Weird How ‘The Worst Kept Secrets’ Are Always About Democrats, Isn’t It?

Townhall 

Everyone in Hollywood knew who the perverts were, they’d heard the rumors and seen things for themselves. Many of the people out there experienced it first-hand too. But, for decades, no one said anything. 

Everyone in the media knew who the perverts were, they’d heard the rumors and seen things for themselves. Many of the people out there experienced it first-hand too. But, for decades, no one said anything.

And everyone in politics knew who the perverts were, they’d heard the rumors and seen things for themselves. Many of the people out there experienced it first-hand too. But, for decades, no one said anything.

They were all “the worst kept secrets” in their respective fields, and they mostly seemed to be about Democrats. The Hollywood-type perverts paid for the campaigns of the Democrat perverts, so they weren’t about to talk about each other. And the reporters were on the team, so they weren’t about to tell the world about their teammates, especially when they were likely engaging in some level of the same behavior in their own newsrooms – the more you’re around perverts and monsters, the more normal it becomes to you, the more likely you are to become one yourself. 

Each of these groups got away with it for so long because they were each a part of the cabal of professions who should be out there exposing what all of them were doing. Anytime a Republican engaged in anything remotely close to something like this, there was no curtain of secrecy or club courtesy, not that there should have been. It was the difference between seeing steroids in the locker of your opponent’s homerun hitter and telling the world while knowing full well your homerun hitter was juicing. 

Eric Swalwell isn’t the problem, he just the symptom that popped up that could not be ignored. I have to assume the Democrat establishment was fine with whatever he was doing while he was in the House because he was essentially the perfect drone – willing to say that stupid and outrageous things they wanted said, but mostly irrelevant and anonymous enough to not matter.

When he decided to run for Governor of California, they likely assumed he’d be an also-ran. There’s no reason to spill the beans on a 5th place finisher in a jungle primary, especially when that was coupled with his leaving the House. One drone leaves, another takes its place. 

There was nothing special about Swalwell, other than his willingness to look like a moron on television, but the world (especially the world of politics) is full of people willing to do anything to get on television, including say things that make them look like a moron (or just expose that they are). 

You can tell that the Democrat establishment knew about Swalwell by how quickly they turned on him once the stories started being leaked. Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi, both of whom demand “full due process” for any illegal alien thug, even if they’re caught on video and with blood on their hands, pulled their endorsements of Eric before the ink was dry on the stories. 

They knew what was out there wasn’t as bad as it was going to get and they had to get away from him before the feces really hit the fan. Once a damn starts to crack, everyone in going to get wet. 

Swalwell was too high profile a cable news goon and was too high in the polls to be allowed to stay. If this story had broken while he was just a House Member running for reelection, he probably would have survived because the first round would’ve been ignored and there wouldn’t have been the later, more serious stories.

But Governor is a different story. It this story breaks after Swalwell is in the top 2 and on the ballot in November (and against a Republican), well, Democrats couldn’t take that chance. Democrats also couldn’t take the chance of this story breaking too late in the primary and not leave his supporters enough time to coalesce behind someone else (leaving the top 2 finishers both Republicans), the trigger had to be pulled now.

None of this was by accident because none of this was unknown. Maybe not the specifics – knowing someone is a philanderer is one thing, knowing there are women claiming rape, while not a giant leap, is still a decent sized step.

Did any Democrats know those stories? Maybe Ruben Gallego, Eric’s best friend. He is still useful to the party as a young Hispanic leftist. His history with women isn’t great, but treating women like garbage by leaving them for younger “upgrades” isn’t a crime in politics, just ask Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, who recently left his wife and kids for a young activist and is positioning himself to replace Chuck Schumer as their leader in the Senate. 

Those stories are known, as are many others about leftists, but are they the worst? Doubtful. Washington is Hollywood for ugly people, but it’s only “ugly” on the outside, as their insides are all the same rot. Harvey Weinstein didn’t get elected to anything and Bill Clinton didn’t make movies, and Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer didn’t say much about either. The worst kept secrets are often only kept for as long as the person they’re about is useful to the left. If you don’t think there are more – A LOT MORE – you haven’t been paying attention. 

Podcast thread for April 19

 

thank goodness the weekend's over

How Liberalism Inevitably Turns to Managerialism

American Thinker 

Among the more curious developments in modern liberal orthodoxy is its increasingly schizophrenic disposition towards political authority. Liberals are infinitely permissive with what they deem to be matters of personal expression, such as drug use, abortion, and various sexual contrivances. Yet, at the same time, on other sets of issues, liberals have adopted stringently authoritarian attitudes, supporting without compunction such draconian measures as censorship bureaus, speech codes, election nullification, and invasive medical overreach.

What is interesting about both these developments is how liberals will justify both moral laxity and political repression by invoking expert authority. The Left largely grounded its support for medicalized gender-affirmation on the judgment of purported expert institutions like WPATH; they justified permissive “harm reduction” approaches to managing homelessness by citing organizations like Harm Reduction International. Meanwhile, on the authoritarian end of the ledger, the Left invoked authorities like the Disinformation Governance Board (run out of DHS) and the Stanford Internet Observatory to argue for flagrant state censorship. Whether the cause of the hour is of the libertine or authoritarian variety, the Left invariably justifies it by appeal to scientific or technical expertise.

These developments in liberal politics -- the schizophrenic lurching between permissiveness and authoritarianism, the endless exaltation of experts -- are rooted in a vulnerability inherent in liberalism itself, namely that liberalism is inherently deconstructive. It is a political formula for dismantling social customs and hierarchies in pursuit of ever greater individual autonomy and equality -- that is, in theory.

The problem for liberals is that this process only goes one way. Once Liberalism becomes the dominant social ethos, it discovers that it lacks the internal resources to construct and legitimate any social hierarchy. This creates problems for the exercise of governance, which is inherently hierarchical and authoritarian. (For evidence of this, the next time one is pulled over, one should deny the authority of the officer on the scene on the grounds of the inherent equality of all human beings; see what happens.)

In light of this, liberals have striven, over centuries, to devise some system that can justify hierarchical governance structures within their egalitarian ethos, postulating such schemes as Social Contract theory, Proprietorial Libertarianism, the Veil of Ignorance, Popular Sovereignty, and countless others. Historically, the only such systems that have proven politically viable are those ostensibly grounded in ‘technical expertise,’ that is to say, managerial liberalism.

The political viability of managerial liberalism has nothing to do with the inherent justness or validity of this solution. On the contrary, institutions of technical or professional authority, once leveraged for political authority, immediately become compromised. Their ‘expert opinions’ quickly degenerate into flagrantly pretextual covers for purely political machinations. Note that the various institutions cited at the outset, WPATH, the Disinformation Governance Board, and so forth, have since collapsed in a heap from their own corruption.

Liberalism tends towards managerialism not out of any theoretical or moral justification, but out of a confluence of motive, means, and opportunity. Regarding motive, experts and technicians are salary men and government workers, meaning their immediate interests are generally aligned with those of wage-earners and in conflict with the interests of capitalist profit-takers. Further, expert classes in many ways are in direct competition with the cultural and religious authorities that liberals seek to dismantle, as the decline of these authorities creates cultural confusion, which in turn generates more demand for their expert services. For example, a society in which marriage is not strictly regulated by religious and cultural prescriptions will greatly require the services of sundry counselors, therapists, lawyers, and coaches to take up the slack.

One sees how liberalism and managerialism perfectly complement each other. Liberal ideology eviscerates the cultural norms and traditional institutions that sustain social order, leaving these cultural functions to be performed by an emergent class of technical experts. In turn, this expert class provides the liberals with an inherited authority structure -- an institutional hierarchy built on technical expertise -- that liberal ideology cannot generate on its own. Managerial liberalism, by merging these forces, comes to possess both the ideological vision and the formal authority structure required to build a viable state.

It is the expert class’s surreptitious laundering of technical authority into the domain of political authority that provides liberals with the means to enact their ideology within a concrete political and legal structure. The expert class provides liberals with a numerous, highly competent, and class-conscious constituency that can form an organized counter-elite to vie for political power. Further, experts can insinuate themselves into key cultural institutions and leverage them for political ends. No other ‘liberal-leaning’ cohort has this capacity to construct and maintain hierarchical authority-bearing institutions. The ‘working class’ lacks the built-in organizational hierarchy (unions are easier to bust than to build); cultural vanguards lack the numbers; the underclass lacks the competence and discipline. One sees these peripheral left-factions at the margins of liberal political coalitions, struggling fruitlessly to wrest some control from the expert class, but unable to exert serious influence.

Expert classes enjoy one more critical asset, in that competing elites will often afford expert classes the opportunity to join them in a power-sharing arrangement. Unlike the working class, whose interests directly oppose those of capitalists, expert classes exist in a relation of friendly antagonism with oligarchical interests. The typical liberal expert does not want to topple the MacArthur or Ford Foundations, as a Classical Marxist might; he will be seeking a MacArthur Grant or a Ford Fellowship to elevate his professional standing.

A commercial oligarchy thus easily establishes a symbiotic relationship with liberal managerialism. Concentrated capital pools -- the Ford and Carnegie Foundations, the Harvard Endowment ad infinitum -- sponsor cadres of experts to buy themselves goodwill and political protection (and in particular to push aside those pesky liberal contingents that are less friendly to big business). In return, the oligarchy sets up all sorts of sinecures and endowments to multiply and remunerate the ranks of the expert class. In time, this arrangement stabilizes; ‘liberal politics’ becomes a perpetual negotiation as to how the pie is sliced between Foundation guarantor and Foundation guarantee, with both sides acknowledging the value of the other’s role in the underlying political game.

It is at this point where liberalism loses any semblance of connection with its historical ideological principles and comes exclusively to represent the perpetual exaltation of the expert classes and their sundry social projects. It eventually becomes irrelevant whether any of these projects is in any way consistent with liberal ideology as traditionally understood. One bureaucrat could promote something as permissive as the provision of public accommodations for heroin use; another could promote measures as oppressive as the establishment of a giant censorship bureaucracy. Both present as ‘liberal’ endeavors simply by virtue of enabling the creation of more government agencies, sinecures, and jobs. Meanwhile these selfsame experts take great care not to look into the structural inequality inherent in their ownpositions of authority, nor to render the slightest scrutiny upon the oligarchy that sponsors them. We have arrived at the final scene of Animal Farm, where the Pigs and the Farmers are sitting across the table, playing cards, and unable to distinguish one from the other.

Israel Blocks France’s Participation in its Peace Talks With Lebanon

Israel Blocks France’s Participation in its Peace Talks With Lebanon

French President Macron and his habitual betrayal of Israel.

Hugh Fitzgerald for 

Frontpage Magazine 

France has a long history in Lebanon, including holding the League of Nations Mandate for Lebanon and Syria, and a century of providing diplomatic support for the Francophone Lebanese Maronites. No doubt French President Emmanuel Macron thought it was altogether right and proper for France to be included in the negotiations between Israel and Lebanon that are now beginning in Washington. Israel, however, has refused to allow France to participate. For under Macron, France has become even more hostile to Israel than it was before his ascendance to the presidency.

More on Macron and why Israel has barred France from a seat at the negotiating table, can be found here: “Macron undermined Israel and defied the US, then asked for a Lebanon role – comment,” by Zvika Klein, Jerusalem Post, April 10, 2026:

Emmanuel Macron wants to be the peacemaker between Israel and Lebanon. You cannot embargo a country’s weapons, block its arms flights, condemn its military operations as “indiscriminate,” and then demand a seat at its negotiating table. That is not diplomacy. That is audacity.

Israel’s decision to exclude France from the direct talks with Lebanon, beginning Tuesday in Washington, is being framed in European capitals as a snub. It is not. An Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post’s Amichai Stein that “France’s conduct over the past year, including initiatives aimed at limiting Israel’s ability to fight in Iran, and a complete lack of willingness to take concrete steps to help Lebanon disarm Hezbollah, has led Israel to view France as an unfair mediator.” Israel did not disqualify France. France disqualified France.

On March 31, France refused to allow US military aircraft carrying supplies for Israel to transit French airspace, the first such denial since the Iran conflict began. A source in the Elysee Palace later confirmed that France’s position had been consistent “since the first day,” meaning the restriction applied throughout the war. Israel’s Defense Ministry suspended all procurement from France and initiated steps to terminate existing contracts. An Israeli official called it “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” A country that impedes weapons transfers to an ally in the middle of a war has chosen a side. That is not the posture of a neutral mediator….

Macron never condemned Hezbollah for its missile and drone fire into Israel, though he was quick to deplore Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Hezbollah targets in south Beirut. He did not provide weapons to the Lebanese National Army, which would have enabled it to take on Hezbollah. He imposed a partial arms embargo on weapons for Israel, keeping certain critical components made in France from reaching Israeli missile manufacturers, including Rafael, Elbit, and IAI. He did exempt “defensive” weapons from the embargo, and despite Macron, and with the knowledge of the French Defense Ministry, some French firms managed to interpret the category of “defensive weapons” broadly. And by way of riposte to Macron’s partial embargo, Israel, finally fed up with Macron’s mistreatment, imposed its own arms embargo, refusing to sell France its weaponry, not all of which could be obtained from other sellers.

After the end of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, UN peacekeepers — UNIFIL troops, many of whom were French — were supposed to prevent Hezbollah combatants from establishing bases between the Litani River and the Lebanese border with Israel. They failed to do so. The Lebanese government does not like meddling by Macron; it agrees with Israel that Hezbollah must be disarmed and mistrusts the French, who have adopted an anti-Israel policy that ends up being a soft-on-Hezbollah policy. Like Israel, the Lebanese are counting on the U.S. to help them deal with the terror group that continues to defy the national government by not handing over its weapons.

In his only comment on the initial understandings reached in Islamabad, Macron took the side of Iran and Pakistan, and against Israel, by claiming that an IDF “ceasefire” in Lebanon was part of the agreement, a position that Iran and the Pakistanis support, but that both the U.S. and Israel roundly reject.

Macron prevented American military planes delivering weapons to Israel to use its airspace. He put in place a partial arms embargo on French weapons for Israel. He was the first Western leader to recognize a “state of Palestine.” He has said that Israel’s policy in Gaza is “shameful.” He did nothing to enforce UN Resolution 1701 in Lebanon, which required that Hezbollah disarm, even though French troops were on the ground in Lebanon as part of UNIFIL. He has claimed that in Islamabad, the initial tentative agreement included a ceasefire in Lebanon, even though the U.S. and Israel immediately denied that claim.

There is a dismissive French phrase that goes thus: “Sois-belle et tais-toi”: “Be beautiful and shut up.” So we can say to the vain and feckless Macron, after a quick sex-change operation, “Sois-beau et tais-toi.” And we might even add, in the pneumatic bliss of a petit bleu to Monsieur le Président that my friend Odile once sent to me: “Fais un petit effort.”

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons, European Union.

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Explosive Report: As Dobbs Majority Faced Death Threats, Liberal Justices Slow-Walked Release

‘Abortion supporters had an incentive to kill one or more of the justices in the majority to change the outcome,’

The Federalist

When the draft of the Supreme Court ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade leaked to the press, the conservative justices who signed on to the majority opinion suddenly wore bigger targets on their backs. The very real threat of assassination hung over them like a coming thunderstorm. 

And still their pro-abortion colleagues stalled the release of the official ruling for weeks, putting the justices’ lives at increased risk, as detailed in Mollie Hemingway’s new book on Justice Samuel Alito and reported Saturday by Fox News.

Alito is the justice who wrote Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the ruling ending nationalized abortion.

“Alito asked the dissenters to make the completion of their dissents their priority because delay of the decision was a security threat,” Hemingway, The Federalist’s editor-in-chief writes in Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution. “Abortion supporters had an incentive to kill one or more of the justices in the majority to change the outcome.” 

The dissenters — Justices Stephen Breyer (counting down the days until his retirement at the end of the 2021-22 term ), Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor — “demurred,” Hemingway reports. Justice Neil Gorsuch asked the liberals when they expected to be wrapped up. They refused to provide a date. 

The tension and the threats escalated. 

‘Serious Security Risk’

On May 2, 2022, accomplice media outlet Politico published the 98-page draft of Dobbs. The unprecedented leak set off a wave of leftist protests and a literal firestorm of pro-abortion-led violence. Six days later — on Mother’s Day — a radical who was eventually arrested thanks to a half-eaten burrito firebombed the Madison headquarters of Wisconsin Family Action, a Christian pro-life, pro-family organization. 

“In the ensuing weeks, hundreds of pregnancy centers, churches, and pro-life organizations would be vandalized, some even set ablaze,” Hemingway wrote. Protesters also lined the streets and sidewalks outside the conservative justices’ homes.

More than a month after the leak, Nicholas Roske, 26 at the time, arrived at Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home with murder on his mind. In his possession were a Glock pistol, ammunition, zip ties, a tactical knife, pepper spray, a hammer, duct tape, and more accoutrements, according to the criminal complaint. Roske said he was going to stop Roe v. Wade from being overturned by getting rid of a judge — or three — that voted to stop the deeply flawed 1973 ruling legalizing abortion nationwide. 

“Everyone knew that the leak posed a serious security risk for justices. Since decisions do not take effect until issued officially from the bench, the death of a justice before then could alter the result. The threat of assassination increased dramatically,” Hemingway writes. 

It took 53 days to finally release the Dobbs decision. Despite the growing threat to their colleagues, the liberals on the court refused to listen to urgent pleas to complete their work, Hemingway reports.

The ‘Wall Was Shaking’

Kagan, an Obama nominee, made her opinion on the delay loudly clear, according to Hemingway’s book, as reported by Fox.

“Hemingway wrote that Kagan, an Obama appointee, angrily confronted Breyer, a Clinton appointee, in May 2022 behind closed doors after at least one justice, Samuel Alito, had asked his liberal colleagues to speed up writing their dissent because of security threats,” Fox reported. “Breyer was most likely to agree to Alito’s request, Hemingway wrote.”

Hemingway wrote that “Kagan remonstrated with Breyer not to accommodate the majority, screaming so loudly, observers noted, that the ‘wall was shaking,’” according to Fox. 

While pro-abortion zealots were calling for heads to roll, the court’s liberal minority did nothing to, as the left likes to say with empty virtue, “turn down the temperature.” 

The justices needed all the help they could get. But the Biden administration shrugged off the serious threats. Biden press secretary, Jennifer Psaki, insisted the demonstrations were peaceful. 

“I know that there’s an outrage right now, I guess, about protests that have been peaceful to date, and we certainly do continue to encourage that, outside judges’ homes, and that’s the president’s position,” Psaki said on May 10. 

“Shortly after the leak, Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to provide full-time security for all the justices, but he drew criticism because authorities did not arrest protesters despite a law that prohibits ‘picketing or parading’ near a federal judge’s home to influence a court decision,” Fox reported.

Garland refused to enforce the laws against pro-abortion radicals who threatened Supreme Court members even as he was siccing the FBI on parents who spoke out against liberal school district policies. 

‘We Can Only Do Our Jobs’

Contrary to the belief by Roe’s supporters that the final outcome could be changed if they just demonstrated and threatened and destroyed enough, the conservatives on the court never wavered.

“We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today’s decision overruling Roe and Casey,” Alito wrote in his Dobbs opinion. “And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision. We can only do our job, which is to interpret the law, apply longstanding principles of stare decisis, and decide this case accordingly.” 

The Fox report on Hemingway’s new book comes after former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer reported rumors earlier this week that the Supreme Court’s liberal minority is once again “slow-walking the dissent” in a landmark redistricting case Louisiana v. Callais, “so that [the decision] will not be issued in time for many Republican states to actually go in and redistrict based on the decision.”

Man Who Threw Molotov Cocktail at OpenAI CEO's Home Referenced Luigi Mangione

Townhall 

A 20-year-old Texas man who allegedly firebombed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home in San Francisco referenced Luigi Mangione, who is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

The suspect, Daniel Moreno-Gama allegedly traveled from Texas to California with several weapons, a Molotov cocktail, and a manifesto in which he railed against artificial intelligence. He believed the technology poses an existential threat.

The San Francisco District Attorney’s office in a press release said the suspect is facing multiple felony charges connected to the attack.

The incident occurred early in the morning on April 10 when Moreno-Gama allegedly hurled the Molotov cocktail at an exterior gate of Altman’s home. The device ignited a fire on the property and the suspect fled on foot.

The authorities said he had a knife, a gun, ammunition, and a written list of targets that included AI executives and investors.

Moreno-Gama allegedly showed up at OpenAI’s headquarters less than an hour after targeting Altman’s home. Surveillance footage reportedly shows him using a chair to try to break the glass doors as he threatened to burn the building down and “kill anyone inside.”

No injuries were reported at Altman’s home or the company headquarters.

Months before the attack, Moreno-Garcia cited Mangione as an inspiration for the attack in private conversations. In chat messages exchanged with producers of “The Last Invention” podcast, he suggested “Luigi’ing some tech CEOs.”

He appeared on the podcast in January. When the hosts pressed him on his Mangione comments, he walked them back and affirmed that political violence was not “worth it” while insisting that AI could bring about “our impending extinction.”

Moreno-Gama is facing state and federal charges, including two counts of attempted murder, attempted arson, and explosives and firearms charges that could land him in prison for decades if he is convicted.

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said the incident was a “targeted attack” on Altman. The suspect appeared in court recently but did not enter a plea. The judge granted his attorney’s request to delay his arraignment to May 5. His public defender characterized his actions as a property crime that is being overcharged to win “political points.”

Trump's Blockade Is Breaking Iran... And European Elites Are Angry

Trump's Blockade Is Breaking Iran... And European Elites Are Angry

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

In March I published an article titled “Global Energy Crisis Or Iranian Surrender In Five Weeks?” in which I outlined the “worst case” and “best case” scenarios for the war in Iran. In my best case scenario I argued in favor of a specific plan to end the conflict quickly: A US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, flipping the tables on Iran by blocking or seizing any oil tankers or gas tankers which exit Iranian ports.

Two weeks later, the Trump Administration has implemented this exact strategy.

The effectiveness of the blockade is already apparent; the propaganda bots on social media are scrambling to find a narrative to counter it, but they are failing. Why? Because Iran already tried to lock down the strait (which is an international waterway), and any government cheering (or secretly cheering) for Iran’s actions is now unable to make a rational argument against the US doing the same thing to Iran. As I noted in March:

“We constantly hear about international exposure to the Hormuz shutdown, but the media rarely mentions that Iran is the MOST exposed economy of all. For now, Iranian oil ships continue to pass through the strait and these vessels are Iran’s economic lifeline. Strategic estimates suggest that without the steady passage of these oil tankers, the Iranian economy would completely collapse within five weeks…”

I then summarized what I believed was the simplest solution to end the war:

“Iranian cargo ships can be targeted for seizure by a US blockade of the Persian Gulf well away from the narrow waters of the Hormuz. The ships could be destroyed, but I suspect the Department of Defense will try to avoid oil spills and ecological disasters. Instead, the best option is to capture Iran’s tankers and then redirect the oil to countries in danger of shortages. 

Iran has the option of shutting off GPS tracking for their vessels (shadow fleet), but this would not help them maneuver past a comprehensive US blockade. In other words, I argue that the US could turn the tables on Iran and use their reliance on the Hormuz against them. 

With Iran’s economy in shambles, they will no longer be able to purchase missiles or drones for resupply from Russia and China. They won’t be able to pay for logistic resources for their military and they won’t be able to contain public unrest. The Iranians would be forced to negotiate and the war would be over quickly with minimal risk to US troops.”

For now, the US is not seizing Iran’s tankers and is merely sending them back to where they came from. However, it would seem that the Trump Administration and their military advisers have come to the same basic conclusions I did.

For years I have expressed my concerns about a potential conflict in Iran, largely because of the precarious global economic risks associated with mass energy shortages caused by a closure of the Hormuz, which transits around 25% of the world’s energy exports. That said, I do not care about “picking sides” when it comes to Israel or Iran.

This debate is irrelevant and designed, I think, to divide US conservatives over ancient tribal vendettas that do not involve us. I don’t care about the Israeli government or “Zionism” and I certainly don’t care what happens to the theocratic and tyrannical Muslim regime in Iran. We have much more important things to think about.

What matters to me is how the US and the American people are affected by geopolitical events. There has been endless debate on what the war is really about, whether it be Iranian nukes, Israeli schemes, Saudi schemes, control of global oil markets, etc. (I think every action the Trump Administration has take so far from Venezuela to Iran has largely been designed to contain China). In any case, a long term closure of the Hormuz will eventually result in market cascades and a stagflationary crisis.

What matters now is ending the war as quickly and decisively as possible without leaving the Homuz and 25% of global energy exports under Iran’s control. After that, people can wrestle over the “moral and constitutional” quandary to their heart’s content.

First, I think it’s vitally important to address some lies and disinformation being spread by propagandists and foreign agents online about the US blockade, so let’s quickly go down the list…

Lie #1: The US Is Blocking All Ships Traveling Through The Strait

This is false. The US is only blocking ships coming from Iranian ports. All other ships have been allowed to pass without incident. This lie is being spread by disinfo agents all over social media and it is also being spread by foreign governments from the UK to France to China. This, to me, says A LOT about the true agenda of these countries, given that they said little or nothing about Iran locking down the strait.

Lie #2: Chinese Vessels Have Broken The Blockade And The US Is Afraid

Nope. All Chinese vessels coming from Iranian ports have been turned away and any vessels coming from alternative ports have been allowed to pass. At the time this article is being published, only one ship from an Iranian port has allegedly slipped through the blockade, though the story on this ship might be fabricated. All other Iranian ships have been repelled.

Lie #3: The Blockade Puts US Naval Ships At Serious Risk

No, it does the opposite. US ships have no need to traverse the narrow Hormuz to blockade it. All they have to do is wait outside of it and turn back Iranian tankers that approach. No mines, no missiles, no drones, no tiny attack boats, nothing Iran has the ability to deploy has much of a chance of harming the US Navy. In fact, reports indicate ships like the USS Abraham Lincoln (an aircraft carrier) have already been targeted hundreds of times by Iran with no damage taken.

There is nothing Iran can do about a comprehensive blockade.

Lie #4: Iran Is Used To Sanctions And Can Hold Out Longer Than The US

No, they can’t. Only 7% of energy exports going to the US travel through the Hormuz. Iran’s entire economy hangs by a thin thread and that thread is oil exports to countries like China or Vietnam.

Iran is reportedly losing around $430 million each day that their ships remain stuck in the strait, and they have already taken around $270 billion in infrastructure damages. Iran pays for new weapons and military logistics with oil revenues. Their soldiers are paid in part with oil revenues. They mitigate civil unrest with oil revenues.

I suspect that the blockade will force Iran back into negotiations within a couple weeks. That’s how little time they have left.

Lie #5: Iran Has Alternative Ways To Bypass The Blockade

No, they don’t. Overland routes without ample pipelines are no substitute for the ease of oil tanker shipments. Even if they did have such pipelines, those lines could be easily destroyed.

By extension, as Iran’s oil exports stack up they will quickly run out of storage space, which means they will have to shut down drilling. This would cause significant damage to their oil infrastructure within weeks due to pressure differentials.

Recent news indicates that Iran has already halted all petrochemical exports until further notice. If true, this proves that the blockade is highly effective.

Lie #6: The Chinese Will Intervene And Force The Strait To Reopen

As noted, the strait is not closed. Only Iranian ports are closed. Furthermore, China has stayed away from direct intervention in the Hormuz because they simply don’t have the naval capacity to square off with the US even if they wanted to.

Keep in mind, only a week ago the Chinese government vetoed a UN resolution to reopen the strait when they thought Iran was going to control it. The CCP is impotent and they can do nothing.

Lie #7: The US Is Losing All Its Allies Over The Blockade

Wrong. What the blockade (and the war in general) is doing is exposing the countries which were pretending to be our allies when it was convenient. I examined this problem in my last article “The US Separation From Europe And NATO Is Long Overdue”, and this brings me to my final point on the war.

The fact that the European elites are suddenly so concerned with the US blockade, enough to call for a “coalition” to reopen the strait and “circumvent” the US, tells us all we need to know. I continue to believe that the globalists in these nations have been feeding off the US while at the same time organizing a “multicultural alliance” behind the scenes – A socialist new world order to supplant western civilization and leave the US behind as a husk.

Part of this agenda clearly involves a partnership with Islamic fundamentalists as a goon squad to oppress native western populations. This is why the elites have flooded Europe with third world migrants – Ignoring the concerns of citizens and even arresting people who speak out.

This is also why the Pope is so adamant to call for a Muslim/Christian pact (while he blatantly ignores the fact that Europeans have been terrorized by Muslim immigrants for over a decade). Let’s not forget that during the pandemic lockdowns, the Vatican joined with the globalists to form the Council for Inclusive Capitalism (run by Lynn Forester de Rothschild). Modern-era Popes are not friends to conservatives or Christians, but I plan to go into that problem in my next article.

The blockade, I believe, is so effective that it has struck fear in Iran, fear in China, and fear in the liberal order in Europe which was counting on the war to drag on for months or years. Look at how angry they all are that Trump flipped the script on the Hormuz? Why all the emotion and irrational hand wringing after the strait has been opened to MORE ships and oil traffic? Why all the panic when oil prices are falling? It doesn’t make sense unless they WANT the US to fail.

Regardless of how you might feel personally about the Iran war, it is undeniable that the situation has revealed many of our supposed allies as enemies. In reality, they were always enemies. The only thing that has changed is that the truth is finally out in the open.

The Left’s Shiny New Sales Pitch Can’t Hide Socialism’s Brutal Track Record

guest editorial at RedState 

By A. Matthew Ecsedy

When communism collapsed in Eastern Europe, something remarkable happened the very next day.

In Bulgaria, every communist politician simply declared themselves “socialists.” Nothing about their methods changed — only the spelling. That memory, passed down through families like mine from Hungary who fled communist regimes, is why I cannot accept the marketing of “Democratic Socialism” here in America.

Folks in small towns across America know the value of freedom. We know what it means to work hard, to build businesses, and to raise families without government interference.

Yet across the country, we are told that socialism is the answer to inequality, that government control will somehow make life fairer. I’ve seen what happens when people believe that promise. It ends in ration lines, silenced voices, more bureaucracy, and broken communities.

Socialism today is sold as compassionate, democratic, and modern. Strip away the shiny packaging, and you find the same old system of control where thought is not freely grown but groomed. Whether it’s called “Democratic Socialism” or “National Socialism,” the playbook is familiar:

• Blame opponents for every problem;
• Demonize free speech and open debate; and
• Scapegoat groups, whether Jews in 1930s Germany or Christians, capitalists, and conservatives today.

The tragedy of socialism is that its lessons cannot be taught in a classroom or explained in a pamphlet. They are learned through bitter experiences, through lamentation of poor choices.

Ask anyone who lived under communism in Eastern Europe. Ask the families who fled Cuba or Venezuela. They will tell you: once the government owns or controls everything, freedom disappears.

My parents taught me that the difference between communism and socialism is only in spelling.

Both systems crush initiative, punish success, and reward conformity. Both systems promise equality but deliver poverty.

Consider this. October 1950, Budapest, Hungary. The Hungarian State Police knocked on my grandfather’s door. When the door opened, they entered without asking permission, did not show any identification, no search warrant — simply said, “Inspection.” They proceeded to go through the apartment on Garay Utca 42, looking for contraband.

My grandmother sat and waited for them to finish and leave like normal, because this was normal in socialist countries. But on this day, they did not leave. They arrested her. Her crime? Hoarding. Early that day, she had asked to borrow sugar from several tenants to bake a birthday cake for my father’s 10th birthday. She was in possession of half a kilogram of sugar. That was enough to be considered a violation.

Small‑town America is not New York City, and rural communities are not Washington, D.C. But the ideas that take root in big cities eventually spread outward. If socialism gains ground in America’s cultural centers, it will not stop at the Hudson River. It will reach small towns, rural communities, and places like yours and mine.

Imagine government‑run grocery stores in your town where a simple driveway permit takes weeks. And look at what's happening after the Palisades Fire in California, where many families still haven't received permits to rebuild or are otherwise being hampered by bureaucratic red tape, 15 months after the fire. When government grows too large and too centralized, delays like these aren’t the exception, but the norm.

The political figures who embrace Democratic Socialism allowed ordinary families to be stuck in the bureaucratic maze, and the people making the rules insulate themselves from the consequences. During COVID lockdowns, Gavin Newsom had dinner at the French Laundry, and Nancy Pelosi visited a salon unmasked despite statewide restrictions. Critics have also long pointed to the tight, multigenerational ties among some of California’s most influential political families — connections that fuel the perception/reality of an elite circle operating above accountability and have ties through blood and marriage across the country. To many Americans, this is what modern “Democratic Socialism” looks like in practice: not equality, but an oligarchy feeding on the intellectually duped, easier to fool than to convince they’ve been fooled.

The National Socialists of 1930s Germany rose to power by demonizing their critics, silencing debate, and scapegoating minorities. Today’s Democratic Socialists may not wear the same uniforms, but their tactics echo the same dangerous themes. They point at Christians, capitalists, and Jews, declaring them the problem. They forget that in doing so, they mirror the very authoritarianism they claim to oppose.

History does not repeat itself exactly, but it rhymes. And the rhyme of socialism is always the same: promises of fairness, followed by loss of freedom.

Communities across America deserve better than recycled ideologies dressed up in new words. We deserve leaders who trust the people, not systems that control them. Socialism is not compassion. It is control. And control, once surrendered, is rarely regained.

As someone whose family lived through communism, I urge my fellow Americans: do not be fooled by shiny boxes and clever marketing. Democratic Socialism is still socialism. And socialism, no matter how it arrives, ends the same way — with freedom lost and regret gained.

Watch CNBC's Joe Kernen Wreck Hakeem Jeffries' Anti-Trump Talking Points Over the Economy

Townhall 

He’s just not the right choice, and there’s a reason why many Democrats reportedly say in private that they’re unsure about supporting Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for leader next session. Jeffries comes off as stiff and struggles to adjust when opposing opinions challenge his talking points. The result is either a robotic demeanor or a deer in headlights—either way, it’s not good. Then again, he’s a Democrat, so I couldn't care less. On Tax Day, the New York Democrats appeared on CNBC, where they tried to sell a bleak economic story, blaming Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, host Joe Kernen messed up, noting that the Nasdaq and S&P 500 are booming. Jeffries stayed on script, which looked ridiculous given the many green-market indicators visible in the background that day. 

It’s also not the first time Kernen has dropped a nuke on shoddy Democrat talking points.

Meanwhile, I hope you all have a great weekend. It was an awesome week for America: