Throw Iran to the Wolves

Townhall 

First off, I’m writing this before President Donald Trump speaks to the nation tonight, where I expect him to declare victory and announce something about when we’ll be done in Iran. Good. That doesn’t change my opinion about what comes next, so the submission deadline does not negate what follows.

The Iranian regime wants to die; help them with that. Whatever shell of a government is left is launching rockets randomly at its neighbors, which indicates they’d rather fight until they’re dead than reconstitute itself into something that isn’t threatening to the rest of the world, so we should facilitate that end.

How do we do that? Well, we’ve weakened them to the point that the people of Iran could rise and rip them apart – pull a Mussolini and string up their oppressors. I hope that happens, as there is something cathartic in the oppressed having a hand in ridding the world of their oppressors. I mean, real oppressors, not the weak, wussy stuff college kids are taught, are oppressing them somehow, and the Iranian people have really been oppressed.

But what if the people don’t rise? What if they’re still gun-shy over the last time when low estimates have it at 35,000 slaughtered? Too bad. We can’t continue a war that is all won but the clean up because the people are afraid. If they won’t carry their freedom the last mile across the finish line, then they don’t get it.

As long as whatever is there isn’t throwing money around to terrorist organizations and despotic regimes, they can be as nasty as they want to be to their own people. They have their chance now and I hope they take it, but if they don’t…

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

That being said, if the people of Iran aren’t going to step up, throw the country to the wolves.

Iran hasn’t always existed; there’s no reason that it needs to going forward. Tell the neighboring counties – the ones Iran is firing rockets into – that they can divvy it up any way they want, just as long as they give up the nuclear material and never choke off the Straight of Hormuz. Whatever else happens, who cares?

If all the countries around it want to take a piece and annex it, go for it. If they want to install a puppet government, knock yourself out. I don’t care. The people of Iran have their chance right now, if they don’t take it….

I realize this is controversial and will be wildly unpopular among the very same people who’ve insisted my whole life that we couldn’t possibly upset the status quo in the Middle East or else we’d risk being attacked, but we’ve been attacked by proxies of those very same Middle East countries my whole life, too.

Government might be the only industry where people fight desperately for complacency – there’s a lot of money in doing nothing. Power, too. But is there anything good, provided you aren’t on the end of one of those fat checks?

No, there is not.

I applaud President Trump for finally punching back against the monsters who’ve solidified their power by killing their own people and Americans. He’s liberated 95 million people, and that’s an amazing accomplishment few human beings can claim. But all he can do is open the gates of the prison; he can’t make the people leave it.

The national interest of the United States is already served by the destruction of the Iranian government. It could and would be better served by a stable, friendly government that treats the Iranian people well would be ideal, but it is not necessary.

US foreign policy has to be the interests of the American people first, everything else second. I get that that sounds cold and mean, but it’s true. If good things for others can happen within that framework, all the better. But it is not, and cannot be, a priority.

So, if the Iranian people aren’t willing to stand up for themselves, that should not be a reason for the involvement of the US military one day longer than is necessary to secure our interests. To avoid the area falling into chaos, let its neighbors, who are friendly to our needs, have at it and figure out what will come next for what is currently called Iran.

Podcast thread for April 2nd

 

not everything is what it seems, btw.

How Trump-inspired CUSMA compliance levels could become a trap

 CUSMA compliance suddenly became a must-have for dodging high tariffs and surviving the trade war

US President Donald Trump speaks to the press upon returning to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on January 13, 2026. Photo by MANDEL NGAN /AFP via Getty Images

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Thanks largely to Donald Trump, Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) compliance among Canadian firms is higher than ever.

Before the president returned to the White House with threats of imposing high tariffs against Canadian imports, many companies simply didn’t bother seeking CUSMA compliance because they enjoyed low “most-favoured-nation” tariffs. Even some auto giants found it easier to simply pay the World Trade Organization’s bound rate for some of their models to gain U.S. market access, rather than shifting supply chains to heavily North American content to qualify for CUSMA compliance.

But that all changed after Trump’s second inauguration, when CUSMA compliance suddenly became a must-have for dodging high tariffs and surviving the trade war.

“(Those companies) initially were not ready when Trump came in, but because it was the one exemption to tariffs, there was strong pressure on companies to put everything they could into compliance so that the (CUSMA) would shield them from tariffs,” said Christopher Sands, director of the Center for Canadian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.

“It was easier to shift suppliers and make those adjustments rather than paying the … 25 per cent,

the initial auto tariff that Trump threw out there.”

As a result, between December 2024 and July 2025, compliance — measured as the share of trade value declared under CUSMA preferential treatment — for Canadian exports to the U.S. rose from 35.5 to 78.7 per cent, according to a new Brookings Institution report that Sands helped compile.

Tony Stillo, director of Canada Economics at Oxford Economics, says compliance has now nearly tripled from early last year to 90 per cent.

Getting that CUSMA Certification of Origin, however, isn’t as easy as ticking a box. For many businesses, it meant hiring accountants, internal auditors, or, in some cases, specialty consultants, to map rules of origin and trace supplies.

“They have to establish that their components are all compliant with the rules of origin in the (CUSMA),” said Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, “and there’s a lot of fine print in that.”

“That means they have to trace not only their immediate suppliers, but the suppliers to those suppliers” to avoid being audited, he added.

For some firms, it also meant rethinking their supply inputs and swapping non-North American parts for those that qualified as North American, which were often costlier than products purchased from Latin America or Asia.

It was also possible that the newly sought North American suppliers couldn’t easily ramp up their capacity to meet demand, Sands explained. In turn, some had to borrow money to expand production.

Re-assessing entire supply chains also meant renegotiations with suppliers and, in cases, cancellation of contracts. Firms, after all, fear the hefty fines involved with noncompliance.

“There’s the time cost, the contract cost, and the potential penalties,” Sands said.

But last year, the savings on tariffs far outweighed the compliance costs, experts say.

“It paid for itself,” said Hufbauer.

Stillo agreed, noting that the “Canadian economy would’ve been hit harder last year if we hadn’t become (CUSMA) compliant.”

A 2025 Oxford Economics report noted how compliance buffered Canada, but it also highlighted the economic hardship, in terms of planning and investment, that resulted from the uncertainty related to Trump’s policy shifts.

So compliance by Canadian exporters tripled last year, reshaping North American trade by forcing greater alignment with CUSMA’s rules of origin. But Canada’s economy still struggled amid the uncertainty of Trump’s tariffs. Now, with this summer’s review of the agreement looming, exporters face the possibility of Trump changing the rules — or abandoning them altogether.

So could the higher level of compliance oddly make Canada more vulnerable?

“It might,” said Hufbauer, “depending on how Trump pursues tariffs with other countries.”

Trump’s team may push, for example, for the rules of origin to include a high level of U.S.-made content, not merely North American-made products, thereby moving the goalposts for compliance.

Canada and Mexico could push back, of course, but if it’s a dealbreaker for the U.S., it will come down to who blinks first — and both Canada and Mexico need the U.S. far more than America needs them. Canadian exports to the U.S. account for about a fifth of Canada’s GDP, but U.S. exports to Canada and Mexico combined make up less than three per cent of U.S. GDP, according to the wealth management firm Plante Moran.

If the deal was killed … we think the Canadian economy would fall into recession in the latter part of this year

For now, higher compliance makes Canadian firms safer, but it also leaves them more exposed in the long run. CUSMA rules could be toughened, driving up compliance costs, or the agreement could fall apart — a worst-case scenario — which Stillo said would put Canada on a permanent lower growth path.

“If the deal was killed … we think the Canadian economy would fall into recession in the latter part of this year,” he said.

Sands also noted that over-compliance can be both a protection and a trap, but he sees options for exporters, even if CUSMA falls apart. If the agreement dies, the super-compliant firms can slowly lower their costs by turning to more global sources for production inputs.

That’s easier than what businesses went through last year, he explained.

“Shifting to higher (CUSMA) compliance is more painful and costly than adapting to a post‑(CUSMA) world where there’s no safe harbour, because you’re already super‑compliant,” Sands explained.

“If you’re suddenly no longer facing that pressure, you can gradually go back to something that’s more competitive.”

He was clear that CUSMA is a benefit to both Canada and the U.S. because it allows exporters to operate without tariffs, for the most part.

“But Trump has introduced a lot of new baseline tariffs,” Sands added.

“If they stick, we’ll miss (CUSMA) when it’s gone, for sure. But unless the U.S. replaces (CUSMA) with 50 per cent tariffs or something that’s really egregious, we will still be adjusting to something that’s less onerous than what we’re in now.”

 

Our Own Ruling Class Desperately Wants to Lose This War

Townhall 

What’s more treacherous and treasonous than wishing your own country gets defeated in war, especially by a bunch of goat-molesting seventh-century pagan savages whose primitive mindset is matched only by their grotesque perversions? Well, the disgusting perversions part is merely a collateral reasonwhy members of America’s donkey party seem to have such an affinity for Iran’s rulers – the mullahs, with their bizarre bestiality and grotesque handmaiden dogma, and the San Francisco Democrats, with their furry-friendly gender-spazz grossness, collectively share the worst figurative collective browser in the history of ever. Yet, it’s more than their joint commitment to degeneracy that binds them together in a desire for America to lose this campaign. The Democrats hate America, and they think it will help them politically if America can be humiliated. But more than that, seeing America lose also satisfies the evil lurking inside them. 

It’s not just about Donald Trump. That’s where people get confused. Oh, they hate Donald Trump, to be sure. He is aesthetically displeasing to them, rejecting their carefully curated image of what it means to be in the American ruling class. It’s not just his style, but his attitude. They find him vulgar and crude because he ignores their complex and emasculating social conventions that enforce collectivist commie conformity. They also hate him because he has money, and much of our ruling class really doesn’t – for example, most regime media scribblers would double their income if only they knew how to do plumbing or drive a truck. There’s a gulf between their prestige and their pay, and Trump’s flagrant celebration of his own riches generates the greenest of envy.

But they also hate him because he’s a class traitor. He understands them because he was one of them until he got tired of them, and he has nothing but contempt for them. He knows they’re weak, stupid, and greedy, and he won’t honor their pretensions to intelligence and competence. Trump was a guy who had to build tall buildings. He either did it right, or the buildings fell. His opponents build nothing. They talk and write. They suffer no consequences for failure, and his critique of their fecklessness is the closest they’ll get to accountability. They hate him for that.

But that’s all personal. That’s why they hate Trump as an individual. But Donald Trump also operates as an avatar for the normal Americans he represents. What the ruling caste really hates is you. They hate normal people. They hate people who devote themselves to faith, family, and the Flag. They have to. They need to hate you because, through hating you, these unaccomplished hacks find a purpose and meaning. They don’t go out and slay dragons. They go out and nag people on Twitter. We, on the other hand, largely live real lives. Many of us are veterans – and we have seen it get real. Occasionally, someone in the ruling class does a tour in the Army and milks it forever – Happy March 29th, Vietnam Veterans Day, to the hero of the Tet Offensive, Senator Dick Blumenthal! – but being in the military is dirty and icky, and you’re stuck with people who are also dirty and icky. You know, Americans.

They do jobs where they talk and despise Americans who have jobs where they sweat. Remember, among our ruling class, the ultimate gig is to sit and run your mouth. Look, there’s nothing wrong with running your mouth for a job – I do it – but if that’s the only thing you’ve ever done, that breaks your mind. I’ve worked at McDonald’s, been fired from Denny’s for gross incompetence, been a private in the army, and jockeyed rental cars at San Francisco Airport, where everyone in the lot was either a college student on break or a convict on parole. Your past is probably similarly colorful. But the color of our ruling class’s past is flat white. They went to the University of College, then they started writing somewhere, and that’s it. They never sweat, never bled, and probably never drove a car with a stick shift or a V8.

We are not the same. They were the student government geeks and drama dorks in high school. As all adults know, adulthood is simply high school writ large. Much of our ruling class is collectively trying to get revenge on us for never getting invited to drink Coors behind the gym in high school.

Barack Obama gave the game away with his clinging to their guns and religion quote, as did Hillary Clinton with her basket of deplorables gaffe. Our ruling class, to which the Democrats are devoted – the party hasn’t been a workingman’s party since back when everybody agreed that a man can’t menstruate – distinguishes itself by its great self-regard rather than by its great achievements. It has no great achievements. What has our ruling class achieved in the last 60 years? Vietnam? The Iranian Revolution? The Iraq War? The Wall Street collapse? Obamacare? Grindr? Our ruling class has failed and everything. Is there anyone out there who thinks the world is better now than it was in the 80s? Certainly not anyone who lived in the 80s. Sure, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union collapsed, but that was despite our ruling class, thanks to the efforts of Ronald Reagan, who is a lot Trumpier than the Trump haters will ever give him credit for. Yet despite failure after failure after failure, our ruling class still believes they are geniuses.

We, normal people, know the truth, and our failure to genuflect to our alleged betters grates at them. How dare we! We, normal people, are the essence of America, and that makes our ruling class hate America. It seems strange that they would hate what they seek to rule over, but Satan does, so why not The Squad? Understand that they are powered by an all-encompassing contempt for people like you and me, and our patriotism and love of country require that these people despise their own country. America is bad, they believe, built on a foundation of racism, genocide, and transphobia, and all sorts of other badnesses. Since none of them has a religion, this ideology has to serve as a substitute. We are their heretics, their demons, their anti-wokes, and they want us to pay.

Which means they want our country to pay. They were positively giddy when a lucky drone shot killed a half-dozen Americans. They were delighted when a random missile hit took out one aircraft on the ground in Saudi Arabia. They are hoping against hope that they can somehow turn a military campaign of unprecedented skill and daring into a disaster. In the first few days of this war, we decapitated the entire Iranian government. We shattered their nuclear program. We destroyed their air force, sank their navy, and generally blew the snot out of anything worth blowing the snot out of. Our planes fly through their skies unmolested. The Democrats and their allies among the disaffected grifter class are reduced to claiming that Iran’s ability to fire the occasional missile indicates America has been completely defeated. They are aided in this propaganda initiative by the regime media, which got the memo. They must turn this victory into defeat, and they’re trying to do it. They’re not doing it very well, in the sense that anyone who is not a complete moron sees through it. But then again, nearly half of America voted for Kamala Harris, so America has a significant moron problem.

They want us to lose because they think America, and therefore Americans, deserve defeat. They also want Trump to lose because they think it’s going to help them politically. So, we now have our ruling class largely rooting for these retrograde barbarians to somehow pull victory from the jaws of defeat. And the regime media will help; no matter how this ends, all the networks and the newspapers are going to tell you that this war was a failure. But you know how you know it’s not a failure? Because there’s no head ayatollah running around. The former one got blasted to bits. His son probably did too; right now, his legendary impotence is the least of his medical concerns. Oh, and the fact that all of Iran’s ships are resting at the bottom of the ocean, there are no planes left, and they can only squeeze off a couple of shots from random drone and rocket launchers every day, is a pretty good indicator of victory. Never in history has there been such a comprehensive defeat of an entire modern nation in such a short time. 

Still, people in our own country wish for our defeat, and if those wishes aren’t granted, they’ll try to manufacture a defeat. It’s bizarre to see so many Americans so eager for America to lose, but that’s where we are right now. We’ve got Americans who want Americans to lose a war to a generational enemy with American blood on its paws. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, but they have no shame. Shame goes hand in hand with accountability, and they can’t accept the idea that they are accountable to anyone other than their own class. But just remember what’s happening here. Remember how much they must hate you to want their own country to be defeated by a bunch of fanatical freaks. And govern yourself accordingly. 

Iranians reel from U.S.-Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure

 Some residents say they’re witness to increasing numbers of strikes on residential buildings

A man holds in place a protective helmet on the head of a child as other motorists take shelter from an incoming missile attack in a ditch on the side of the highway in Latrun on April 1, 2026. Photo by MARCO LONGARI /AFP via Getty Images

As the war on Iran enters its second month, reports from state media and residents in the Islamic Republic indicate mounting attacks on civilian infrastructure including homes, factories and electricity facilities.

Iran’s Red Crescent Society, part of the international humanitarian network, said on March 30 that US-Israeli airstrikes had damaged or destroyed more than 90,000 homes, about half of them in Tehran.

Some residents say they’re witness to increasing numbers of strikes on residential buildings. They include those on the capital’s north, a more affluent area where more secular Iranians live alongside regime elites. The pummeling of urban areas is also shifting the mood among some Iranians who might have supported the action, two people said.

“It’s not like they hit one block for one person, they hit three or five blocks expecting that the person will be in one of them,” a woman in her mid-50s who lives near the leafy Fereshteh neighborhood said in voice notes sent on WhatsApp. On March 22, the strikes on her immediate surrounding area increased significantly, she said. “That’s how it’s been recently.”

While Donald Trump has signaled he’s preparing to end the conflict, the US and Israel have pressed on with their bombardment of Iran and the American president said on Wednesday he plans to hit the country “extremely hard” in coming weeks. The Islamic Republic, meanwhile, is firing missiles at Israel and Gulf states and is keeping the Strait of Hormuz largely closed to marine traffic.

The US and Israel say they are only hitting targets used for military purposes or by security services. Neither the US military nor Israel Defense Forces have published a list of what exactly what they’ve struck.

“The IDF conducts precise operational planning and takes feasible precautions in both the planning and execution of strikes in order to mitigate harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure to the greatest extent possible,” the forces said in a response to questions. A spokesperson for the US military wasn’t immediately available for comment on specific incidents.

U.S. President Donald Trump pauses as he finishes speaking during a televised address on the conflict in the Middle East from the Cross Hall of the White House in Washington, DC on April 1, 2026. Photo by ALEX BRANDON /POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Away from Tehran, Iranian state media reported that an airstrike on the town of Mahallat in central Markazi province killed 11 civilians including two women and three children. Earlier the same day, strikes on electrical facilities in the provinces of Tehran and Alborz had caused temporary blackouts. Neither report could be independently verified.

Missiles also struck one of Iran’s biggest state-run pharmaceutical companies, Tofigh Darou, destroying its production and research and development units, state media said on Tuesday, blaming the strike on Israel. It’s a major producer of anti-cancer drugs and anesthetic in Iran, according to the Social Security Investment Co., whose subsidiary owns the company.

Assessing the impact on Iran is difficult. Following a deadly crackdown on protests in January, Iranians are facing continuing pressure through arrests and judicial executions as the regime battles to keep its grip on power after initial signs that some people supported the strikes.

State-imposed restrictions on internet access and telephones mean that only state media and accredited photographers are able to publish footage and photos. Unverified social media clips of apparent damage and attacks are also limited because of the government’s internet blackout.

The residents contacted by Bloomberg used patchy virtual proxy networks to communicate, often taking days at a time to respond. They asked not to be identified by name because of fear of reprisals from the authorities, which have deployed security forces to patrol streets and man check points.

“Opinions are different and wide ranging but the thing that is very clear is that everyone is exhausted by the war situation,” a 35-year-old woman who lives in northern Tehran said by WhatsApp. “This is something that I can say I’m hearing and seeing a lot.”

A Tehran-based businessman said his own home was almost hit in an airstrike just north of the Velenjak neighborhood. He also said he sensed a change in mood among the people because of  the extent and pace of the bombardment.

“Those who were begging for the attacks to start are now regretting it big time, seeing the devastation on civilian infrastructure and housing,” he said.

In Isfahan, the ancient capital of Iran that’s prized for its historic center, social media footage and a video released by state media showed extensive damage to the 17th century Palace of Chehel Sotoun, which is close to the Isfahan provincial governor’s office, another historic building, that was directly bombed. UNESCO has expressed concern over the protection of heritage sites.

The province of Isfahan is a major industrial hub, home of the steel sector as well several important nuclear facilities, including a uranium enrichment site that was bombed by Israel and the US in the 12-day war last year.

Travelers through stanchion lines at the departure terminal of King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on April 2, 2026. Photo by - /AFP via Getty Images

Last week, Iranian state media said Israeli strikes caused significant damage to the Mobarakeh Steel Co., one of the Middle East’s biggest flat steel producers, and a major employer in the area. The US-Israel alliance also bombed a big steel maker in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, the Tasnim news agency reported.

On Sunday night, Trump posted a video on social media showing explosions engulfing an area in fireballs and thick plumes of orange and black smoke. The Wall Street Journal later reported, citing a US official, that it showed a 2,000-pound so-called bunker buster hitting an ammunition depot in Isfahan. Iranian state media hasn’t reported on the strike.

“They did that the other night — the entire city was shaking, like an earthquake,” said a businessman in Isfahan. “There’s no mercy or humanity in how they’re targeting.”

In a statement on March 8, US Central Command said it “takes every feasible precaution to minimize harm to civilians but cannot guarantee civilian safety in or near facilities used by the Iranian regime for military purposes.”

Yet Trump has often threatened to destroy civilian infrastructure. On March 30, Trump threatened to conclude the war by “blowing up and completely obliterating” all of Iran’s power stations, oil wells, the Kharg island oil terminal and “possibly” all desalination plants if the country doesn’t open the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian state media hasn’t been consistently updating the civilian death toll. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported on March 29 that 1,574 civilians had been killed in airstrikes along with 1,211 military fatalities and more than 700 “unclassified” deaths.

A woman weeps while talking on the phone near a residential building that was hit in an airstrike in the west of Tehran, Iran, on March 30, 2026. Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

Trump has said 13,000 military targets were struck, while the IDF said on Wednesday they had carried out 10,000 airstrikes on 4,000 “terrorist targets” using 16,000 different munitions so far. Israel has killed 2,000 Iranian military personnel and some 40 senior state officials, the statement added.

An IDF illustration shows that attacks have been heavily concentrated in Iran’s western and northwestern provinces, Tehran and the center of the country, including Isfahan. Seven categories are used to define targets, including “nuclear program” and military sites. A large number of strikes are categorized as “regime targets” and “terror infrastructure” without being specific.

The capital Tehran is a sprawling, densely populated metropolis that’s surrounded by mountains. Offices and buildings that are used by the police and the Basij paramilitary forces are scattered throughout the city.

Long delays on satellite imaging imposed by US companies have also made it impossible to assess damage in real time. Ten days into the war, San Francisco-based Planet Labs PBC extended a four-day delay on commercial satellite imagery in the Middle East to two weeks, citing security concerns over their use by adversarial states.

The first days of war, which started on Feb. 28, included some of the deadliest attacks on civilians. A strike on a school in Minab in southern Iran killed 168 people including 100 children, according to Iranian state media. Reuters has reported that US military investigators believed it was likely the US was responsible for the attack. The US has said it’s investigating.

This handout image taken by the European Space Agency captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite shows a view of Iran’s Kharg Island, which hosts the country’s main crude export terminal and is responsible for the overwhelming majority of its oil shipments to the world, about 30 kilometres south of the mainland in the north of the Gulf, on March 17, 2026. Photo by Handout

In the early hours of Saturday morning, an Israeli airstrike on the Tehran suburb of Sa’adat Abad destroyed a residential building. One of the residents had fled to a town on Tehran’s outskirts with his wife and daughter during the second week of the war, returned in the aftermath to find his home partially destroyed and uninhabitable.

He had tried to retrieve documents and possessions before looters could get to them first, something he had heard was now commonplace at attack sites. He said an elderly lady who lived in an apartment on the building’s top floor had been killed after the strike caused the entire roof to collapse.

The businessman in Isfahan said one of his companies is surrounded by damage from airstrikes. The bombing of industrial facilities strikes at the heart of Iran’s economy as well as ordinary workers, he said.

Meanwhile, Iranians are dealing with the bombardment in different ways. “People here are going to bed on tranquilizers,” the businessman said. “Younger people seem to be completely detached and trying to get on with their lives, going to cafés while there’s a massive bomb crater 30 meters away.”

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/iranians-reel-from-u-s-israeli-attacks-on-civilian-infrastructure

No, Sorry, the War Doesn’t Mean ‘Renewables’ Will Replace Oil

No, Sorry, the War Doesn’t Mean ‘Renewables’ Will Replace Oil

As war fuels new climate urgency, the numbers show renewables still cannot replace the energy that powers modern civilization. 

Edward Ring for American Greatness 

Right on schedule, the climate activists and their corporate backers are capitalizing on wartime fuel shortages to claim that now, finally, we can get serious about fighting climate change. On March 15, The New York Times weighed in with an article titled “How War in Iran Could Remake the Global Energy Landscape.” Claiming the oil crisis could “spur countries to invest in wind, solar, and other renewables,” the article quotes UN “Climate Chief” Simon Stiell, saying, “If there was ever a moment to accelerate that energy transition, this is the time.”

This is the same Simon Stiell who, in April 2024, claimed that the energy industry had only two years left “to save the world” by making “dramatic changes in the way it spews heat-trapping emissions, and it has even less time to act to get the finances behind such a massive shift.”

It’s difficult to know where to begin in the face of such ghoulish opportunism. Increasing numbers of credible observers have begun to question the apocalyptic urgency of the climate emergency narrative, but now that refineries are blowing up and ships are sinking in the Persian Gulf, there’s a new compelling reason to accelerate the transition to “renewables.”

So, now that the climate industrial complex discovers new momentum thanks to a catastrophic war, maybe, by the numbers, it’s also time for another reality check.

We can start by acknowledging that there is a direct connection between energy and prosperity. If we accept that premise, then here’s an immutable fact based on data reported in the 2025 edition of the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy: For everyone on earth to have access to half the energy per capita that Americans consume, global energy production will have to more than double.

To document that fact, about a year ago, in an in-depth analysis titled “The Delusions of Davos and Dubai,” I reported per capita gigajoules of energy consumption in the world, comparing Americans to the global average, and related that to total global energy consumption, measured in exajoules. Not much has changed.

Yearly per capita energy use by Americans, according to updated 2024 data, averaged 268 gigajoules. The UN estimates the global population will peak later this century at 10.3 billion people. If every one of them consumed an average of 134 gigajoules—half what Americans consume—the total energy required worldwide to deliver that much energy would be 1,381 exajoules. In 2025, total energy production in the world was 592 exajoules.

When it comes to delivering enough energy to assure prosperity around the world, that’s what we’re up against. Proponents of renewables often also support new technologies to deliver energy more efficiently. They’re right, and that’s why the 1,381 exajoules that we’re going to need someday will amount to half as much energy as Americans consume per person. Can we do even better? Deliver efficiency gains of more than 50 percent? OK. Fine. Let’s set our total global energy production goal at 1,000 exajoules. That’s a good round number, and it’s the minimum amount of energy we’re going to need.

The real question is how, since renewables are evidently our future, will they fill the gap, much less contribute to massive increases in global energy production, if oil, natural gas, and coal are removed from our energy landscape?

Here’s how those exajoules stacked up by fuel source in 2024. Of the 592 exajoules produced (EJs), 199 came from oil, 165 came from coal, and 149 came from natural gas. That constitutes 87 percent of all energy consumed. The share of global energy produced by oil, coal, and gas is rising, not falling. Nuclear energy produced 31 EJs, hydroelectricity produced 16, and “renewables” altogether produced 33 EJs, but five of those were from biofuel.

So let’s imagine we’re going to come up with 1,000 exajoules of energy to power global civilization mid-century, and let’s suppose we’re going to do that without the 513 EJs we currently get from oil, coal, and gas. We can rule out biofuel as a major contributor. There are already over 400,000 square miles of biofuel plantations in the world, where total arable farmland only totals around six million square miles. Biofuel production has devastated rainforests throughout the tropics, from Brazil to Indonesia. Even doubling biofuel production would wreak a catastrophe on the environment and only bring us 10 exajoules out of the 1,000 that are needed. The same goes for hydroelectric energy. It is difficult to imagine even doubling output; most of the best rivers have already been harnessed for hydroelectricity. Figure hydroelectric potential maxes at around 30 EJs. If biofuel and hydroelectricity—both problematic if vastly expanded—could be doubled in capacity, we would still have 960 EJs to go.

That brings us to our remaining wild cards: nuclear, geothermal, solar, and wind. Shall we double our nuclear power output? Or triple it, which was the goal set at the COP28 summit? Let’s be wildly ambitious and anticipate nuclear power becoming common. Small modular reactors, thorium reactors, innovation galore, and voilà, we will have more than quintupled our nuclear output. That means we are now producing 200 EJs per year (160 nuclear, 30 hydroelectric, and 10 biofuel). We still have to go find another 800 EJs of power, and we’re left with geothermal, wind, and solar.

We can debate the scalability of these three sources of energy all we like, but the chances they expand from 28 EJs today to 800 EJs by mid-century are slim. It would require output to expand by 30 times. Do we actually expect to construct 30 times as many wind farms, 30 times as many solar farms, and 30 times as many battery farms as we have today? Let’s not forget that all this conversion to electricity isn’t finished once we successfully generate that much power, even if it were possible. There are the batteries, stationary and mobile, and an entire infrastructure that has run on combustible fuels.

Solutions commonly offered are revealed upon analysis to be glib. Shall we create hydrogen via electrolysis? Then throw away improved efficiency. Electrolysis only extracts, best case, about 70 percent of the electricity in the form of hydrogen. If the hydrogen is then turned back into electricity using a fuel cell, once again, only 70 percent of the energy in the hydrogen turns back into electricity. And, of course, it takes another 10 percent of energy input to compress the hydrogen into usable storage. Worse still, hydrogen can’t be moved through existing pipelines, as the metal becomes brittle from exposure to pure hydrogen. And what about geothermal? Current worldwide electrical production from geothermal is estimated at 0.4 EJs. It has potential, but it has a long way to go.

All these facts are known. Replacing oil, coal, and gas would require a massive surge in mining because clean‑energy technologies use far more mineral resources. Onshore wind farms require about nine times more mineral input per megawatt than gas‑fired plants. Wind, solar, batteries, and grid infrastructure require, for example, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, rare earth elements, and copper in quantities that are already stretched. The idea that we can scale our extraction of these minerals by a factor of 30 is absolutely ridiculous.

Anyone confronting these numbers honestly must wonder how proponents of renewable energy can possibly demand that, within only a decade or two, we shall stop using fossil fuels. Perhaps much of the true motivation of the special interests promoting renewables is as old as humanity and is to be expected: a desire for power and profit. There is no credible moral case for renewables, because if they begin to serve more than a niche of the world’s energy needs, they will then inflict environmental harm that rivals or exceeds anything we’ve yet seen from oil, coal, or natural gas.

The math is simple and immutable. Fossil fuels aren’t going anywhere. Someday, somehow, technological innovations will displace them, but it may take centuries. When politicians, pundits, and the marketing arms of renewable developers use the “climate emergency,” or a terrifying war, as their justification to, for example, industrialize the supposedly off-limits California coast with thousands of floating windmills, each of them a thousand feet tall, consuming an obscene amount of resources, costing an obscene amount of money, and wreaking an obscene genocide on cetaceans and other marine life, see them for who they are: either ghoulish opportunists who exploit fear to further their own aggrandizement or innumerate fanatics whose good intentions pave a road to hell.

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If SCOTUS Upholds ‘Birthright Citizenship,’ It Will Do So At Its Own Peril

The Federalist 

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday on the Trump administration’s challenge to the decades-long practice of interpreting the 14th Amendment to allow foreigners to obtain American citizenship simply by being born within the boundaries of the country. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of this view, allowing any foreigner circumstantially (or intentionally) born on U.S. soil to be automatically adopted into the Union as a citizen, it will mean the end of actual American citizens taking the high court seriously.

As Justice Clarence Thomas pointed out, the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to grant citizenship to black people and freed slaves after the Civil War. Making the point further, Thomas asked, “How much of the debates around the 14th Amendment had anything to do with immigration?” U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer noted that there was very little, if any, which suggests that the intent of the 14th Amendment was never to be the international migration boondoggle it has become.

While Thomas appeared to recognize that reality, it was difficult to tell where the rest of the court stood on the issue at times — except for the other reliable conservative, Justice Samuel Alito.

But if the justices harbor any consideration of keeping the 14th Amendment migration train running by upholding the current bastardization of the amendment, it will signal to the American people the illegitimacy of even the highest legal authority in the land, ostensibly with a 6-3 conservative majority.

A SCOTUS decision to uphold birthright citizenship as currently applied would communicate that it means to follow in the footsteps of successive presidential administrations and Congresses, selling Americans’ jobs, land, and promises of freedom to the highest bidder, or simply giving them away to foreigners who cross the border illegally. Whereas many view the head of the judicial branch as a safeguard, upholding the Constitution when the executive branch and Congress overstep their bounds, a majority decision affirming unbounded birthright citizenship would suggest they too have no regard for the people who have a right to be here, and whose futures depend on the end of mass migration.

In his opening remarks, Sauer brought up the reality of “birth tourism,” pregnant foreigners coming to the United States in order to give birth on American soil and obtain citizenship with an anchor baby, who is automatically granted full citizenship under the current 14th Amendment framework. The issue is prominent in China, where there are actual businesses — reportedly more than 1,000 — that exist for achieving that goal, as Sauer pointed out.

Sauer’s introduction of the issue of birth tourism led to a potentially telling exchange with Chief Justice John Roberts, where Roberts asked about birth tourism’s prominence. Sauer cited the high number of such operations, stating,” No one knows for sure,” adding, “We are in a new world now.” Roberts seemed to reply flippantly: “It’s a new world, it’s the same Constitution.”

Roberts has consistently postured himself as the chief justice most intent on preserving the institution of the Supreme Court. He is suspected to have sided with majorities he may not actually agree with, in order to make the ruling more acceptable to the American people (a 6-3 decision is more convincing than a 5-4 decision, as the argument goes).

That is what makes his line of questioning both confusing and concerning, because it suggests he believes the proper constitutional interpretation of the 14th Amendment would continue to allow these birthright farms to send foreigners to the United States so their babies can receive rubber-stamp citizenship.

If the conclusion from the Supreme Court is that any country on earth can lay claim to the American homeland, so long as they send enough people to give birth here, then Americans will have no choice but to reject that notion out of hand. Such a decision would further deteriorate confidence in the Supreme Court, leading the American people to reject it as a legitimate authority on the Constitution altogether.

Is the 51st State Dream Closer to Reality? A Secession Movement in Canada Is Gaining Traction

RedState 

Checking in on the activities in America’s hat, Canada, some head-turning developments may toss our chapeau askew. There is growing passion in one province, looking to separate itself from the nation, and, for a refreshing change, this time it is not the persnickety Parisian-influenced Quebecois. This is a development we here in the States should welcome.

In Alberta, the North of the Border version of Texas, there is a legitimate effort underway to see if they can conceivably separate from the rest of the country. There has been an ongoing animosity towards the actions of the central government moving steadily towards the left wing, and the Albertans have been arriving at a less-than-Canadian polite position.

The talk took on a serious tone last summer, when Alberta Premier Danielle Smith came out publicly to say that while she was not promoting the secession movement, she recognized there were many issues her province had with the treatment from Ottawa. Smith declared that while she was not looking to put the measure on the ballot, she would not block it if the people responded.

“To be clear from the outset, our government will not be putting a vote on separation from Canada on the referendum ballot; however, if there is a successful citizen-led referendum petition that is able to gather the requisite number of signatures requesting such a question to be put to a referendum, our government will respect the democratic process and include that question on the 2026 provincial referendum ballot as well."

The people responded. As of this week, well ahead of expectations, the movement leaders said they have compiled the requisite threshold on their petition effort to have the measure on the ballot. A May 2 deadline has easily been reached, and this has sent political tremors through the country. They are also assured to exceed the predicted level of disqualified signatures. This stands to reason when you see how, in the frigid climes of January, large numbers of Albertans were arriving at locations to queue up in the snow to jot their “Jean Hancock” on the petition proposal.

Now, to be clear, this is still going to be an up-snowbank effort. Polling has shown that there is still a clear majority against secession, with that number currently trending at around 70 percent. But that has been shrinking from previous highs, in the 80 percent range. Much of that has to do with the messaging. When you hear from those behind this effort, it is not the rantings of emotional minds. (I reference back to the numerous attempts made in Quebec.)

Jeffrey Rath is the lawyer who is behind the Alberta Prosperity project, and he sounds beyond rational in his explanation of things. Rather than a frothing and whooping pro-Trump monologue, he delivers a sound game plan, and even states that independence is the priority, over an emotional rush into the American tent. 

How can you not see the sense in opposing sending more of their resources to China? But noteworthy too is his saying that this entire effort would not have moved forward without the aid of the Trump administration. That he has been in contact with U.S. players is significant, and it is not simply bluster. Scott Bessent is on record saying that we as a nation would be amenable to seeing an independent Alberta.

Adding to the desire to split off is the growing presence in Canada of the activist hyper-leftist factions. Recently, the NDP (New Democratic Party) held meetings in Alberta, and the display was something else. 

At the sparsely attended meeting, they handed out cards to members of various social groups to claim differing levels of privilege. In this clip, we see one delegate complaining about being upstaged by another member who did not hold the appropriate card and moved ahead when speaking. Then watch as the leader of this conference instructs those wanting to speak to do so orderly, but then nearly chokes at the podium before catching “themself” when saying the need to stand in a “straight” line. (GASP!)

Looking at this lot of insufferable posturing scolds, you understand the pragmatic thinkers in Alberta wanting to cut out and head off on their own. That clip serves as the perfect rationale for the tagline used in this separatist movement: “We’re Done”.