DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

Read it.

The influential philosopher Jason Stanley, until now a professor at Yale, will—together with renowned European historians Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore—leave that elite US university for Canada’s Munk School at the University of Toronto.[1] This, says Stanley, protests Trump, who harasses universities with accusations of antisemitism and coerces them with financial threats. When asked whether he would speak of the present-day US in terms of “fascist conditions,” Stanley’s answer was equally succinct and definite: “Yes, of course.” He sees no other, more fitting concept: “Trump is a fascist. His movement is fascist.”

But things are not quite so clear, as the testimony of one of the leading researchers on fascism shows. Robert Paxton, a professor at Columbia University and decades-long luminary of comparative-historical research, stresses that Trump, in contrast to historical fascists, neither wants a strong welfare state nor commands uniformed paramilitaries: “this is not the style of Americans.” Most German historians agree. They are not very visible in comparative fascist studies, since they reference Nazism above all else and often compare the present with Hitler’s dictatorship. Unsurprisingly, this method reveals more differences than similarities. Opposing such a national fixation, David Remnick, editor-in-chief of the New Yorker, put it with inimitable sharpness: “Hitler ruined fascism.”

Many historians consider the term “fascism” to have become vague and worn out by polemical overuse, for example in the GDR or the student movement. Leading intellectuals such as Jürgen Habermas see few similarities between the present situation and historical fascism because “no uniformed marching columns” accompany right-wing populism today. The fact that Trump or Meloni do not indulge in the celebration of war or the use of paramilitary violence is, indeed, one of the best arguments against the choice of this term. Nevertheless, even Jürgen Habermas is by no means certain of his judgment, having seen in the new right-wing populism of 2016 the “breeding ground for a new fascism.”

The thing is that ‘fascism’, however defined, has more in common with the Left than with the Right—Mussolini began as, and always claimed to be, a socialist, and Hitler’s party had that right in its name. The only substantive difference (and, as we all know, small differences can lead to the worst fights) is between nationalist socialism and internationalist socialism.

Read it.

The developing human brain gains billions of neurons while in the womb, and tacks on some more during childhood. For most of the 20th century, the conventional wisdom was that the brain cells grown before adulthood would be the only ones we would have for the rest of our lives. But over the past few decades, more and more research is challenging that belief.

So is it actually possible for adults to grow neurons? While some experts believe there’s strong evidence that we can gain brain cells after childhood, others are still skeptical of this notion.

The process of creating new brain cells is called neurogenesis. Researchers first observed neurogenesis after birth in lab animals of various ages, including mice, rats and songbirds. In adult mice, they found new neurons growing in parts of the brain collectively called the subventricular zone, an area closely linked with sense of smell, as well as in the hippocampus, a structure that’s central to memory.

Read it.

On a humid morning in Fukuoka, a coastal city in southern Japan, a new kind of power came online. Japan has launched Asia’s first osmotic power plant, which generates electricity by mixing fresh water with salt water.

“It’s a meaningful plan—the start of a plan, perhaps—in our response against climate change,” said Kenji Hirokawa, director of the Seawater Desalination Center, which runs the facility, as per Gizmodo.

Fukuoka’s plant is only the second of its kind worldwide, following one in Denmark that opened in 2023. Japan’s version is larger and marks a step forward for this little-used but promising renewable energy source.

The plant will generate about 880,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year—enough to help run a nearby desalination facility and supply around 220 homes. That equals the output of two soccer fields of solar panels, but osmotic power keeps running day and night, in any weather.

The War Zone.

The A-10 may be in the twilight of its career, but that doesn’t mean it’s done proving new capabilities, some of which could impact the USAF’s larger tactical airpower force. In particular, it just tested one capability we have been highlighting as a huge opportunity and potential necessity for a future fight in the Pacific.

A test A-10, looking like it borrowed its nose from an A-6 Intruder, flew for the first time equipped with a refueling probe in place of its nose-mounted aerial refueling receptacle earlier this week. The program has been ongoing for some time. Within days of that first flight, the test ‘Hog’ successfully plugged into a C-130 equipped with aerial refueling drogues. An image, circulating on social media, shows the A-10 in question connected to a drogue trailing behind a Hercules.

This is very odd, since the A-10 is an Air Force plane and ordinarily uses the boom-and-socket Air Force refueling method. The drogue-and-probe method is used by Navy planes. Perhaps they’re readying the A-10s to refuel from the FA-18 tankers often used by carrier jets.

Rival Nations Seize On Choke Points to Counter Trump (Ana Swanson/New York Times)  Nobody else; just Trump.

Trump’s Purge May Be Just Beginning (The Atlantic)

Always Stuck in the 1950s, Trump Courts His Own Suez (Josh Marshall/Talking Points Memo)

Trump’s Cozy Transportation Secretary (Michael Scherer/The Atlantic)

Pam Bondi Wanted a Graceful Exit. But Trump Wanted Her Gone. (New York Times)

What to Know About the ‘Massive’ Military Bunker Beneath Trump’s Ballroom (Luke Broadwater/New York Times)

White House Scrambles to Wipe Trump Meltdown Footage (Annabella Rosciglione/The Daily Beast)

‘I Think It’s Time’: The Inside Story of Pam Bondi’s Ouster (Wall Street Journal)

Jim Acosta Whines Trump Is ‘Winning’ His War on the Press

Federal judge demolishes legal “basis” for Trump’s ballroom (Lisa Needham/Public Notice)

Is It Legal to Bully the Supreme Court? (New York Times)

What the Birthright Case Is Really About ??? Do we want to be the America of John C. Calhoun or Frederick Douglass? (Adam Serwer/The Atlantic)

March Jobs Shocker: Payrolls Soar By 178K Most Since 2024, Blowing Away All Estimates; Unemployment Rate Drops

Liberal Group Warns That Trump Could Have Two More Supreme Court Picks (Reid J. Epstein/New York Times)

Reeling from war in the Middle East, Trump reaches for a reset (Washington Post)

Pam Bondi’s firing won’t have the effect Trump desires (Moira Donegan/The Guardian)  As if anybody at the Guardian has a clue as to what Trump desires.

The six big events that have dragged down Donald Trump’s approval rating (G. Elliott Morris/Strength In Numbers)  The one that Rasmussen says remains at 51%? That approval rating?

When the Bond(i) breaks — Presented by Good morning and happy Friday. (Kimberly Leonard/Politico)

Whole Hog Politics: Bondi beached (Chris Stirewalt/The Hill)

Hegseth’s War on America’s Military (Tom Nichols/The Atlantic)

The bizarre reason Hegseth’s right-hand man is spreading damaging rumors about the Secretary of War (Steven Nelson/New York Post)

The Mythology of Pete Hegseth (Garrett Graff/Doomsday Scenario).

All the President’s Women Scapegoats (William Kristol/The Bulwark)

Evangelicals widely backed Trump. Now pastors denounce his ICE crackdown after it hit their churches. (Nicole Acevedo/NBC News)

Hegseth’s wartime firing of top generals stuns officials: “It’s insane” (Colin Demarest/Axios)  I guess it would be too much work to look up how many generals Marshal fired at the beginning of U.S. entry into World War II.

Trump wants the world to buy more US oil. He might regret it. (Mike Soraghan/Politico)  Then again, he might not.

Amanpour Parrots Regime Hacks About Trump’s Assault On ‘2,500-Year Old Civilization’  That civilization was destroyed by the Muslims in the 7th century.

Trump and the Myth of American Oil Independence (Joseph J. Schatz/Politico) America had oil independence until Obama and Biden screwed it up.

An Army Shake-Up in the Middle of a War (The Atlantic) This isn’t really a war; this is a beat-down.

Trump accused of running ‘misogynistic administration’ after Bondi dismissal (David Smith/The Guardian)  By people who hated both Bondi and Trump.

Job growth shatters expectations in March, in boost to Trump (Victoria Guida/Politico)

Trump’s back-to-back-to-back setbacks (Aaron Rupar/Public Notice)  The guy after whom RUPAR was named.

Read it.

Two illegal aliens in Fairfax County, Virginia pleaded guilty to murder and could be back out on the street in three years, thanks to a sweetheart deal given them by a progressive prosecutor known for going easy of criminals who illegally enter the U.S.

“The reason why the two men will be serving five years behind bars for murder is that Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano’s office offered them a generous plea deal. And both men took it,” WJLA’s Nick Minock reported Thursday:

The two, if convicted via a trial, could have been sentenced to as much as 40 years in prison.

As the sanctuary state’s Commonwealth’s attorney, Descano has made national headlines by going soft on illegal alien criminals, such as in the case of the murder of Stephanie Minter, who was stabbed to death at a bus.

Minter’s suspected killer, Abdul Jalloh, is an illegal alien with a long criminal history who was free at the time of the murder because Descano’s office ignored warnings from other law enforcement officials not to release him because he posed a danger to the community.

“Wherever possible, Steve will make charging and plea decisions that limit or avoid immigration consequences,” Descano’s website vows.

Read it.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., on Friday called on federal aviation officials to immediately reverse a policy allowing airline passengers to keep their shoes on during airport security screenings, citing newly disclosed findings that the change may have created a significant security vulnerability.

Duckworth, the ranking member of the Senate subcommittee overseeing aviation, said the policy, implemented in July 2025 under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, was enacted without sufficient coordination and has since raised alarms within the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).

In a letter to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) leadership, Duckworth said covert testing conducted by the OIG found that certain full-body scanners used at airport checkpoints are unable to effectively detect threats concealed in footwear.

Unexplained: What serious threats footwear pose. Even the ‘shoe bomber’ who was the cause of this ridiculous policy in the first place wasn’t a serious threat.

Democrats don’t care about security, they just want people inconvenienced and humiliated.

Read it.

The FBI arrested a married couple accused of fraudulently billing Medicare for $7.45 million while running a hospice with a survival rate reported to be more than 97% after five years, in what federal officials say is part of a broader crackdown on rampant healthcare fraud.

The early-morning Thursday raid in San Dimas, California, targeted Gladwin and Amelou Gill, who co-owned 626 Hospice, operating as St. Francis Palliative Care.

Authorities said the unusually high survival rate at the hospice — a major red flag given hospice patients are typically terminally ill — helped trigger the investigation.

The arrests were among the first in a sweeping enforcement operation, with at least eight individuals charged so far and more expected.

Newsbusters.

There are plenty of things an NBA player can do and still keep his job.

League history is littered with examples: players involved in off-court scandals, arrests, and even allegations of serious violence. Time and again, teams and the league have found ways to look past behavior that, in most professions, would be career-ending.

But there appears to be one line that cannot be crossed — especially during Holy Week.

That line, it seems, is expressing a traditional religious belief.

Enter Jaden Ivey.

The former Purdue standout was the fifth overall pick in the 2022 NBA draft, a rising young guard who averaged 16 points and five assists as a rookie with the Detroit Pistons. By his third season, he was approaching 18 points per game before an injury derailed his momentum. Eventually, he landed with the Chicago Bulls.

By all accounts, Ivey was a productive player still on the rise.

Then came an Instagram video.

In it, Ivey — now a newly converted Christian — criticized the NBA’s celebration of Pride Month. His comments reflected a conventional religious viewpoint: that pride, as celebrated in this context, conflicts with Christian teachings on sin.

“They proclaim Pride Month,” Ivey said. “They say, ‘Come join us … to celebrate unrighteousness.’”

That was enough.

UPDATE: Poison Ivey: Chicago Bulls Release Forward After He Speaks Out Against Pride Month

Read it.

As NASA’s Artemis II mission — the first crewed flight around the Moon in over half a century — gets underway, some in the media couldn’t resist injecting race into humanity’s greatest technical achievement.

Instead of celebrating the engineering triumph and the daring crew pushing the boundaries of exploration, certain outlets fixated on skin colour and “representation.” This is the same crowd that claims to champion science, yet they reduce every milestone to identity politics.

A Sky News reporter declared that the Apollo missions to the Moon “didn’t represent humanity because ‘Apollo was all white men…’” highlighting how even lunar history must now be filtered through the lens of grievance.

I guess they couldn’t find a gay black woman to add that little bit extra.

Read it.

In the latest salvo against British identity, a Liberal Democrat-run council has formally branded the simple act of flying the England flag an “act of intimidation and division” – and backed it up with a legal notice threatening residents with prosecution.

Oxfordshire County Council is pushing a county-wide crackdown by on the grassroots Raise the Colours campaign, which has been putting up Union Flags and St George’s Crosses in public spaces as a straightforward show of patriotism. The council’s message is clear: national symbols are now suspect.

The council issued the formal stop notice to the Raise the Colours group, warning that continued flag displays could lead to civil and even criminal proceedings. Council leader Liz Leffman charged that “The widespread installation of flags by Raise the Colours is not a sign of patriotism. It is an act of intimidation and division that is having a real and damaging impact on our communities.”

Read it.

The number of rape suspects in Austria has more than doubled since 2015, with foreign nationals — and Syrians in particular — driving a disproportionate share of the increase. In addition, foreigners nare now responsible for nearly half of all rapes, a major increase from 2015 as well.

The figures, provided by Austria’s Interior Ministry in response to a request by Austrian newspaper exxpress, paint a striking picture of a decade-long trend.

The composition of those suspects has shifted markedly. In 2015, 250 of the 688 suspects were foreign nationals — 36.3 percent of the total. By 2025, that number had risen to 538, representing 46.9 percent of all suspects, despite foreign nationals making up only 20.5 percent of Austria’s population.

Gothamist.

It’s been four years since New Jersey found out it would be hosting the 2026 World Cup — but with only two months until the first game, lawmakers in Trenton are trying to push a 45% spike in local sales taxes.

State Senate Budget Chair Paul Sarlo wants to temporarily increase sales taxes from 6.6% to 9.6% in the Meadowlands District — the 30-square-mile area centered around the MetLife Stadium complex that includes mostly commercial and industrial parts of 14 towns in Bergen and Hudson counties.

Sarlo’s measure would also create a new 50-cent surcharge on every ride-share trip in the district. It would add a new 2.5% surcharge on hotel bookings around the state, with an exception for the Jersey Shore. Casinos and sports books operating out of New Jersey would also be charged 10% for every World Cup bet they receive.

“How can we make these visitors welcome?” “I know! Let’s increase taxes just in that area so they’ll really feel at home!’

Democrats: Soaking people for over a hundred years.

Read it.

The United States was born of a desire to leave behind monarchial government and instead live under a republic. Although the structure of the United States was explicitly crafted to have both democratic and anti-democratic elements, the perils of democracy have been part of the American discussion from the beginning (“When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest, both the public good and the rights of other citizens”). The allure of democracy is simple: by allowing people to collectively express their collective will, a representative government should be entitled to rely on their support in carrying out its political agenda. This social contract between the governed and those who govern should, in most cases, be a recipe for broad acceptance of the program of government.

Nevertheless, in the 20th Century, as the memory of monarchies faded and the threats of fascism and communism blossomed, Americans have gradually come to believe that democracy embodied the American project. Despite America’s traditional suspicion of pure democracy (and James Madison’s plea for a government run by enlightened delegates), “democracy” came to stand for all that is good and holy in a world threatened by godless collectivism and/or authoritarianism. Beginning with President Wilson’s exhortation to “make the world safe for democracy” our Founders’ strong philosophical misgivings about mob rule appear to have been discarded as part of America’s search for common ground with allies against authoritarian alternatives. Unlike the Founders, 20th Century Americans weren’t trying to rise above the shortcomings of western European governments in such as those in France or Britain, but rather trying to find common cause with them.

Indeed, in the present moment we now call anything we favor “democratic” and anything we oppose “un-democratic.” We do this even when the problem we are concerned with is itself an inherently democratic one, only reluctantly acknowledging the very significant role played by the pervasive (and anti-democratic) “checks and balances” built into our own federal constitution. The fault lines inherent in democracies—so well known to the Founders—can be showcased by (mostly) contemporary examples. All have lessons for armies—as the premier land force at the disposal of national governments. As military professionals, it is incumbent on soldiers to consider at least a few of the pitfalls which may beset a democracy and ponder the involvement of armies therein.

Read it.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson turned Wednesday’s Supreme Court birthright citizenship oral arguments into another demonstration of her lack of qualifications for sitting on the high court.

The case centers on President Trump’s executive order challenging the automatic grant of citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to non-citizen parents. It was, on paper, one of the most consequential constitutional arguments in decades. For Jackson, it became a showcase of creative — if baffling — jurisprudence.

Speaking to ACLU attorney Cecillia Wang, Jackson offered an extremely bizarre take on allegiance to a nation.

“I was thinking, you know … I, a U.S. citizen, am visiting Japan. And what it means is that, you know, if I steal someone’s wallet in Japan, the Japanese authorities can arrest me and prosecute me. It’s allegiance, meaning, can they control you as a matter of law?” She continued: “I can also rely on them if my wallet is stolen, to, you know, under Japanese law, go and prosecute the person who has stolen it.” Then the kicker: “So there’s this relationship based on — even though I’m a temporary traveler, I’m just on vacation in Japan, I’m still locally owing allegiance in that sense. Is that the right way to think about it?”

What Jackson described isn’t allegiance in any constitutional, historical, or even pedestrian sense of the word. It’s basic jurisdictional law – the notion that when you’re in a foreign country, local law applies to you. That has nothing to do with the 14th Amendment’s “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” clause, which turns on political allegiance and sovereign obligation, not tourism logistics.

John Stossel.

Politicians tax what we earn, regulate what we build and often decide what we can do with our bodies and our money.

I like to think I own myself. But politicians increasingly act as if they do.

“People should not have power over other people’s lives,” says Timothy Sandefur, author of the book “You Don’t Own Me.”

In my latest video, Sandefur challenges the attitude that “freedom belongs to the government and it can parcel it out to us.”

He starts with building permits.

“A building permit really says, you’re not allowed to build on your own property until the government gives you permission. And you have to pay for that permission. The government has essentially confiscated your land and sells it back to you in exchange for more rights.”

Such government control makes it harder to build anything.

“The Empire State Building,” Sandefur reminds me, “was built in a single year. Now it’s unimaginable that you could accomplish a project like that, or even just the paperwork, within a year.”

So vast sums of money are wasted. Take high-speed rail for example. Somehow, California has spent 16 years and $14 billion without laying down a single mile of high-speed track.

“How much would Californians have done with that colossal amount of money?” Sandefur asks.

The Atlantic, a Voice of the Crust.

By dismissing the distinction between legal and illegal immigration as bogus, advocates signaled that they would not defend it.

Read it.

Sarah Hoyt.

Just listen to the left any day — and dear Lord, all day on Sunday. Don’t they have a life? — and you’ll find our positions come from the fact that we are, all of us, absolutely uncaring of what happens to whosoever the current “downtrodden” group that’s always “most affected” by whatever happens.

To wit, we don’t want government to pay for everyone’s health care. (I’m told women and children most affected.) We don’t want open borders and importing the poor and crazy of the sh*tholes of the world onto our land. We don’t think we should accommodate the “homeless” by letting them camp, sh*t and feraly attack people in public. Instead we’d like to see city regulations on vagrancy — from 1910 — sternly enforced, vigorous encouragement to get treatment for addiction, very vigorous mental health initiatives and let private charity pick up the rest. We think anyone stealing, murdering or raping should be punished to the heaviest extent of the law. Oh, yeah, and barring assistance on some very specific disasters, we don’t think we should be sending pallets of US taxpayer cash to “poorer” or “more needy” countries.

Therefore, we clearly don’t care about women, children, the elderly, immigrants, people of other colors (in my case not caring about people of other colors, depending on how you squint means not caring for white people,) the “unhoused”, we despise people suffering from “substance abuse”, we don’t understand the pressures society puts on criminals, and we want foreigners to die screaming.

I might be missing one or two groups we’re supposed to hate, in there. Oh, yeah, because we generally don’t want sex-f*ckery be it transitioning or indoctrination into all sorts of kink and fetishes done to people under the age of reason we’re also sexist, homophobic, transphobic, kinkophobic (I made that up) and repressive prudes.

Read it.

Spanish police have uncovered a sophisticated underground tunnel used to smuggle large quantities of hashish from Morocco into Europe via the North African Spanish exclave of Ceuta.

The tunnel, found beneath an industrial warehouse, had been carefully concealed and equipped with pumping and soundproofing systems to avoid detection, police said.

Authorities described the three-level structure as “maze-like” and highly advanced. The lowest level, which led directly towards Morocco, resembled “a mine-style maze” and was fitted with rail tracks and trolleys designed to move heavy loads.

They could just return Ceuta to Morocco.

Read it.

In case you weren’t sure about the impact of birthright citizenship in the United States….

The number of ‘African-Americans’ in the U.S. is about 13%.

Allons, enfants de la patrie….

Is that too much to ask?

Read it.

The fate of the country is being decided by a person who doesn’t know what a woman is.

Read it.

How can a navy with 11 aircraft carriers still struggle to keep enough of them ready when a crisis breaks out? The answer is less about the headline fleet total than about availability, maintenance, and distance. U.S. law still requires the Navy to maintain at least 11 operational aircraft carriers, but only a portion of that force is normally deployable at one time. Some ships are in overhaul, some are in training cycles, and others are recovering from long deployments that have pushed crews and equipment well past a comfortable rhythm. On paper, 11 remains a formidable number. In practice, it produces a much thinner forward presence than the public often assumes.

That readiness gap is now the core carrier problem. The United States still fields the world’s most capable flattops. Nimitz-class carriers bring large air wings, nuclear endurance, and decades of operational experience, while the Ford class was designed to add more electrical power, more efficient sortie generation, and room for future systems. The newest Chinese carrier, Fujian uses electromagnetic catapults, a sign that Beijing is narrowing the technology gap in visible ways. Yet the comparison that matters most is not simply 11 American carriers versus three Chinese ones. It is whether the U.S. industrial base can keep enough decks available, on time, and combat credible across the Pacific, Middle East, and Europe without grinding down the fleet.

Daily Record (UK).

Let that be a lesson to us all.

Quillette.

It is not normal to hear objections raised when universities award honorary doctoral degrees. The distinction, often conferred at happy graduation ceremonies, brings attention to exemplary achievement by the recipient. The aim is to nominate recipients who, in the tradition of the university, elevate all of us. This is true with academic recipients who represent the best of scholarly inquiry, but also with popular figures who represent universalist aspirations.

Francesca Albanese has been the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur for occupied Palestinian territories since 2022. In every medium, she leads the accusation that Israel has been committing genocide in the Gaza Strip since Hamas’s 7 October 2023 massacre. And on 2 April, in Antwerp’s Queen Elisabeth Concert Hall, Albanese will receive an honorary doctorate from not one, but three Flemish institutions in Belgium: the University of Antwerp, the University of Ghent, and the Free University of Brussels. The universities say they wish to honour Albanese’s “outstanding commitment to human rights and international justice.”

It is the first time that universities have jointly conferred such an honour, and this curious event will overshadow simultaneous awards by the University of Antwerp to a pulmonologist, a toxicologist, and a scientist of learning. But the illusion of unanimous acclaim has been punctured already. The Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium’s highest ranked university, rejected an invitation to join the others. “The stance of KU Leuven at this moment is sickening,” wrote a professor emeritus at the university’s faculty of law and criminology in response. “It is a direct mockery of the calls from the International Court of Justice to do everything possible to end the genocide in Gaza. It makes KU Leuven complicit in this mass murder.” Not only did Leuven not wish to honour Albanese; it had also awarded research grants to Israeli scholars engaged in academic work.

Read it.

Europe is literally paying Indians hundreds of euros a month to “study” while its own students can’t afford rent and are drowning in debt.

In a now-viral video, an Indian student in Europe boasts about the arrangement. He explains how the EU provides him with 1400 euros every single month that covers rent, travel, and meals, with zero student debt, while he still saves 600 euros every single month.

He walks through what he calls “elite scholarship secrets,” noting that a simple bachelor’s degree, a valid passport, and basic English proficiency suffice — adding that “IELTS is not always mandatory” and a certificate from some random school abroad will do.

Read it.

Conservative states across the US have taken action in recent months to begin the arduous process of removing the stain of the woke movement from America’s streets and public buildings. For the last decade, the far-left ideological crusade has left its mark everywhere while using “marginalized” identity groups as a moral shield.

Though they claim to be acting as a civil rights movement, the reality is that “Pride” and LGBT activist groups are entirely political. The pride flag is a political, ideological and some would argue religious symbol of cultural dominance planted across the country as a means to claim ownership.

The State of Idaho is no longer tolerating this insurgency. On Tuesday, Mayor Lauren McLean was forced to remove the Progress Pride flag from display in Downtown Boise after Governor Brad Little signed HB 561. The bill, brought by Rep. Ted Hill, R-Eagle, limits local governments to flying only the American flag, state flags, official military flags, recognized tribal flags, and the official flag of an Idaho university or college.

The response from Democrats has been dramatic, to say the least, with a somber proclamation of “Transgender Day” to mourn the loss of the pride flag. Idaho also recently passed one of the strictest laws in the nation against transgenders using incorrect bathrooms and public facilities.

Read it.

Texas Congressman Keith Self has dropped a bombshell on the growing reality of Sharia-adherent communities taking root inside the United States. Far from some future hypothetical, these enclaves are here, now, and operating openly in his own district.

Self laid it out plainly: “Sharia is alive, well, and operating in Plano, Texas. Right now, as I speak, there is an existing Sharia-adherent enclave run by the East Plano Islamic Center in my congressional district. It’s been functioning for 12 years right in our midst. This is not a hypothetical or future threat. It is here, now and operational.”

He continued: “It is a parallel society, a de facto Sharia enclave operating in defiance of full assimilation into American law situated immediately adjacent to the very law enforcement facilities meant to protect our communities.”

Read it.

California is a cash machine. The state collects some of the country’s highest income, business, and fuel taxes, and now spends more than $300 billion per year. And yet, everywhere you look, California seems to be falling apart.

The roads are crumbling. Mismanaged wildfires have turned neighborhoods into ash. Drug addiction and homelessness have metastasized, turning parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco into no-go zones. And the cost-of-living crisis is pricing middle-class taxpayers out of basic necessities like groceries and gas, even as the state spends billions on welfare programs that never seem to lift anyone out of poverty.

Californians are beginning to ask: Where is all this money going? On paper, it funds hospitals, universities, schools, prisons, infrastructure, and other public services. But beneath the surface, something else is happening that California Governor Gavin Newsom does not want you to see: massive, systematic, brazen fraud.

Read it.

The arrest of dozens of IRGC-linked money changers in the United Arab Emirates is one of the most serious blows yet to Tehran’s sanctions-evasion network, laying bare how heavily the Islamic Republic has depended on Dubai as an economic lifeline.

Sources familiar with the matter told Iran International that UAE authorities detained dozens of money changers tied to financial entities linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, shut down associated companies and closed their offices. The crackdown follows days of mounting regional tensions and comes after other measures targeting Iranian nationals, including visa revocations and tighter travel restrictions through Dubai.

For years, Dubai has served as Iran’s main offshore financial artery, where oil proceeds, petrochemical revenues and rial conversions were turned into dollars, dirhams and euros beyond the reach of the country’s battered domestic banking system.

“This is going to be a real problem for Tehran because Dubai was an economic lung for the Iranian regime,” Jason Brodsky of United Against Nuclear Iran told Iran International.

“That is economic pressure and diplomatic isolation in a way that the UAE is able to employ against the Iranian regime, and it will have a very considerable impact.”

Read it.

The Feeding Our Future fraud is the largest pandemic-relief theft in American history – $250 million stolen, mostly by Somali immigrants who fabricated meal counts and pocketed federal child nutrition funds.

The prosecutions have dragged on for years.

Now that sentences are finally coming down, a troubling pattern is emerging: the punishments don’t seem to fit the crime.

Read it.

A crowded crop of Democratic candidates has liberal Californians worried it could lead to the deep blue state ending up with two Republicans running for governor.

California has a jungle primary system, where the top two vote getters advance to a general election and several polls have shown Democrats could split the vote among themselves, vaulting two Republicans to the top.

The state has not elected a Republican to the governor’s mansion since Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006.

“We know there’s this risk ahead, a 15% chance of calamity,” Paul Mitchell, a leading Democratic data strategist in the state, told Politico.

“It’s not a 15% chance of stubbing your toe, it’s a 15% chance of losing the governorship, losing the down-ballot races,” he said.

Democrats are concerned two Republicans at the top of the ticket could depress turnout, wiping out the gains they hoped to make after voting to redraw the state’s congressional maps to give their party additional seats.

Judge orders Trump to halt $400 million White House ballroom project, for now (Mike Scarcella/Reuters)

Judge Blocks Trump Ballroom Pending Congressional OK

Trump Blasts Order Halting White House Ballroom

BREAKING: Trump will sign sweeping order attacking mail-in voting (Yunior Rivas/Democracy Docket)

NPR and PBS Win Injunction Against Trump Order to End Funding (Daniel Seiden/Bloomberg)

Trump signs order directing creation of a national voter list, a move sure to face legal challenges (Associated Press)

Dems Struggle to Criticize Trump’s No Tax On OT

A New Era of International Gangsterism (Peter Juul/Liberal Currents)

Trump’s gas prices problem (Cameron Peters/Vox)

Birthright Citizenship Shouldn’t Be Up for Debate (Michael Waldman/Brennan Center …)  Freedom of speech? What’s that?

Trump interview: I am strongly considering pulling out of Nato (Connor Stringer/Telegraph)

Appeals Court Stops V.O.A. Journalists From Quickly Returning (Minho Kim/New York Times)

CNN Poll: Trump’s approval rating on the economy hits a new low (Jennifer Agiesta/CNN)  Among the people polled by CNN. (Rasmussen: Trump Approval Steady at 51 Percent)

Trump Eyes NATO Exit Over Iran Rift

Astroturf and selective outrage: The real story behind ‘No Kings’ (Jay Rogers/The Hill)

The Costs of a Political Science-Free Foreign Policy (Daniel W. Drezner/Drezner’s World)

Trump’s mixed messages on Iran perplex his own team (Axios)  What, you didn’t know that writers for Axios could read minds?

Inside the Bizarre Feedback Loop Between DHS and MAGA Influencers (Josh Kovensky/Talking Points Memo)

Inside the Bizarre Feedback Loop Between DHS and MAGA Influencers (Josh Kovensky/Talking Points Memo)

Trump Motorcade Met With Middle Fingers on Way to Supreme Court (J.D. Wolf/MeidasTouch News)  Leftist class.

Spain hits back at Trump in escalating row over euthanasia (Milena Wälde/Politico)

Trump’s Antifa Terror (Julia Ioffe/Puck)

Trump’s Fateful Choice (The Atlantic)

Trump Administration Live Updates: White House Now Plans to Gut, but Not Close, Consumer Protection Agency (Stacy Cowley/New York Times)  I would like to dance in its intestines.

“Casualty Cover-Up”: The Pentagon Is Hiding U.S. Losses Under Trump in the Middle East (Nick Turse/The Intercept)

Obama Judge Orders Trump Admin To Restore Legal Status Of 985,000 Migrants Who Used CBP One App

Trump Presidential Library To Feature Solemn ‘Reflecting Pool’ Of Liberal Tears (Babylon Bee)

Read it.

Not just that, but according to the Financial Times, the Alberta separatists have met with Trump officials a few times over the past year.

This could prove amusing.

Quillette.

Tariq Ramadan is either a predatory manipulator who belongs behind bars or a calm voice of reason victimised by a prejudiced ruling class. It really depends on whom you ask. Last week, the Paris Criminal Court sentenced Ramadan to eighteen years in prison for raping three women between 2009 and 2016. This ought to have settled the question about one of Europe’s most divisive thinkers. In fact, Ramadan’s punishment will only fortify the views of the two opposing camps.

Ramadan’s background is well known in France and his native Switzerland but less so elsewhere. His maternal grandfather, Hassan al-Banna, founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928. In the late 1940s, al-Banna’s daughter Waffa married a Brotherhood activist named Said Ramadan. After al-Banna’s assassination in 1949, Said became one of the organisation’s leading figures. Expelled from Egypt in 1954 during president Gamal Abdel Nasser’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, the couple moved to Syria and then Pakistan before eventually settling in Switzerland, where Tariq was born in 1962.

According to his defenders, Ramadan rejected the illiberal fanaticism of his father and grandfather and grew up to be an urbane and moderate academic, enculturated by Western norms but with a heritage that provided him with the legitimacy to speak to and on behalf of radical Muslim communities. Western liberal elites were entranced by this paradoxical figure, and they embraced him as a figure who could explain East to West and vice-versa. This was especially true in France, where he enjoyed his highest profile, frequently appearing in debates and on talk shows.

Read it.

Leftist politicians in Providence, Rhode Island, are erasing the memory of an innocent victim to shield their failed policies on crime and immigration.

The nearly completed mural honoring Iryna Zarutska—the 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee brutally murdered on a North Carolina light rail train by a repeat offender—is being removed after pressure from Democrat leaders who called it divisive.

Conservative commentator Benny Johnson broke the story, posting: “Iryna Zarustka mural in Providence, RI, is being removed following protest of it by Mayor Brett Smiley.

UPDATE: City’s Demand to Remove Iryna Zarutska Mural Speaks Volumes About the Left’s ‘Values’

Read it.

This past Sunday was Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week for Christians around the world, a period that should be meaningful and joyous, but that was not the case in Nigeria, as dozens of Christians were reported to have been killed by gunmen, including in Gari Ya Waye community Angwan Rukuba, served by Nigeria’s Catholic Archdiocese of Jos. The targeting of Christians in Nigeria is not new or rare, prompting President Trump to threaten military action last November, unless their government did more to protect the community, but still the latest attacks were ignored Monday by the network newscasts.

The New York Times did report on the 12 deaths and multiple injuries in the mostly Christian city of Jos, while downplaying reports of a Christian genocide in Nigeria, which it’s more than ABC’s World News Tonight, The CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, PBS News Hour and Special Report With Bret Baier could manage on Monday, which was not one word about the killings combined. After all it was a busy news night. ABC’s David Muir had to tell his viewers about the return of Celine Dion.

Read it.

In a blistering exclusive interview with The Telegraph, President Trump has declared he is “strongly considering” pulling the United States out of NATO, branding the 77-year-old alliance a “paper tiger” after European allies – including the UK under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer – refused to join America’s military campaign against Iran or help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Read it.

A federal judge has ordered California to pay more than $4.52 million in attorneys’ fees to a coalition of parents and teachers who successfully challenged the state’s anti-parent public school policies on student gender transitions.

U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez issued the fee award on March 30 in the long-running case, citing the plaintiffs’ prevailing status after winning summary judgment and a class-wide injunction last year.

The ruling came as the underlying dispute continues in the federal appeals court.

Read it.

The recent news that one in eight children are now reported by their parents as being disabled ought to prompt an immediate national inquiry into what on earth is causing a large proportion of the population to sicken.

Not hard to tell: The government will give you money if you say you’re disabled.

Read it.

A new report from researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia, published in Carcinogenesis, finds that nicotine-based e-cigarettes are likely to cause lung and oral cancers, a finding that may alarm the millions of young people, from high school through college, and into the professional world, who use them heavily.

Researchers examined human studies, animal experiments, and lab tests. Together, they found signs that vaping can damage DNA, cause inflammation and oxidative stress, and expose users to harmful chemicals considered drivers of cancer. Some rodent studies also found lung tumors after vape exposure.

“Nicotine-based e-cigarettes are likely to be carcinogenic to humans who use them, causing an indeterminate burden of oral cancer and lung cancer,” the researchers wrote in the report.

Most attempts to adjust one’s mood through recreational chemicals appear to be a bad idea.

Read it.

Remember when blues state Democrats tried to enforce sweeping pandemic mandates for years after it became clear that covid was not the “mass killer” that the supposed experts claimed it would be? Remember when they called for people to be jailed for publicly speaking about scientific facts that contradicted the narrative? Remember when they called for people’s children to be taken away if they refused to vaccinate?

Remember how millions of people left blue states in response to the far-left madness? Well, Democrats are now pretending that none of that ever happened, but they can’t hide the continuing consequences of their draconian policies.

The historic population shift that escalated during the pandemic era is still well underway, though the causes are now more economic than political. We recently covered New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s sad attempt to beg wealthy NY taxpayers to stop leaving her state. However, New York is only one of multiple blue regions being crushed by an ongoing wealth exodus.

New data from states like Massachusetts indicate that Democrat efforts to institute state level “wealth taxes” are driving out business owners and corporations, and these residents are taking billions in tax revenues with them.

Read it.

Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, was murdered in Charlotte last summer. She was minding her own business, seated on a public transit train, when a deranged felon abruptly attacked her from behind, without warning, allegedly stabbing her to death. The vicious assault was captured in surveillance footage that went viral and sparked outrage, especially after it was revealed that the suspect had been arrested on at least 14 previous occasions.

“Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes freed [the suspect ] in January, around seven months before police say he went on to slaughter Iryna Zarutska on August 22,” the Daily Mail reported in 2025. “Stokes allowed [the accused killer], who is homeless and has a litany of previous offenses, to walk free on a ‘written promise’ that he would return for his next court appearance.”

The case became a national flashpoint, exemplifying what critics call a broken criminal justice system in “progressive” jurisdictions, where criminals are coddled, and innocent people such as Zarutska are endangered. A project to honor Zarutska’s life through art has now been declared “controversial” by activists and politicians on the Left, as murals in her memory are getting defaced by vandals and denounced by elected officials. In New York City, one such mural was targeted by someone who spray-painted the words “please vandalize this” over the murder victim’s face. The New York Post describes the mural as “loathed by local lefties for its ‘tough-on-crime’ message.”

Newsbusters.

The Washington Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman wrote Tuesday that far-left Michigan senatorial candidate — Democrat Abdul El-Sayed — threatened the Beacon with legal action after the conservative news outlet published a recording of El-Sayed saying he wouldn’t comment on the death of murderous Iranian Ayatollah Khamenei because “a lot of people in Dearborn…are sad” and thus would hurt his electoral prospects.

Earth to Brian Stelter, Oliver Darcy, Scott Nover, Brian Steinberg, and the rest of the so-called media reporting class: Where are you on this act of media intimidation?

Missing in action….

Read it.

In the span of nine months, nine top-level scientists in the United States have died or vanished without a trace.

Seven of them were connected to the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) or the institutions it directly funds.

AFRL develops and transitions the most sensitive aerospace technologies in the United States’ defense arsenal.

Don’t call them ‘conspiracy theories’—call them ‘spoiler alerts’.