DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

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Actress Jane Fonda stopped by Friday’s edition of The Briefing with Jen Psaki on MS NOW in an attempt to hype Saturday’s No Kings protests. Naturally, Fonda would paint a dire picture of the state of democracy in America, but her evidence consisted of defeats for liberal budget priorities and false narratives about the erasing of history. Nevertheless, Fonda would also suggest that the state of democracy is so perilous that things are currently worse than they were in the Jim Crow days because now everybody is affected.

Psaki led Fonda by misusing the word “all” when she invited her to promote the cause, “I watched your event today. We all watched your event today. And I should note for the audience, you were in Washington, D.C. today speaking outside the Kennedy Center for an event—that’s what I’m referring to—in defense of free expression. So tell us about the event and the message you were really trying to get across to people watching.”

I suggest that Hanoi Jane is worse than Benedict Arnold. Arnold was at least a patriot before he switched sides.

Huffington Post.

Possibly the only occasion on which The Huffington Post would publish something by someone like Jesse Ventura is one where Trump is being attacked.

“Because how can you send somebody else’s kids to a war if you won’t send your own?” he asked.

Easy. You just do it, as governments have been doing for time out of mind. You only ‘send your kids to a war’ when they are conscripted to do so, under an authoritarian regime. Everybody in the current American armed forces is a volunteer.

Trump isn’t ‘sending kids to war’, he is commanding the armed forces, of which he is commander-in-chief, in pursuit of foreign policy goals, which is what Americans elected him to do.

Jesse Ventura’s attitude is the exact same attitude as the Chinese Communists under Mao, who thought that everybody ought to put some time in hoeing crops and shoveling dirt. Jesse has always been about imposing his values on other people, which negates any respect he may have earned from his military service.

If Barron Trump wants to put in some military service, which I would certainly encourage him to do, that is his decision to make—not that of a blowhard like Jesse Ventura.

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Introduction
The modern nation-state is not natural nor permanent. It’s a technological product of the industrial era’s logic of mass warfare, bureaucracy, and centralized taxation. That logic is breaking down. In a world of cyberspace, mobile capital, and digital commerce and geography, brute force lose much of their leverage. You cannot conquer the internet with tanks, nor can a government easily tax a truly digital wallet whose private keys are hidden in someone’s mind. The Information Revolution is a shift in the logic of power as fundamental as gunpowder was to medieval knighthood. Every institution built on yesterday’s logic of violence will either adapt or crumble. This was the original thesis of the 1997 book The Sovereign Individual (Davidson & Rees-Mogg, 1997). And in 2026—with the rise of China, the regional military conflicts now underway, and the polarization of politics both within nations and between them—that shift is no longer speculatory. It is existential.

What matters now is what kind of order will emerge from it. The battle is no longer between rival “-isms” competing for control of the same nation-state, but between two fundamentally different civilizational logics: an empowering future that facilitates progress and an authoritarian one that dooms humanity.

A civilization can survive poverty. It can survive corruption. It can survive decadence for a time. What it cannot survive indefinitely is the slow freezing of criticism, the politicization of truth, the administrative management of thought, and the suppression of the independent mind. If centralized authoritarian models become the dominant operating system of the twenty-first century, then the danger is that humanity becomes less capable of discovering what is true, building what is new, and expanding beyond its present limits. In other words, stagnation. And stagnation necessarily leads to extinction.

This manifesto therefore renews the sovereign individual thesis under harsher conditions. The survival argument is simple: decentralization is the only civilizational trajectory that does not end in extinction. The individual mandate follows. Do science. Build technology. Start or fund companies at the frontier—AI, DeFi, fintech, data science, space, neurotechnology, anything that compounds intelligence and autonomy.

For every unit of wealth created, disperse it: into offshore jurisdictions that compete for your presence rather than conscript you, and into cryptographic infrastructure that answers to mathematics rather than to ministers.

Newsbusters.

The Friday evening newscasts of ABC’s World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, and CBS Evening News continued their streak of ignoring Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick’s ethics probe as the House Ethics Committee found her guilty of 25 ethics charges. However, the Saturday editions of NBC’s Today and CBS Saturday Morning did manage to ever so briefly acknowledge the scandal’s existence. The same could not be said of ABC’s Good Morning America.

CBS’s coverage was limited to the “Eye Opener” segment at the beginning of the show, where reporters rattle off several headlines without further discussion. In this case, one narrator reported, “A Democratic House lawmaker is in hot water, facing expulsion from Congress.”

Had it been a Republican, it would have been front page news 24/7.

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We get the government we choose to elect, hence the government we deserve. Voting for ever-higher punitive taxes on the rich is arguably a form of civic suicide.

Consider that a wealthy New Yorker can get a raise of almost 40% just by moving. That’s right. If moving eliminates a 14.8% top state and local tax rate, our top-tier taxpayer gets a 36% raise, not a 14.8% raise, by leaving. It’s doubtful if any of our city and state leaders have done this math, but it’s shocking. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to take the top rate up another 2%, if not by the state then by the city, which would mean that our rich neighbor can get a 42% raise.

Here’s how the math works. A rich New Yorker pays a maximum state and city income tax of 14.8%, on top of a maximum federal tax of 37%. But there are hidden taxes. Uncapped Medicare and Medicaid taxes push the marginal federal tax to 39.4%. If the income is earned on investments, the Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT, another gift from Obamacare) adds another 3.8%, pushing the top federal tax above 43%.

So, top-tier New York taxpayers may soon pay a marginal tax of 43% to the IRS and 17% to the city and state of New York. The combined 60% marginal tax rates mean they have the privilege of keeping 40 cents of each new dollar they earn. A move to one of the nine states with no income tax allows our taxpayer to keep 57% of every additional dollar of income, instead of 40%. Do the math. That’s a 42% raise.

Forget the argument about “paying their fair share.” “Fair” is an entirely subjective term. Your fair share of someone else’s money might be seen as a ripoff by them, especially if the money is spent less wisely than we might spend our own money. If you are rich and believe you’ve earned your money, will you consider leaving a state for a permanent 40% raise? Of course.

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A viral video circulating on X appears to show a young developer unveiling a 3D-printed proof-of-concept prototype of a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile system, or MANPADS, built for less than $100.

According to the project page on GitHub, the five-minute video showcases a “proof-of-concept prototype of a low-cost rocket launcher and guided rocket system built using consumer electronics and 3D-printed components.”

The project description says the system uses an onboard flight computer, inertial measurement hardware, and a sensor stack that includes GPS, compass, and barometric modules to determine orientation and transmit telemetry.

Oh wrist, make me an instrument of thy peace….

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A new report backed by European conservative lawmakers is sounding the alarm over what it describes as the spread of “no-go zones” across the European Union, linking the phenomenon directly to mass immigration, Islamization, and the breakdown of state authority in major urban areas.

The report was presented at a press conference on Wednesday by Sweden Democrats MEP Charlie Weimers, French nationalist MEP Marion Maréchal, and Brothers of Italy MEP Nicola Procaccini. Published by New Direction, the foundation tied to the ECR parliamentary group, the study argues that large parts of Europe are witnessing the rise of “parallel societies where the laws of the State are increasingly replaced by the codes of radicalisation and the rule of violence.”

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Left-wing Maryland Gov. Wes Moore was greeted Thursday afternoon by a stadium full of boos at Camden Yards on Opening Day for Orioles baseball, a striking public rebuke of the struggling governor and the one-party rule of Democratic Party kings and queens running the state into the ground.

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The city of Louisville, Kentucky, has agreed to pay $800,000 in attorney fees to settle a case with a Christian photographer who fought to protect her religious and free speech rights over the years of litigation.

Louisville ultimately spent a fortune to force Chelsey Nelson to photograph same sex marriages under its nondiscrimination laws.

When combined with its own litigation costs, the case likely cost the city and the courts millions to deny Nelson her constitutional rights.

What to they care? It’s not their personal money.

New York Post.

Controversial comedian Druski has triggered fresh outrage over his latest mega-viral skit in which he dressed up as Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika — with many calling him “disgusting” and “completely disrespectful” to a grieving widow.

I’m pretty sure that ‘grieving widows’ don’t go on stage in leather pants. Just sayin’.

A War No One Wants to Defend (William Kristol/The Bulwark)  This is possibly the first war that Bill Kristol hasn’t liked.

Trump interrupts a Cabinet meeting dealing with the Iran war and rising prices to talk Sharpies (Will Weissert/Associated Press)  Comforting to know that they don’t have anything more important to talk about.

As Trump skips CPAC, MAGA’s rifts over Iran war are on display (Natalie Allison/Washington Post) At least that’s what they’d like you to believe.

Standoff With Iran Raises Fresh Doubts About Trump’s Freestyle Diplomacy (Michael Crowley/New York Times) Among the Narrative Media and the Usual Suspects.

Exclusive: Donald Trump to Add His Signature to US Currency, a First For a Sitting President (Aidan McLaughlin/Vanity Fair) Ah, ah, ah, ah, yankin’ their chains, yankin’ their chains….

DHS Won’t Comply With New Jersey ICE Mask Ban

Education Dept. to leave headquarters, give building to Energy Department (Washington Post)  Trump is doing what Reagan talked about but never did.

Where Trump Has Installed Election Deniers in Government (New York Times)

MAGA is growing anxious over Orbán’s fate (Ian Ward/Politico)  MAGA is the New Nigger.

After markets rattle, Trump once again punts on following through with threat on Iran power plants (Aamer Madhani/Associated Press)  Just because you don’t understand the plan doesn’t mean there isn’t one.

Donald Trump Is Breaking Up with Europe (Susan B. Glasser/New Yorker)

Republicans Know This War Is Going Badly (Michelle Goldberg/New York Times)  Badly for Democrats’ Muslim clients.

As Trump feels pressure to end war, allies fear what Iran may do next (Washington Post) And rightly so.

Hegseth Strikes Two Black and Two Female Officers From Promotion List (New York Times)  Purging the DEI hires.

Some Republicans Raise Questions About Iran War Plans (Jonathan Tamari/Bloomberg)  The Narrative Media would like nothing more than to promote division among Republicans. Unfortunately for them, they don’t hold a monopoly on the News any more.

For Trump, a Deadline Isn’t Always a Deadline (Aruna Viswanatha/Wall Street Journal)  The problem seems to be that most journalists are unable to keep up.

Poll: 1 out of 8 Trump voters has buyer’s remorse about 2024 (G. Elliott Morris/Strength In Numbers)

Bruce Springsteen Says ‘I Don’t Worry’ About Losing Fans Over Slamming Trump and New Tour Is ‘Going to Be Political’: ‘Blowback Is Just Part of It. I’m Ready’ (Zack Sharf/Variety)  I guess everybody needs a hobby.

Russian jailed in UK for attacking woman after Trump’s son alerted police (Michael Holden/Reuters)

Two More Giant Ls for Trump (Andrew Egger/The Bulwark)  And two more giant Lies for the Bullshitwark.

A war of regression: how Trump bombed the US into a worse position with Iran (Patrick Wintour/The Guardian)

Nothing Works in Trump’s America–Except for Racism (Elie Mystal/The Nation)  Hey, racism has worked for Democrats since the Sixties.

Johnson: No Warren-Pocahontas Joke At Mullin Ceremony Shows Trump ‘Has Dementia’  I’m sure he was thinking it. I know I was.

TIME Finds an Ideal Anti-Trump Angle: ICE Detains Infirm Gay Iranians

The End of Immigration — Americans despise ICE, but it’s “succeeding” nonetheless (Paul Krugman)  The vacuum speaks.

TSA Agent Keeps Skills Sharp By Groping Mannequin At Home (Babylon Bee).

The Robb Report.

A loophole that allows supercar and luxury car owners to register their vehicles in Montana to save on taxes could be endangered because of a new bill in the California legislature.

The workaround costs the Golden State some $20 million a year in lost tax revenue, according to the bill’s sponsor, Jerry McNerney, a Democrat from Pleasanton. Montana has no car registration fees or state sales tax, allowing car buyers to set up shell companies to register cars there and avoid taxes in their home states. The loophole is well-known among car collectors, which is the reason why one often sees Big Sky Country license plates on cars at shows in many places that aren’t Montana.

“The Montana Loophole is widening, with increasing numbers of tax evaders creating bogus shell companies so they can avoid paying sales taxes on Ferraris, Porsches, and pricey RVs, costing California tens of millions in revenue,” McNerney said in a statement.

I like Steve Jobs’ trick fo buying a new car, driving it with the temporary tag until that expired, and then trading it in on a new car, rinse, repeat. A very good way for a billionaire to preserve his anonymity.

McNerney’s bill would target the shell companies used to facilitate the Montana registrations. “SB 1406 would close the Montana Loophole by expanding California’s definition of who is a resident under state use tax law to include a shell company when at least one member of the business is a California resident. SB 1406 would also authorize CDTFA to impose tax liability on the individual members of a shell company,” according to a press release.

So you back up one—the shell company that owns the car is in turn owned by a shell company that doesn’t own a car but is owned by a California resident. Then the use tax law applies to the near shell company but not to the far shell company that has no California resident owners.

No Democrat drone legislator is as clever as a billionaire-employed lawyer. I guarantee it. Certainly not Jerry McNerny.

New York Post.

“We actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America,” Vance told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson on the latest episode of his show.

Omar has previously called the allegations “disgusting lies.” Reps for her office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The allegations have dogged the congresswoman since even before her House campaign in 2018.

Omar has two ex-husbands, Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi and Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, the latter of whom was first accused at least a decade ago of wedding the future US congresswoman.

“The people we care about most, the undocumented migrants…”

– Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)

Newsbusters.

On Thursday, law enforcement and the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida announced charges against a brother and sister in the placement of a bomb at MacDill Air Force base, a key U.S. base amid the war in Iran as it’s home to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and U.S. Special Operations Command. This national security bombshell was of no interest to NBC (and barely at all to ABC) on their flagship newscasts Thursday night and Friday morning.

While 27-year-old Ann Mary Zheng was arrested, her brother Alen Zheng remains at large and fled to….China (which opens up a dangerous set of possibilities vis-à-vis the Chinese regime). At a Thursday press conference, the U.S. Attorney said they were not yet sure whether the two Americans have dual citizenship in China.

Thursday’s CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil provided a welcome contrast with a full story on this and aired prior to the ongoing lead story of the last few weeks in the (Democrat-created) Homeland Security shutdown that has caused mass chaos at American airports with TSA workers remaining unpaid.

Daily Record (UK).

A leading American infectious disease specialist who had travelled to the African country of Botswana in order to help tackle the country’s HIV crisis was killed in front of his helpless wife when a massive crocodile pulled him from a canoe and into a river.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

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An Afghan asylum seeker who crossed the Channel in a small boat has been jailed for 15 years after abducting and raping a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.

Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, carried out the attack just four months after arriving in the UK, targeting the schoolgirl before luring her into a secluded cul-de-sac where he repeatedly assaulted her.

During a 10-day trial at Warwick Crown Court, jurors heard how Mulakhil filmed the attack on his phone while laughing and threatening to kill the girl’s family. He was later convicted of rape, child abduction, sexual assault and taking indecent images of a minor.

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What do you call it when a politician tells you to put elections “back on a level playing field” by voting for a redistricting map gerrymandered to give Democrats 10 seats to Republicans’ one?

“Lying” doesn’t quite foot the bill. “Rank deception” is closer, but I think this kind of rhetoric calls for the big guns.

I’ll settle on “shameless Orwellian gaslighting,” because supporting the Virginia redistricting push in the name of “fairness” involves redefining basic words in the same manner as the oppressive government in George Orwell’s “1984,” and this rhetorical strategy seems designed to make people with rational concerns about the ballot initiative question their sanity.

This particular shameless Orwellian gaslighting comes from America’s 44th president, Barack Hussein Obama.

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It’s amazing how much California does these days to roll into its stereotype as a dysfunctional, woke-ified political wasteland.

On Tuesday, the University of Southern California canceled its scheduled gubernatorial debate after several top Democrats reportedly waged a pressure campaign to put a halt to it.

The field is currently wide open with Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom being term-limited out of office. One would think that would be a reason to give voters a chance to learn about the policies of the new candidates, a mix of Republicans and Democrats competing in the state’s “jungle” primary that lumps the parties together.

Nope.

You see, the leading candidates set to appear on stage had a BIG problem. They were all WHITE. None of the non-white candidates crossed the polling and fundraising thresholds set ahead of time by USC.

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So-called “teen takeovers” in Chicago are becoming increasingly violent, to the point that even little boys are being savagely brutalized, says the founder of a “violence interruptor” group that intervened during Wednesday’s teen mob outbreak.

“Well, we got about two or three hundred kids just running back and forth, jumping on cars, just fighting, taunting the police,” Chitown Crime Chasers Founder Justin Peters, who was at the scene of the teen takeover at Chicago’s Loop, said in an interview with Fox Chicago 32.

Peters described how his group intervened to help one little boy who was being stomped on by some of the teens in the mob:

“Unfortunately, viral video is circulating showing me rendering aide to a teenage boy who was violently jumped and stomped on unconscious,” Peters reported, sharing Chitown Crime Stoppers video from the teen takeover on X.com.

Judging from the video, they all look to be Teenagers of Color.

Imagine how low the crime rates would be if young black males were prohibited from possessing firearms.

Daily Mail (UK).

I understand that soldiers used to shoot themselves in the leg to avoid duty they didn’t like.

Alternatively, perhaps he wanted her to feel as if her husband were still President.

Newsbusters.

On Thursday, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel tried and largely failed to clean up his Tuesday remarks, where he declared Markwayne Mullin is not qualified to be secretary of Homeland Security because he used to be a plumber. Kimmel’s damage control effort would fail because he tried to have it both ways as he tried to double down on the original comments while also implying his criticism of Mullin is just about ideas.

Kimmel began by observing how “the president and his pals in the MAGA media are not happy with me right now. Trump even called in to Fox to complain about me tonight. His apple polishers are all in a tizzy because I made light of the fact that his new head of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, before he was a senator, was a plumber. And now he’s the head of Homeland Security. Which is not necessarily the kind of resume you might hope for, for the person in charge of protecting us from terrorism.”

Once again, Kimmel omitted the management experience Mullin gained in that as he turned the family plumbing business into the largest in Oklahoma. Nevertheless, Kimmel continued, “Of course, they decided to twist that to say it was an insult to plumbers, which it was not. I wouldn’t put a plumber in charge of Homeland Security for the same reason I wouldn’t call a five-star general to pull a rat out of my toilet, okay? It has—we all have our areas of expertise. They went nuts about this. They went nuts on every channel. But I think that my favorite part—bit of performative outrage came from a person named Rob Finnerty of Newsmax.”

Newsbusters.

One of the most preposterous claims from liberals is that somehow, conservatives uniquely try to win elections by using “fear,” “hate,” and “division,” especially on race and religion. Democrats never use any divisive, negative tactics when trying to motivate voters. It’s like they’ve never heard Chuck Schumer saying a Republican voter-ID bill is “Jim Crow 2.0.”

On March 24, PBS stations debuted a long negative campaign commercial disguised as a documentary titled White With Fear, on how “America’s conservative political machine uses racial fault lines to gain power.” The 85-minute film starts with Nixon’s campaigns, then goes on a tear against Fox News, Islamophobia after 9/11, birtherism against Obama, the Tea Party, and then into the Trump era.

In a statement, the propagandist Andrew Goldberg oozed: “I’m grateful to PBS for giving White With Fear such a prestigious platform with an extensive reach of loyal viewers. It’s the ideal home for the film — timely, relevant, and deeply connected to where our country stands today.” This “prestigious platform” is always willing to be a source of vitriolic anti-conservative content. Conservatives are just lucky we’re not paying for this garbage any more….until Democrats get back in control.

The Los Angeles Times summarized the theme: “Goldberg’s film argues that the right, using the language of white supremacy and relying on distortions, lies and misinformation campaigns against Black people, then Muslims and immigrants, have turned the GOP into a racially driven, hate-filled party of grievances.”

Proglodyte Projection: When the Left accuses you of what they are doing.

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On Thursday, the European Parliament in Strasbourg delivered what many are calling one of the most significant setbacks in recent memory for the EU’s traditional bureaucratic and centrist consensus.

In a single day, MEPs advanced stricter mass deportation rules, rejected controversial mass surveillance of private communications (known as “Chat Control”), and moved forward on dropping tariffs on key U.S. goods as part of a broader transatlantic trade reset.

These outcomes reflect a pragmatic and unprecedented alliance between the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and right-wing to so-called ‘far-right’ groups such as the Patriots for Europe (PfE), European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), and others. For the first time in years, traditional “firewalls” isolating nationalist voices have cracked, forcing Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s agenda into retreat on sovereignty, borders, digital rights, and economic realism.

Newsbusters.

The House Ethics Committee held their scheduled adjudicatory hearing, more commonly referred to as a “trial”, against Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL). Sadly, none of the main broadcast network newscasts saw fit to carry the story.

The networks continue their ongoing blackout of this story. Not a second of it aired on ABC, CBS or ABC’s evening newscasts. This major omission joins their omission of the IOC’s ban on “trans women” during the 2028 Games and onward thereafter.

The PBS item is not perfect, though. Viewers never once heard any detail of the egregious charges filed against Cherfilus-McCormick.

UPDAE: House Panel Finds 25 Violations by Congresswoman  Ever notice how black women try to make themselves look like white women as much as possible?

UPDATE: House Ethics Panel Finds Florida Democrat Congresswoman Committed 25 Violations

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All the propaganda and social media manipulation in the world is not enough to compel average people to spend their precious time or cash on woke entertainment. All anti-woke critics had to do was watch and wait as the dismal numbers rolled in for each new progressive project – It was objective, undeniable proof that woke is a gigantic fraud.

That said, there are still a handful of far-left media bombs rolling into theaters and streaming services because production giants refused to see the writing on the wall until the end of 2024. Media endeavors that were greenlit at this time are just now being released to the public and the results are embarrassing. Watching these movies and shows feels like time traveling back to 2018.

As we covered in January, one such streaming series is Paramount’s new foray into the Star Trek franchise called “Starfleet Academy”. The show definitely doesn’t “boldly go where no man has gone before”. Rather, it goes where every other far-left vehicle has gone before, into the proverbial dumpster. We noted that “audiences are not watching or buying, but Hollywood refuses to learn”.

Well, it looks like they just learned.

FA, FO.

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Video from a protest outside Philadelphia City Hall shows a masked speaker making inflammatory remarks about U.S. service members and calling for violence, according to footage recorded by local conservative activist Frankie Scales.

In the video, the speaker says, “For every U.S. soldier that returns home in a casket, we cheer.”

“Until we have done everything in our power to bring the United States to its knees, let us not lose sight of the enemy,” he says, as people in the crowd can be heard cheering.

The individual refers to Hamas and Hezbollah as “resistance forces” and “popular forces,” and argues that Iran’s regime should remain in power because of its support for those groups.

“They rely on a strong Iranian state to maintain their fighting capacity,” the man says.

The comments come as tensions involving Iran and its network of allied groups — including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and other militias across the Middle East — remain elevated amid ongoing regional conflict.

When confronted by Scales, the speaker responds, “May a Hamas rocket blow up your family’s home.”

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America has spent more than $20 trillion on fighting poverty since the introduction of President Johnson’s Great Society program in 1964. Sixty years later, how are we doing?

Doesn’t seem to have reduced the number of poor people, for a start.

Last month, Senator Kennedy (R-LA) introduced a bill that would require the Census Bureau to report a new poverty metric as an alternative to the Official Poverty Measure (OPM) by including both cash and non-cash welfare benefits in its calculations.

As Kennedy points out, this is a much-needed fix. The OPM’s methodological weaknesses are well documented. Most notably, it ignores the hundreds of billions of dollars the government spends each year to assist low-income families through tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit and in-kind transfers such as Medicaid, food stamps, and housing subsidies.

In short, the OPM paints an egregiously inaccurate picture of material poverty in America.

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But you know it won’t stay that low on that narrow a slice of ‘rich’ people, any more than the income tax did.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and progressive House lawmakers on Thursday unveiled a proposal to impose new annual taxes on the nation’s wealthiest households, arguing it would address inequality and generate significant federal revenue.

The Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act of 2026, introduced alongside Reps. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., would apply a 2% annual tax on household net worth above $50 million and a 3% rate on wealth exceeding $1 billion.

The plan targets roughly 260,000 households, or about the top 0.15% of Americans, while leaving taxes unchanged for most taxpayers.

Democrats never saw a pocket that they didn’t want to pick.

Lawmakers backing the bill said the current tax system does not fully capture wealth held by the ultra-rich, allowing some high-wealth individuals to pay lower effective rates relative to their assets than middle- and working-class families.

Nowhere, of course, do they explain why it’s so important to ‘fully capture wealth held by the ultra-rich’; they just presume that their audience is as consumed by envy as they are. If the rich pay lower effective rates, that’s what the law allows them to do; rather than change the law to make things more ‘fair’ (which they can’t be bothered to do), the just want to do a snatch-and-grab on ‘wealth’ that represents investment that drives the economy. A classic case of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

According to a newly declassified intelligence report, U.S. intelligence agencies intercepted communications from Ukrainian government officials back in 2022 discussing a scheme to siphon off hundreds of millions in American taxpayer dollars. The funds, earmarked for clean energy projects in the war-torn country, were allegedly redirected to the United States to benefit Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

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Paid activists in Los Angeles, California, have been caught on hidden camera paying homeless people on skid row to forge signatures of registered voters on ballot initiatives.

O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) released part Two of its undercover investigation into the Democrats’ blatant election fraud operation in L.A. on Tuesday.

California’s Republican gubernatorial frontrunner Steve Hilton commented on X: “They paid homeless people cash and drugs on Skid Row to forge your signature. Your name. Your vote. Stolen by a crackhead with a clipboard — while Gavin Newsom looked the other way.”

Yeah,  that sounds about right.

The Telegraph (UK).

Parents are fighting governors to save an all-girls private school in Cheshire’s Premier League footballer enclave.

They were told on Feb 24 that the £20,000-a-year Alderley Edge School for Girls, which currently has 330 students aged from two to 18, would close at the end of the academic year.

Rachel Reeves’s 20 per cent VAT on private school fees, introduced in January last year, has led to increased fees, falling pupil numbers and many school closures.

Trump’s TV-Warped Brain Is Putting the World in Danger (Chris Lehmann/The Nation)

The Republican Collapse Has Begun — And Trump Is Leading It (Dan Pfeiffer/The Message Box)

How Trump is complicating TSA funding (Cameron Peters/Vox)

Trump housing chief Bill Pulte seeks new DOJ probe of New York AG Letitia James (Vaughn Hillyard/MS NOW)

ICE Lied About Its Authority to Make Courthouse Arrests (Whitney Curry Wimbish/American Prospect)

Senate locked in staring contest on DHS as insults fly (Hans Nichols/Axios)

Jack Smith memo includes ‘damning evidence’ about Trump’s handling of classified documents, top Democrat says (NBC News)

Trump Draws Bipartisan Backlash for Easing Oil Sanctions on Russia and Iran (Robert Jimison/New York Times)

California Sues Trump Administration Over Offshore Drilling Order (Chevron Warns California Facing Historic Fuel Crisis As Diesel Hits Record $7)

Trump Says GOP Is the ‘Hot Party’ Despite Midterm Headwinds (Bloomberg)

Trump says Justices Barrett, Gorsuch ‘sicken me’ after Supreme Court tariff ruling (Dan Mangan/CNBC)

More US Counties See Population Drops Under Trump’s Immigration Crackdown (Bloomberg)  How many are Blue counties? Place your bets….

Trump’s Threats to Europe Put Its Leaders in a Double Bind Over Iran (Mark Landler/New York Times)

Russia plays chicken with Trump (Megan Messerly/Politico)

The Thug of War — Pete Hegseth’s colleagues at the Pentagon are calling him ‘Dumb McNamara … (Zeteo)

Stewart Claims Iran War Violence Is ‘Almost Sexual’ For Hegseth

‘I’m a military expert and Donald Trump ‘wilfully ignorant’ on conflict with Iran’

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A brother and sister have been indicted after authorities say one of them planted a potentially deadly explosive device outside MacDill Air Force Base in Florida — then fled to China, while their mother is now in ICE custody after allegedly telling investigators her son confessed to the plot.

The FBI said Alen Zheng, who is believed to have planted the device, is currently in China. He is facing charges of attempted damage to government property by fire or explosion, unlawful making of a destructive device and possession of an unregistered destructive device, which carry a potential sentence of up to 40 years in prison.

FBI Tampa also arrested his sister, Ann Mary Zheng, who is charged with accessory after the fact and tampering with evidence, facing up to 30 years in prison.

She is accused of hiding or damaging a 2010 Mercedes-Benz to prevent its use in legal proceedings, court documents show.

Prosecutors allege that on March 11, the day after the bomb was planted, the siblings attempted to cover their tracks by selling the vehicle to car dealer CarMax. Despite being vacuumed and cleaned, investigators later discovered trace explosive residue inside the vehicle.

New York Post.

The 83-year-old US Air Force veteran who was randomly shoved onto the subway tracks by an illegal migrant on the Upper East Side has died from his injuries — and his alleged killer has been charged with murder.

Grandfather Richard Williams succumbed to his injuries March 17 after he was allegedly pushed onto the tracks with another man while waiting for a train at the Lexington Avenue-63rd Station just before noon March 8, authorities and sources said.

His alleged attacker, Honduran national Bairon Hernandez, 34, was arrested March 10 at a homeless shelter — and his charges have been upgraded to second-degree murder following Williams’ death, court records show.

Read it.

Remember the good old days when the only religious ceremony you’d expect to see in Texas would be a baptism?

But this is Denton, Texas, in 2026.

Denton, just north of Dallas, has many nearby waterways, including the Elm Fork Trinity River, Lewisville Lake, Lake Ray Roberts, Denton Creek, Grapevine Lake, and Buck Creek.

Indians have been criticized across America and Canada for polluting, pooping, and washing in local waterways like these.

Be careful not to step in the diversity. It’s hell getting that stuff off of your shoes.

I have never understood this impulse.

Read it.

The mayor of America’s third-largest city wants you to know his priorities.

(I’ll give you a hint, it’s not the residents of Chicago.)

Read it.

A scandal at a Berlin youth center has escalated after a sworn affidavit alleged that staff failed to report serious sexual assault claims to police over concerns about “stigmatizing” Muslim suspects.

The affidavit, submitted to Senate and district authorities, was filed by employees of a neighboring facility who said they repeatedly urged staff at the Wutzkyallee youth center in Neukölln to contact police. According to the document, staff declined to act despite being told that a 16-year-old girl had been raped and that videos of the assaults were being used to blackmail her. A coordinator reportedly justified the decision by saying the “Muslim boys” involved were already known to police and that further reporting could contribute to their marginalization.

The girl was allegedly raped at the youth center in November and later sexually assaulted again by a group of up to eight teenage suspects. The affidavit also describes a wider pattern of misconduct over several months, including groping, unwanted physical contact, and girls being pulled onto boys’ laps.

Quilettte.

Despite an ongoing crimewave, Melbourne was recently named the world’s best city by Time Out magazine, to a mix of celebratory headlines, crowing by the Victorian state government, and general bemusement among everyone else. Sure enough, just two days later, the city reminded the world of its recent sad decline.

On 13 March, Vietnamese international student Bao Phuc Cao pleaded guilty to secretly filming a woman under the cubicle walls in the toilets of a shopping centre in the city’s Docklands area. His camera was found to have similarly intrusive images and videos of more than 100 women on it. Their identities are unknown. And he was already on a community correction order (a form of community-based punishment involving monitoring and other conditions) from two previous prosecutions for similar offences. The victim in this case has been left anxious and traumatised. While Cao pleaded guilty and has reportedly abided by his order, at the time of his arrest he also apparently offered the baffling excuse that he was in the women’s toilets because he was “unsure” about his gender. Despite all this, Cao was not sentenced to prison, much less deported from Australia (though his visa is reportedly being reviewed); in fact, no conviction was recorded, and Cao was released into the community with no further punishment at all, beyond an undertaking of good behaviour and continued compliance with his existing order. The seemingly bizarre leniency of the judgement raises larger questions about the administration of criminal justice in Victoria, the alignment of the judiciary with public standards and expectations and the function of criminal law.

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The Trump administration scored a victory on Wednesday as an appeals court ruled that it can detain illegal immigrants without bond.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in favor of the Department of Homeland Security’s detention policy, in the case of illegal immigrant Joaquin Herrera Avila.

All three judges on the 8th Circuit panel were Republican appointees, one appointed by President George W. Bush and two by President Donald Trump.

Read it.

Growth rates in U.S. metro areas dropped the steepest in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border last year because of declines in immigrants while counties along Florida’s Gulf Coast lost residents due to a series of hurricanes, according to new population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The estimates showed that a majority of metro areas and counties had slower population gains last year, which the bureau attributed primarily to a slowdown in international migration, compared to the previous year when an influx of immigrants had helped urban areas recover from the COVID-19 pandemic a few years earlier.

The average growth rate for metro areas fell from 1.1% in 2024 to 0.6% in 2025.

Governor of Massachusetts: Female.

Governor of New York: Female.

Governor of New Jersey: Female.

Governor of Virginia: Female.

If I were Gavin Newsom or Fatso Pritzger, I’d be looking over my shoulder….

New York Post.

Loyola University Chicago’s student newspaper is facing backlash for apologizing for its coverage of freshman Sheridan Gorman’s murder — because editors labeled the alleged murderer an “illegal immigrant.”

The Loyola Phoenix originally reported — accurately — on accused killer Jose Medina-Medina‘s status as an illegal alien after he was charged on Monday with the execution of 18-year-old Gorman.

“Immigrant man charged in murder of Sheridan Gorman, DHS involved,” the student paper’s headline originally read, referring to Venezuelan national Medina-Medina, 25, as an “illegal immigrant.”

 

BBC, a Voice of the Crust.

• Graver then the Mongol conquests after 1206.
• Graver than the massive die-offs produced by European diseases in North and South America after 1492.
• Graver than the millions killed under socialism and its psychotic brother, communism.

Points that the UN will neither mention nor consider:

1. All African slaves were enslaved by Africans. The surplus were sold to Europeans, a lucrative source of revenue.
2. Muslims processed more African slaves than Europeans.
3. Slavery was a universal component of human society until Christians decided to stop it in the 18th century.

UPDATE West African nation famous for selling fellow Africans into slavery demands reparations for slavery after UN vote

Read it.

The climate science world (‘settled’ division) is in shock following the discovery in ancient ice cores that levels of carbon dioxide remained stable as the world plunged into an ice age around 2.7 million years ago. Levels of CO2 at around 250 parts per million (ppm) were said to be lower than often assumed with just a 20 ppm movement recorded for the following near three million-year period. In addition, no changes in methane levels were seen in the entire period. Massive decreases in temperature with occasional interglacial rises appear to have occurred without troubling ‘greenhouse’ gas levels, and this revelation has caused near panic in activist circles.

 

Newsbusters.

There was once upon a time when the news media pretended to care about congressional ethics, and made an effort to cover alleged violations of the public trust. Nowadays, the Elitist Media appear to deploy an obvious double standard when covering these.

Consider the case of Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-Mccormick (D-FL). McCormick has been indicted by a federal grand jury on multiple charges related to the alleged theft of FEMA funds. The sole evening newscast item on her charges came last fall, a quick brief on the NBC Nightly News.

There has been no coverage on the evening news or anywhere else since, and the House Ethics Committee is set to hold a public hearing tomorrow.

Read it.

One week ago, when fears that the Strait of Hormuz blockade would mean a permanent collapse in oil supply (we have since seen that Iran is allowing “friendly” ships to cross the strait, especially if they grease the toll-keeper with $2 million per crossing) hit a fever pitch and pushed the price of Brent to $120, we said that “Saudi Arabia Has Already Revived More Than Half Its Oil Exports Via Hormuz Bypass.”

With Iran blocking Saudi ships from cross Hormuz for the time being, the Kingdom had drastically ramped up its oil exports to more than half of normal levels despite the disruptions from the Iran war, a successful sign for the kingdom’s ambitious contingency plan to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. To do this, Saudi Arabia has ramped up crude shipments from Yanbu export terminals on the Red Sea coast as it diverted supplies away from the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz via the East-West pipeline.