Monday, May 4, 2026

How Can You Even Blackpill?


How can anyone blackpill at a time like this? The reality is that the left can’t win. That’s not just happy talk. That's objective reality. We're going to win, and we're seeing evidence of it every day. This is the greatest of timelines, one in which the patriotic populist revolution, whose avatar is Donald J. Trump, is back to putting points on the board and totally owning the libs. Look at how things are going. We just won a war against the seventh-century apocalyptic perverts who’ve been killing our people for nearly 50 years, making Democrats, podcasters, and other losers livid. The Supreme Court just came out and said that Democrats can no longer reserve over a dozen House seats for other Democrats on the dubious premise that only black Democrats can represent certain districts. Justice Kagan and the rest of them just about plotzed—how dare Republicans stand up to the racial spoils system that gave them representation beyond what they were due? And Republicans, starting with Ron DeSantis but also elsewhere, are seeing the writing on the wall: it’s time to fight, including by aggressively gerrymandering.

We’ve got a military being rebuilt, with patriotic young Americans flocking to serve. We’ve got the Democrat NGO funding machine being junked, depriving them of money. Illegal aliens aren’t flooding across our border, and more of them are getting sent home every day. The Trump administration is winning like 95% of its court cases. James Comey has been indicted—again. Oh, and the feds are raiding the local "learing" centers in Minneapolis.

This is glorious.

Nope, we don’t have the SAVE Act. Sure, some Republicans are still squishes. But more and more of them are coming our way—it’s finally getting through to people that we either win this or become serfs. We are making fundamental, transformative change in the United States. The tide has turned: against mutilating kids, against the privacy of perverts, against criminals—the crime rate is plummeting while your stocks are soaring. And yet there are those who were blackpilled, who would find the cloud behind the silver lining, who are never quite as happy as they are when they’re miserable and things are rotten.

Oh, we’ve got a tough fight ahead, no doubt about it. We’re always going to have a tough fight ahead. There’s never going to be a time when we don’t have a tough fight ahead. But folks, we’re winning. We are kicking tail. We are tearing up the progressive garbage of the last 30 years and building a new golden age, one in which all that failed leftist ideology has been totally rejected by most normal people. Yeah, there will be a residue of pinkos left, mostly in blue cities, who insist on holding on to their failed ideology. Oh well. Let’s hang that millstone around their necks for the next election. Hey America, this November you’ve got a choice: make America more like Chicago or more like Miami. Man, that’s the easiest call anybody would ever have to make. No, the Democrats aren’t taking it well. In fact, they’re spazzing out, which is typical. We’re all racists and fascists and transphobes and whatever, and no one cares anymore. It just doesn’t resonate. They’re all up in arms about how we’re going to take advantage of the no-racial-set-aside districts ruling after what they did in Virginia, and even the softest Republicans kind of shrug. It’s finally breaking through to people that there are no rules or norms—not as applied to Democrats. You can’t have a rule or norm if it doesn’t apply to everybody, and we could never avail ourselves of them, so we’ve come up with a radical new notion.

We don’t avail ourselves of them anymore.

We don’t try to please our enemies anymore because experience has demonstrated that there’s no pleasing them. They have no coherent ideology except power, and even our weakest hearts are starting to understand that we’re not going to be able to talk to them or reason with them, but only to defeat them through brute political force—and if they get uppity like their communist analogs in the Spanish Civil War, the other kind of force.

No, they’re not taking this well. As soon as the Supreme Court rejected their racial spoils system, we started hearing about how every thoroughly gerrymandered blue state is going to gerrymander even harder, as if that were possible. Go for it. If you could’ve done it, you already would’ve done it. And then there’s the other stuff. They’re going to pack the Supreme Court. They’re going to split D.C. into 16 states. They’re going to take power and hold it forever, guaranteeing that we never have a say in our government again.

Yeah, how do you think that’s going to work out? It’s weird how they believe they exist in an environment in stasis, that things will go on as they always have, even though they have changed the environment. The Supreme Court gets the respect it does because, with some debate, there’s a consensus that there’s some legitimacy because it was established via a fair process. In fact, the Republicans went through a roughly 50-year process of winning over the Supreme Court and have finally succeeded. There was some brass-knuckle politics involved, but that’s OK. Politics is often brass-knuckled. Look at Virginia. But they think they can somehow, by the closest of margins, change the rules, take over, and everything will otherwise remain the same. But that’s not how human nature works.

In what universe would a 15-justice Supreme Court with six new leftists put on by President Kamala Harris after 51 senators destroyed the filibuster to pass it have any legitimacy at all for the red states? “Hey, you cisgender racist Christian males, we’ve decided that the right to keep and bear arms doesn’t actually exist, so please head down to the local police station to turn in your guns. Thanks.”

Oh yeah, that’ll work.

See, the Democrats are all talk and no action, literally. The only thing they can do is talk us into obeying them. Previously, that worked because the institutions had legitimacy. There were fair elections, and sometimes we won and sometimes we lost, but if we lost, we accepted it because that was the process and we’d have a chance to come back later. But why would we accept the situation where we never have a chance to come back, where the rules we thought applied—you know, like that pesky Constitution—don’t ever apply to our benefit? Why again would we accept the legitimacy of that paradigm? And if we don’t accept its legitimacy, why would we obey?

Well, the traditional reason throughout history was force. The government would literally send people with weapons to kill you if you didn’t do what you were supposed to do. The United States was different. In America, we are all part of a republic, and we generally feel morally obligated to abide by what our government determines through our constitutional processes. In other words, we obeyed because we considered the government legitimate, even if we didn’t like particular policies. So, what happens if the government stops being legitimate? We stop doing what those occupying government offices say. And then the question becomes, “What are they going to do about it?” No wonder they hate the idea of us having 400 million guns out there. That reality provides a check on an illegitimate government. See, here’s the thing. There are a whole lot of us who are armed and trained who would fight and, if necessary, die, to be free. What’s the name of the guy willing to fight and, if necessary, die, to make us not free? Is it Kaden from Santa Monica? Ashliegh from Wellesley? Do you see Harry Sisson suiting up in Kevlar with an M4 to head down into Appalachia to compel us to accept mandatory transitioning of our kids?

They’ll get right on that.

See, that’s a problem for them. They can push and push and push, but at a certain point, what they have to push against is a bayonet. And who’s going to do that? Not any of them. But you know, a lot of us already have and totally would again if the alternative was serfdom to a bunch of neurotic, sexually dysfunctional wine women and their femboy mates.

They’re not thinking through the endgame. They’re running their mouths:

  1. Talk smack on X
  2. ?
  3. Rule over patriots forever

They can’t make us do anything. Sure, we have James Carville fantasizing about walking down the government forever and disenfranchising half of the Americans he doesn’t like. He was a Marine, and he knows better, because there aren’t a lot of Marines on his side. They’re on ours. Leftists need legitimacy to get us to obey because that’s all they have to work with. The force option, in the final analysis, just isn’t going to work—if you think a battalion of infantrymen is going to start sweeping through the rebellious red countryside, arresting and killing the people they grew up with in order to reinstate DEI, illegal immigration, and climate hoax policies, I’ve got news for you. These guys are paper tigers. That’s why we’re going to win. Because they can only prevail when we let them. And what we’re seeing now is the Trump administration not letting them. We are no longer doing what they want. They cite one-way norms, principles, and guardrails to restrain us, but we’ve discovered we can just ignore them. After all, what are they going to do? Call us bad people? They already call us bad people. Who cares?

We’re going to win. We’re going to win because they can’t win if we refuse to let them. Oh, they’re going to be troublesome for a while, but we’re already outbreeding them. At the next census, they’re going to lose a bunch of seats because no one wants to live in their blue hellholes with hobos squatting on the sidewalks while everybody who works for a living is getting taxed into oblivion. Their policies are a disaster. They’ve been a disaster everywhere. And you can’t hide that forever. In contrast, we succeed. We bring peace and prosperity.

Don’t blackpill. That’s stupid. The fact is that we can’t lose, and right now we’re racking up wins. Savor it.


Podcast thread for May 4th

 


normalize disconnecting from the world for a while during the day.

EU to Begin Censoring Emojis on Social Media — For ‘Safety’

EU to Begin Censoring Emojis on Social Media — For ‘Safety’

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File

The European Commission apparently finds itself no longer satiated with controlling what combinations of letters it permits the serfs on its techno-planation to spell out on social media and has now expanded the scope of its Orwellian censorship regime to emojis.

Via European Commission (emphasis added):

European regulators, the European Commission and the Board of the Digital Services Coordinators, enforcing the Digital Service Act published a world-wide first report on the landscape of prominent and recurrent risks on very large online platforms and search engines in the European Union.

The report (pdf) identifies systemic risks such as, among others, the spread of illegal content or threats to fundamental rights, occurring on very large online platforms. It also gives a first overview of the mitigation measures taken by platforms, based on the transparency requirements under the DSA.

Key findings cover risks to mental health and to the protection of minors online*; the impact of emerging technologies, such as generative AI, on online platforms; and challenges to intellectual property protection on online marketplaces. Among the notable mitigation measures highlighted are, for example, the use of automated systems to detect emojis used as code for illegal activities online, such as the sale of illegal drugs.

*Always “for the children” — the eternal excuse of the nanny state gynocrats to trample on fundamental civil liberties.


Who is going to decide which emojis have to go?

Probably some unelected bureaucrat behind a screen in some Brussels lair — or else AI; I’m not sure which is more dystopian.

Via Hungarian Conservative (emphasis added):

Beyond mockery, critics have also raised concerns about the implications for free speech and digital governance. A frequently cited argument is that identifying ‘coded language’ requires platforms to interpret context and intent—moving beyond clearly illegal content into more subjective territory.

This concern ties into broader scepticism surrounding the DSA, which obliges large platforms to assess and mitigate so-called ‘systemic risks’, including illegal content and threats to public security. Critics argue that this framework increasingly incentivizes proactive and interpretive moderation, rather than responses limited to clearly unlawful material, and in doing so risks encroaching on online free speech.

The debate also highlights the technical challenges involved. Emojis are inherently ambiguous and context-dependent, making accurate detection difficult and increasing the likelihood of false positivesExperts have long noted that content moderation already operates in ‘grey areas’,**where meaning is fluid and difficult to define, particularly as platforms rely more heavily on automated systems.

**Of course, in such cases of “grey areas,” the censor will always and reflexively err on the side of maximum censorship, which is what’s surely going to happen here. 

Was any of this what the European states signed up for with the 1950 establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the promise being a limited economic cooperative agreement between a handful of Western European states that has now somehow ballooned into a sprawling bureaucracy dictating what emojis some Pole is permitted to use on Facebook?


Don’t Fall for Astroturfed Left-Wing Populism

Don’t Fall for Astroturfed Left-Wing Populism

Real populism targets costs and protects workers; its imitators defend entrenched interests and attack anyone who exposes how markets actually lower drug prices.

Donald Trump is pushing hard to lower prescription drug costs. As part of that effort, he’s appointed an economist named Casey Mulligan to oversee regulatory issues at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Cue the moaning from left-wing “populists.”

Leading the charge against Mulligan has been the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP), which is upset because he published research defending the entities that challenge Big Pharma in the US healthcare system.

Mullen found that groups known as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which employers voluntarily hire to negotiate lower costs with the drug companies on their behalf, provide $148 billion in cost savings annually.

Unfortunately, challenging the interests of major drug companies is considered a sin to many special interest groups in today’s political climate, including, apparently, for the AELP. He swam against the narrative, and so he has to go.

The crusade against Mulligan is part of a larger campaign by the AELP. They claim to fight corporate interests on behalf of American workers, but they’re really just a well-funded Washington interest group that spends most of its time attacking the Trump administration.

The AELP represents something both old and new on the American Left. Old because leftists have long presented themselves as economic populists—Bernie Sanders comes to mind—thumping the table and demanding the wealthy be held accountable while cruising at altitude in their private jets.

What’s different about the AELP is that they’re deliberately trying to co-opt the Trumpian moment. They want to seize the populist energy that Trump brought to the table and reroute it into the usual, warmed-over socialist policies.

Take Trump’s recent suggestion that Spirit Airlines might be bailed out. Spirit’s struggles are the direct fault of the Biden administration, which blocked JetBlue from purchasing Spirit in 2024. Not only would that deal have saved Spirit, but it would also have allowed JetBlue to compete with the likes of Delta and Southwest, giving fliers more choices.

Yet rather than point the finger at Biden’s anti-business ideology, the AELP instead blamed . . . deregulation!

It’s always those darn Republicans. If only it were 1938; none of this would have ever happened.

Or take a Biden-era rule that banned noncompete contracts. There are valid criticisms of noncompetes, but the Biden initiative would have voided 30 million contracts that are intended to protect companies’ intellectual property without so much as a debate in Congress. As The Wall Street Journal put it, “It threatens employees’ ability to launch and sustain careers because the ban makes it riskier for companies to invest in the development of employees, who can now easily move to competitors.”

The Trump administration thankfully axed the rule during its first year in office, but guess who tried to stop them?

Then, of course, there was the HPE-Juniper telecommunications merger that the Trump administration greenlit after the US intelligence community told it that the merger would help America better compete with Huawei, which dominates the global telecommunications marketplace and that the Department of Defense calls a Chinese military company and a national security threat. That was too much for AELP too, which called the administration corrupt for approving it.

The AELP seems to think true populism means an unelected bureaucrat disrupting the livelihoods of tens of millions of workers with the stroke of a pen.

What the AELP and their left-wing allies really support isn’t populism but power. They claim to oppose monopolies, but they adore the most powerful monopoly of all: the federal government.

The group is staffed largely by former Biden hands—like its former executive director, Sarah Miller, who served as a senior adviser to Biden’s Federal Trade Commission chief, Lina Khan. Khan was arguably the most anti-business figure in the administration, filing countless wasteful lawsuits against companies.

This is why the AELP hates Donald Trump and reflexively attacks him at every opportunity. Trump is dismantling the Biden agenda, which began when he forced out Khan. That makes him a threat to everything the AELP is determined to protect.

The political Right has taken a populist turn of late, determined to hold not just big government but sometimes big business accountable. This sea change began at the top with a president who is far from your standard-issue pro-corporate Republican.

But conservatives can’t let their movement be hijacked by posers. The AELP doesn’t care about helping workers or making groceries affordable or ending toxic DEI practices—they care about maintaining their ideology.

It’s curious that their latest target is Casey Mulligan for attacking one of the few actors in our healthcare system, trying to bring down drug prices.

This is how fake populists are exposed: they inevitably land on the same side as the elites. Conservatives should embrace true economic populism and reject its astroturfed left-wing imposter.


Ken Blackwell is a chair at the American First Policy Institute, a Board of Directors member for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, and a Senior Fellow for Human Rights and Constitutional Governance at the Family Research Council.



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NEC Director Kevin Hassett Discusses Economy and Impacts


White House National Economic Council Director, Kevin Hassett, appears on CBS news to dispatch the narrative engineering of Margaret Brennan.

I completely understand why the White House appears to have finally had enough of Ms. Brennan’s dramatic performances and has chosen not to send most representatives into this nonsense pantomime any longer.  She’s even more insufferable than Jake Tapper.  That said, Kevin Hassett is likely the only member of the administration kindhearted enough to deal with the snark and lack of substance.

What I don’t understand is why the White House just doesn’t tell her in brutally honest terms: Margaret, your dramatic performances are tiresome, and your intellectual vigor is running at a continual deficit. Regards.

True to form, Ms. Brennan wanted desperately to pontificate about the terrible state of the U.S. economy blaming the White House for the failure of Spirit Airlines, and demanding Kevin Hassett address the Iran conflict that is not in his portfolio.  Director Hassett stayed comfortably in his lane, smiled and took apart the fake news construct as professional as possible given the absurdity of Brennan’s presentation.



[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We begin this morning with the director of the White House Economic Council. Kevin Hassett joins us from Los Angeles. Good early morning to you.

KEVIN HASSETT: Oh yeah, good morning.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well Director, President Trump sent a letter to Congress on Friday saying a few things. One that the conflict with Iran, the ceasefire has been extended. He also said the hostilities have been terminated. He also said the threat posed by Iran remains significant, and the force posture will continue to be updated. Then overnight, we saw the President said Iran has not yet paid a big enough price for what they’ve done to humanity. What exactly is the message to the market?

KEVIN HASSETT: Right. Well, I think the market has been pretty consistent. The fact is that what the President is seeing is that the blockade is working. It’s putting an enormous amount of pressure on Iran, and Iran’s threats to put mines in the straits have even made it so that humanitarian aid that, of course, we would let through to Iran, that there are a lot of those ship captains that are wary of going to Iranian ports because they’re worried about where the Iranians have put the mines. And so, you know, I go down to the sit room many times a week and get briefed on what’s going on in Iran, and they’re an economy that’s really on the precipice of extreme calamity. They are having a hyperinflation. They’re starting to have hunger. The bottom line is that the pressure on the great American people, because of these people who are like really intent on American and Israeli destruction with their nuclear weapons, are still in power. One last thing, Margaret, I don’t know if you noticed, but the UN Human Rights folks came out this week condemning Iran because they’re killing people who are trying to stand up to this regime that’s potentially, you know, causing starvation and even famine.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you said the blockade is still on. A blockade is an act of war. Are we at war with Iran?

KEVIN HASSETT: Iran shut down the straits. Iran shut down the straits, and the only ones they were letting through were Iranian ships, and President Trump didn’t think that was acceptable.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, we are still at war with Iran?

KEVIN HASSETT: You know what- I don’t know what the definition of war is when we’re not shooting and we’re negotiating and they’re under a lot of pressure. There’s no reason, I think, right now, to do anything other than what we’re doing. The fact is that that regime has destroyed the country. Let me put it in perspective. In 1978 before the Ayatollah came in, then the per capita GDP in Iran was about the same as for Japan and Italy. Now it’s about the same as for Honduras. So they’ve run that country into the ground, and that’s before the straits were closed. So it’s really, really a country that’s on the rocks.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Sure and we’re negotiating with them. But so we’re going into week 10. I’m wondering what economic modeling you have done here, because the President had originally said the war was going to last four to six weeks. We are now at the national average gas price of $4.45 a gallon. Can we end the conflict without taking back the Strait of Hormuz?

KEVIN HASSETT: Well, what’s going on right now is that we’re doing an all of the above approach to get energy to Americans and increase energy production around the world–

MARGARET BRENNAN: — That takes time–

KEVIN HASSETT: — And I think if you look out into the future, what people are saying- No. So as an example, we waive the Jones Act. The price of the US is $10 a barrel less than it is on the world- and in the world exchanges and all the west coast was buying world price of oil, but now they’re buying US price of oil. So we’ve made an enormous number of strides to reduce the short term disruption.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the Bank of America came out with a report this week that says the gas price spike has cost consumers $19 billion. They say gas prices have canceled out nearly half of the increase in expected tax refunds. Goldman Sachs concurs, saying the drag will offset the benefits from that tax bill the White House had championed. Do you agree with that analysis?

KEVIN HASSETT

No, that analysis is incorrect. Like, think about it this way, 153 million people have filed taxes already, and the average tax refund is $3,600. 53 million people have benefited from no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. For the no tax on tips and Social Security that exempts between $7,000 and $8,000 from taxation for those people and for the no tax on overtime, it’s like closer to $5000. And so these are really, really big numbers, and if people look at their gas bills, of course, they’re higher, and we’re doing everything we can to make the temporary increase as small as possible. But then finally, there’s the economic growth component. Real incomes are growing, and real incomes, when they adjust for inflation, include the price of energy, real incomes shrunk for almost eight years under Obama, they shrunk under Biden, and they’re rising now despite the short term increase in gas prices.

MARGARET BRENNAN

Well, we did see an increase in the PCE. But just to clarify the tax law that the President signed doesn’t eliminate taxes on Social Security. It gives seniors an enhanced standard deduction through the end of 2028. But let me ask you about the news on Spirit Airlines–

KEVIN HASSETT: But that makes it so most people aren’t covered- Yeah, I want to talk about Spirit. I just go say that makes it so most people don’t face the tax hike. So you’re you’re right. It’s a technical matter, but it has the effect that we discussed.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Spirit Airlines ceased operations, as we said at the top of the program. I know the White House was trying to craft an 11th Hour rescue plan. What happened, and do you have a sense of the broader economic impact?

KEVIN HASSETT: Oh, sure. You know, it’s something that I was very much involved in. We were aware that, because the merger between JetBlue and spirit was canceled unwisely by the Biden administration, that spirit, sadly, was on the ropes when we looked at their books, that basically, the creditors were going to liquidate them and try to sell their assets so that they could get some of the money back that they had lent them. And there were some authorities that were explored to see if we could help them get a lifeline. And in the end, the legal legal guys decided that those authorities wouldn’t apply in this situation. Meanwhile, while that was being investigated, Secretary Duffy and I talked to the other airlines to make sure that they were helping people who were stranded by spirit get home and to get home basically at much lower prices than the normal fares that they would charge.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So the company–

KEVIN HASSETT: — In fact, American and United and Southwest have all said that they’re going to help the passengers of Spirit get home.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You mentioned past financial troubles, unquestionably, Spirit did have them for many years, but they did have that restructuring deal with bond holders back in March. In this statement, spirit released explaining why they were shutting down, they said, quote, “The sudden and sustained rise in fuel prices in recent weeks, ultimately has left us with no alternative.” Are other industries also at risk of collapse, or other major companies due to this energy shock?

KEVIN HASSETT: Well, don’t forget, the Spirit Airlines was Chapter 11 twice because they basically didn’t—

MARGARET BRENNAN: I acknowledge that.

KEVIN HASSETT: —have a business model that was working. That’s right. And the other airlines are still operating. I just flew out here to discuss these matters at the Milken conference in LA, you know, on United Airlines and the you know, the other airlines are operating, what they’ve done because they have thought ahead way more than the management of Spirit is hedge their jet fuel purchases and so on. So that energy short term energy shocks don’t have a big effect on their business. Certainly, it’ll affect profits for the airlines for a quarter or so, but they’re very, very healthy right now.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Kevin Hassett, we’ll let you get back to work. Thank you for joining us this morning. Face the Nation will be back in a minute.

[END TRANSCRIPT]


Conrad Black - Why It’s Imperative To Deprive Iran of the Pretense It Controls the Strait of Hormuz

 

It is refreshing to sit down to write a column presuming to give advice respectfully to the commander-in-chief of Allied forces in the current Iran war and to learn while writing the advice that President Trump has already taken the action advised. It seemed to me imperative that the United States deprive Iran of the pretense that it controls the Strait of Hormuz.

As far as I can discern, not a single mine has been found in the Strait — despite the Iranians’ apparent attempt to attach mines to dolphins and send them out in the hope that they will be suicide dolphins and bump into disobedient tankers or American warships. Dolphins are notoriously intelligent and seem not to have been tempted by this mission.

It is entirely possible that this threat, like all of Iran’s bloodcurdling claims of imminent terrible vengeance, is just hot air from a balloon that is now in tatters. Mr. Trump is absolutely correct to threaten to tax those oil shipping lines that pay fees to Iran to allow them to navigate the Strait; Iran cannot be permitted to extract blackmail from anyone.

As was outlined in this space last week, it is a relatively simple matter of putting adequate mine-sweeping ships and helicopters in front of convoys of 30 tankers or so, three times a day, with an escort of destroyers and complete control of the air space and Marines on each tanker as a final defense force against any Iranian impertinences.

This would put an end to the fiction that Iran can control that strait. It would also constrain somewhat the Comical Ali and Baghdad Bob fatuities of Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Danang Dick Blumenthal, Adam Schiff, and other foaming-at-the-mouth Democratic tribunes of defeatism and cheerleaders for the ayatollahs.

For America, every domestic and international consideration militates for the swiftest possible victorious conclusion of this war. It is obvious to everyone with the slightest knowledge of the relevant facts that Iran cannot go on longer than about a month with the current level of a 70 percent reduction of its oil export revenues, which can relatively easily be increased to 90 percent.

One of the surviving Iranian leaders was reduced last week to pointing out the extent of Iran’s borders with its neighbors and the possibilities of overland export and import. Iran’s borders are with Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and only Pakistan offers any prospect of significant traffic, but it would be a trickle of oil and could easily be interdicted. The idea of substantially offsetting by overland methods the blockade of Iran’s ports and airspace is a ludicrous mirage.

Only ignorance and hatred of Trump can disguise the impotence of the Islamic Republic as money evaporates, the local currency (rial) dropped to two million to the dollar, and different spokesmen every few days keep making absurd peace proposals to the United States. A substantial resumption of the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, coupled with a likely oil production increase by the United Arab Emirates, which has wisely departed OPEC, and increased oil shipments from Venezuela as the United States repairs its industry, will stabilize fuel prices in the West within a few weeks. The United States has no concern for an early restoration of the half of Communist China’s oil supplies that has come from Iran. Presumably, Russia will attempt to help China, especially as Europe rolls back its consumption of Russian oil and gas.

The thugs of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seem to be able to prevent large hostile demonstrations but the regime demonstrated in January that it had to import terror squads from Iraq to fire live ammunition at Iranian civilians. It should be possible for the United States to interdict any return from these murderous Iraqi mercenaries and while the government of Iraq exercises little more authority over its ostensible territory than the government of Lebanon does in that country, the Iraqi Kurds and Sunnis and doubtless many of the Shiites as well, and the apparently respectable incoming government in Baghdad, have little enthusiasm for assisting the Tehran despotism in its death-throes.

It would be perfectly appropriate for the United States to resume hostilities directly against Iran if the Iranians attempted to attack the American escorted convoys taking oil through the Strait. The war will only end satisfactorily with the formation of a government in Tehran that believably renounces nuclear weapons, sponsorship of terrorism, interference in international waterways, and the extreme barbarism of the Islamic Republic’s suppression of dissent. It is impossible for outsiders and probably even for the best informed American and Israeli specialists to judge when elements in Iran prepared to accept those peace terms and abide by them could achieve the numbers and strategic influence adequate to take over the regime. But it will be soon.

First published in the New York Sun

https://www.newenglishreview.org/why-its-imperative-to-deprive-iran-of-the-pretense-it-controls-the-strait-of-hormuz/

Poll: 74 Percent Think America Is Winning War in Iran

Poll: 74 Percent Think America Is Winning War in Iran


new poll shows that 74 percent of people think America is winning the war with Iran. 

That’s according to a new Harvard CAPS/ Harris Poll taken on April 23-26, 2026. 

The survey was conducted online within the U.S. among 2,745 registered voters. 

The poll showed that 69 percent of the GOP said that the country is on the “right track,” compared to 19 percent of Democrats and 22 percent of independent voters. 

Poll respondents said that inflation and affordability are the most important issues facing them, followed by restoring basic American values and immigration. 

Poll respondents said that Trump’s most popular policies are lowering prescription drug prices for Medicare recipients and low-income patients, deporting illegal aliens who have committed crimes, and eliminating waste and fraud within the government. 

About 74 percent of poll respondents said that it is in the U.S’s interest to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. 

About 74 percent of poll respondents said that they support Israel over Hamas. 

Nearly 80 percent of poll respondents said that Trump was right to agree to a ceasefire, while 57 percent said that the president was right to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. 

About 34 percent of people who follow the conflict closely said that Iran has lost its nuclear capability, while 65 percent said that Iran is rebuilding its nuclear capability. 

The poll showed that over half of the people who follow the conflict closely supported the military airstrikes in Iran, while 44 percent oppose them. 

Meanwhile, voters indicated strong support for key conditions to reach a deal with Iran. 

Nearly 80 percent said that Iran must stop supporting terror proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas. 

Seventy-eight percent said that Iran must stop executing protesters, while 75 percent said that Iran must recognize the right of Israel to exist. 

About 74 percent said that Iran must cede control of the Strait of Hormuz and never block ships or charge tolls, while 72 percent said that Iran must be limited in its production of ballistic missiles, and 71 percent said that Iran must give up the right to enrich any uranium and surrender its enriched uranium. 

About two out of three respondents said that Trump should insist on all of the above points to reach a deal. About 54 percent of respondents said that the U.S. has the upper hand in negotiations. 


Homeless Declare Victory In Gavin Newsom’s Fight Against Homelessness

Homeless Declare Victory In Gavin Newsom’s Fight Against Homelessness

Image for article: Homeless Declare Victory In Gavin Newsom’s Fight Against Homelessness
Babylon Bee

SAN FRANCISCO — The homeless of California have achieved a final and decisive victory in Governor Gavin Newsom's fight against homelessness.

Despite Newsom spending $24 billion on the seven-year war effort, the homeless have steadily conquered more territory, expanding their strongholds in every major city.

"Veni, vidi, vici. The state is ours," said homeless encampment leader Darren "Two-Tents" Willis. "Already, we have attained our most important objectives in this fight: free drugs, free needles, and unfettered sidewalk access for public defecation. We continue to strengthen our strategic position every day."

Admitting defeat, Newsom reportedly met with homeless representatives in a dilapidated tent under a bridge overpass just south of San Francisco. "We tried everything to vanquish them," sighed Newsom. "We gave them money, cocaine, and a free pass to commit whatever crimes they pleased. Somehow, it just wasn't enough."

According to local sources, the homeless population is celebrating the victory with shopping cart parades and, of course, crack. "We've seen unprecedented gains over the course of this fight," said Willis. "We have never had more square footage or more crack. Frankly, we couldn't have done it without the state's unwavering commitment to whatever it is they've been doing."

At publishing time, a field of grass had declared victory in Gavin Newsom's $126 billion fight to build a high-speed rail.


State Dept Pushes $8B Arms Sales to Middle East Allies, Skips Congressional Review


RedState 

President Donald Trump sure looks like he intends to leave the world a very different place than he found it in January of 2025. From Venezuela to Cuba to the Middle East, he's dropping a lot of opprobrium on countries that aren't friendly to the United States - and making deals with countries that are, or who we want to be, friends of the USA.

In the latest such move, President Trump's Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has greenlit a massive, $8 billion arms sale to Israel and several Gulf Arab states, citing that the deal is in the national security interests of the USA.

The State Department on Friday approved over $8 billion in arms sales to Persian Gulf countries and Israel, nations that have all been involved in the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran.

Purchases approved included an Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) to the United Arab Emirates for $147.6 million, to Israel for $992.4 million and to Qatar for $992.4 million. The State Department also approved the replenishment of Qatar’s Patriot missile capacity for $4.01 billion and an Integrated Battle Command System to Kuwait for $2.5 billion.

The APKWS includes rocket launchers, high explosive warheads and proximity fuzes, among other items, to the UAE and Qatar; technical data, spare and repair parts, personnel training and training equipment and U.S. government and contractor engineering, among other items, to Israel and Qatar.

Defense equipment to be sold to Kuwait include communications equipment, generators, vehicles, training equipment including an air defense reconfigurable trainer and field office support, among other items.

There is no mention of Iran in the report, but these are all nations that Iran has attacked during Operation Epic Fury. What makes this interesting is that, while the Patriot is an air-defense system, several of these systems can be used offensively. For example, the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System is a laser-guided rocket system designed to take out light armored vehicles and is capable of use in both defensive and offensive work.

Also, the Secretary of State points out that the national security requirements of the sale mean that the deal precludes Congressional review:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio “determined and provided detailed justification that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to” each country, the State Department stated. Each sale “is in the national security interests of the United States, thereby waiving the Congressional review requirements…”

The United States and Iran currently have a cease-fire in place, but this looks a lot like some preparatory chess pieces moving.

This announced sale comes on the release of $400 million in support for Ukraine, and a $10 billion weapons sale to Taiwan late in 2025. 

Here's the onion:

Global military spending hit a record high of almost $2.9 trillion in 2025, the 11th consecutive year that it has grown, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The U.S. spent $954 billion for military purposes in 2025, a 7.5-percent drop from 2024.

Between China's saber-rattling at Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, and now the United States and Israel working to defenestrate the vicious theocrats in Tehran, the world is looking to be an increasingly tense place these days. Some (China) are doubtless looking at this with the old saw, "for omelets, you break eggs." Some, like President Trump, are looking to take out some of the world's worst actors, as well as nations actively working against American interests. That's pretty much the foreign-policy definition of "America first," after all.

Keep an eye on the Middle East.