censured after she wrote an online post defending fairness in women’s sports and criticizing the intrusion of a trans-identifying male athlete into female competition.
Maine Representative Laurel Libby filed the emergency appeal to the Supreme Court while a lawsuit over the social media post plays out. In the post written earlier this year, Libby criticized a male high school athlete who won a girls’ track meet, and included in the post the male student’s name.
The Democrat-controlled Maine House decided that Libby’s post violated ethics in identifying the student, and when she chose not to apologize, Libby was subsequently banned from speaking and voting on the House floor.
Supreme Court justices sided with Libby 7-2 with Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting.
“The U.S. Supreme Court just restored the voice of 9,000 Mainers!” Libby said on X. “After 2+ months of being silenced for speaking up for Maine girls, I can once again vote on behalf of the people of House District 90. This is a win for free speech — and for the Constitution.”
A Mexican national was charged for allegedly providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization by the Western District of Texas — the first indictment of its kind in the nation.
Maria Del Rosario Navarro-Sanchez allegedly assisted the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) with obtaining grenades, as well as trafficking humans, firearms, and narcotics “on behalf” of the criminal organization.
The 39-year-old Mexican woman was charged by the court with “conspiracy to smuggle and transport aliens in the United States, straw purchasing and trafficking in firearms, bulk cash smuggling conspiracy, and conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute,” the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) shared on Friday afternoon.
Navarro-Sanchez was joined in her indictment by two other co-defendants: Luis Carlos Davalos-Lopez and Gustavo Castro-Medina, also both Mexican nationals facing similar smuggling, trafficking, and straw purchasing charges.
Three hundred years ago, the remarkable satirist Jonathan Swift wrote, “When a true Genius appears in the World, you may know him by this infallible Sign; that the Dunces are all in Confederacy against him.”
Now, you might not be President Trump’s biggest fan. Perhaps you are glad that he has returned to the White House but look forward to one of his capable lieutenants succeeding him in four years. But I would argue that never has a larger collection of absolute idiots assembled to oppose an American leader, and for that reason alone, Donald J. Trump is probably a genius. (And a very stable one at that!)
Right now, Democrats are waging a public relations campaign in support of criminal illegal aliens. They are trying to make military-aged males with gang tattoos look sympathetic. Sure, many of them have been accused of engaging in human-trafficking, drug-smuggling, identity theft, and fraud, but Democrats say these “new” Americans are just like us. Sure, foreign nationals are regularly accused of rape and murder across the United States, but Democrats are quick to point out that “old” Americans commit heinous crimes, too. Sure, illegal aliens are a huge financial burden to the prison system, welfare programs, health care, public schools, and local communities, but Democrats insist that it’s “racist” to tell the truth out loud.
While President Trump is rounding up violent criminals who have no right to be in the United States, Democrats are crying in front of cameras and promising to bring them back to a neighborhood near you. In four months, they’ve shown more love for foreigners who broke into our country than they’ve ever shown for American victims of transnational cartels!
In a Monday bipartisan vote of 133 to 8, House members approved Sen. Joan Huffman’s (R-Houston) Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 5 that allows judicial officers the discretion to deny bail to defendants charged with murder or capital murder, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery, aggravated sexual assault, indecency with a child, trafficking of persons, and continuous trafficking of persons.
Bail may also be withheld for aggravated assault if the person caused serious bodily injury or used a weapon.
Hopefully this will result in fewer citizens being killed by the criminals that Soros-backed prosecutors love letting back out on the street.
Congressman Kevin Kiley’s resolution to save gas cars from extinction in 2035 in California has passed Congress and heads to President Trump’s desk, where he will sign the measure.
The resolution revokes the EPA waiver secured in 2020 by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and eleven other states, aimed at getting rid of gas cars and attempting to switch to all-electric vehicles.
Guess which party rules over the woke states blindly following Newsom’s disastrous proposal.
California-Socialist
Colorado-Democrat
Delaware-Dummocrat
Maryland-Dummocrat
Massachusetts-Taxocrat
New Jersey-Democrat
New Mexico-Democrat
New York-Democrat
Oregon-Socialist
Rhode Island-Democrat
Vermont-Communist
Washington-Communist
District of Columbia-Stupidcrat
Newsom sought the waiver from the Executive Branch. Now he’s suing the Executive Branch to say it doesn’t have the right to take away his waiver.
Curioser and curioser: “Father Of DC Shooting Suspect Was Democrats’ Honored Guest At Trump Congressional Address.”
The father of the suspected gunman in the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers at the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday, was the honored guest of a far-left lawmaker at President Trump’s joint address to Congress back in March, the New York Post reported.
Eric Rodriguez is an anti-Trump SEIU member who also spoke at a Democrat press conference ahead of Trump’s address.
His son, accused killer Elias Rodriguez, 30, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder after allegedly gunning down Yaron Lischinsky, 28, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, who were about to become engaged.
“Eric Rodriguez was our guest during the President’s Joint Speech to Congress, but we don’t know his family,” a spokesperson for Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) told the Post Thursday night.
“Trump Signs Cruz’s ‘TAKE IT DOWN’ Act Banning ‘Revenge Porn’ Into Law. Both President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump threw their support behind the bill prior to its passage.” Like many attempts to regulate cyberspace, the bill is long on good intentions and shorter on the ability to actually regulate a global Internet.
Five Supreme Court justices recuse themselves from a case because they all had publishing deals with one of the companies involved. The last time that happened, Learned Hand was writing decisions…
“Gun Owners of America Endorses Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate.” That’s a good endorsement, as anyone challenging an incumbent senator needs all the help they can get. It’s also insufficient; Jerry Patterson had the pro-gun vote locked up in his four-way Lt. Governor’s race against David Dewhurst, Dan Patrick and Todd Staples in 2014, and he still came in fourth place…
Interesting story about a leading married doctor in China who just got kicked out of his job and the CCP because he pulled strings for not one but two of his would-be baby mommas.
Was social justice games ruiner Sweet Baby Inc. created by the Canadian government? Some evidence suggests so, but this seems far from conclusive.
Bill Maher and Woody Harrelson’s Hollywood weed shop ransacked by thieves. Is this enough to finally make Maher vote Republican?
Asmongold has been highlighting the case of pro-jihad Twitch streamer Hasan Piker for quite some time now, saying that his support for terrorism could be a big danger to Twitch’s advertising revenue screens. Following the DC jihad shooting, Piker was called out by name on CNN
Be honest, I bet you didn’t guess fairy wings was the 2nd accessory this pup likes!
The way she brings it over to her HuDad & pats it, the little lip quiver as she asks so politely for him to help her put them on 🥹 She looks so happy! See the row of bags!… pic.twitter.com/hneFKdUoxb
