Some Real Talk About the Iran Deal

Townhall 

It’s time to take a hard look at the memorandum of understanding (MOU) and to think about it objectively. On one hand, it is not the utter catastrophe that a lot of people – people who largely agree with my position that we should be actively destroying these goat-molesting, pagan semi-humans – think it is. On the other hand, it’s a crap sandwich, and there’s no need to take a bite and announce that it’s “Yummy.” It is not yummy, but it might be the best we can hope for today.

The adult world is full of bad choices. If there were some sort of easy solution to this conflict, it would’ve likely been solved long ago. But there isn’t. There are no optimal courses of action. There are only various levels of suboptimal courses of action. Once we, like adults, accept that, we can move forward. First, let’s examine what the MOU is. It’s more of a pause, an interregnum, or even a halftime (as my friend Hugh Hewitt calls it). This isn’t going to be the end of the 50-year war with the Iranian mullahs. Nobody thinks that, including Donald Trump, no matter what he says. Like every experienced negotiator, Donald Trump is never going to publicly say what he actually thinks, and anyone expecting him to is a child and unworthy of your attention. This agreement will not end the war because the war is rooted in an irresolvable dispute. These 17th-century savages are religious fanatics who believe that their fake Mahdi is going to crawl out of a well or something and blah blah blah blah blah. The bottom line is they can’t tolerate the existence of the Jewish state, or the West, or anybody whose culture isn’t run by people who shouldn’t be allowed within 1,000 feet of a school. The only way this war is going to end is when one side is fully and completely defeated. So this is not peace. This is a hudna, a temporary truce that both sides exploit to prepare to resume fighting.

If you can’t accept that we are at war with Islamic fanatics, I can’t help you. To those of you with your eyes tightly shut and your hands pressed against your ears, yelling, “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!” I know you don’t want to be in a forever war. I know that it’s inconvenient for you, and you don’t like it. And I also know that what you want doesn’t matter. It doesn’t take two to be in a war. It only takes one. If one guy isn't in a war, the war doesn’t last long because the guy who doesn’t fight back loses. I propose we not only fight back, but we defeat this enemy that’s been trying to destroy the West for 1,500 years.

Yes, you can put me down as a hawk. My preferred way to fulfill our strategy – which must be regime change, even though nobody can say “regime change” aloud – is kinetic. I propose we blow the living snot out of them, to use the technical term. But here’s the problem. Most Americans don’t agree with me. If you look at the polls, it’s very clear that people would prefer not to be in a kinetic fight with the Iranians at this time. I have the luxury of not having any responsibility. I wasn’t elected president. I’m not in command of anything. But Donald Trump was elected and is in command, and he’s got a lot of moving parts to consider. He chose to go forward with the MOU not because he’s weak or stupid or cowardly or a bad negotiator – that’s a cope – but because he’s got other priorities at present that this lame MOU supports.

Here’s one key fact – for various reasons, including the perfidy of allegedly allied governments, oil is not moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Part of that has to do with insurance, and a big part has to do with alleged allies leaning on insurance companies not to cover ships that would otherwise transit the Strait. The idea that somehow the Iranians just discovered, like a month ago, that they had hundreds of miles of coastline along the Strait and could interdict it with military force is so stupid it’s not even worth addressing. Of course, they knew about that. And of course, we knew about that. We’ve wargamed it for decades. It was a risk of war, and war is in large part about managing risk.

What Trump did was make a deal to open the Straits so the American economy could recover. You can already see gas prices going down. Now, this was important to him for a couple of reasons. First, we didn’t need a worldwide recession. There is talk out there, and I’m no expert on the oil industry, so take it for what it’s worth, but apparently, Trump believes that world oil stocks were going to be depleted, and the price was going to go through the roof. That would have sent the Western economy into a tailspin, and there would’ve been follow-on effects from that. Yeah, war is expensive and disruptive to the economy. Who knew? And while I would’ve happily borne the increased price per gallon in order to destroy the Iranian mullahs, the fact is, most people wouldn’t. I don’t have to like that fact. But that’s a fact. And Donald Trump is forced to deal with facts, not just theory on X.

So Donald Trump kicked the can down the road, although it’s not clear how far. Threatening the Strait of Hormuz is viable right now, but the mullahs’ now- acknowledged ability to interdict traffic through the Strait is what we call a depreciating asset. It’s not going to be there, at least to the same extent, forever. The other Gulf States have figured out what’s happening, and they’re not just going to sit there and not do something about it. There are already massive oil pipelines heading west – those of us in Desert Storm drove by the major one in northern Saudi Arabia as we went out to the desert along scenic Tapline Road (Who else remembers beautiful Hafir al-Batin, which makes Deming, New Mexico, look like Paris?). They will build a lot more. It’s going to take time, but eventually, the Gulf States are going to work around the ability of Iran to completely cut off their oil exports. Time is on our side, but you have to think of time not in terms of months but years. Americans are notoriously bad at that. 

It’s going to be years until we resolve this war. We have to think in the long term, and the long-term goal is getting rid of these mullahs and installing somebody who’s not going to be a problem. This war was an opportunity for the Iranian people to rise up and get rid of their fanatic masters. They didn’t do that, for various reasons. We can thank the Kurds for stealing the weapons Trump tried to send them – yeah, the Middle East is wonderful. But what’s clear is that we’re not going to do it for them. There’s literally no one who wants to physically invade Iran and take it over and govern it. That gives the mullahs an advantage: all they have to do is not die. I would make them die, but that’s just me.

But we’ve got a long way to go to neutering them. And while we’ve utterly gutted their military capabilities, including their nuclear program – anybody who ignores that and starts telling you that this MOU is worse than the JCPOA is unworthy of your attention because that’s just stupid – they still have a bunch of guys with small arms who can oppress their own people. These thugs have to be eliminated in detail, and the only ones who can do that are the Iranians themselves.

Again, the mullahs have been largely defanged. Most of their current threats are hypothetical – it’s not clear they can actually sink a ship going through the Strait of Hormuz, but the shippers don’t want to take that chance, so the threat is sufficient. The mullahs have other moves to make, too. Remember that the enemy gets a vote. They are desperately trying to keep Israel from annihilating their primitive pederast proxy Hezbollah, whose members have a ton of American blood on their paws. Israel can’t live with these creeps firing missiles into its land and essentially making northern Israel uninhabitable. It’s got to drain this abscess, but the Iranians are trying to use that as a wedge to drive the United States and Israel apart. The predictably moronic collection of podcasters, libertarians, traitors, and drooling idiots is going along with the information operation, demanding that America abandon Israel.

At the moment, it would be more convenient for the United States if Israel weren’t publicly wiping out Hezbollah – I don’t think anyone who’s not a clown sheds any sincere tears for these monsters. JD Vance is taking the lead in telling Israel to essentially chill out, and a lot of pro-Israel Americans are upset about that. That’s overwrought – America and Israel do have different interests, and he’s just saying that truth out loud. What we should be doing is giving Israel a behind-the-scenes go-ahead to do what it needs to do. Every time it kills a Hezbollah or Hamas terrorist, an angel gets its wings. And here’s the tough news for the pro-Israel crowd, of which I am one – you’ve got no place else to go. All the Democrats hate you and want all the Jews to die. Let’s get the cards out there – they would be happy for Israel’s enemies to butcher everybody from the river to the sea. The Republicans are largely aligned with Israel on security concerns, but the Venn diagram is not a perfect circle. A 90 percent friend is not a 10 percent enemy. 

And here’s some more real talk, which I don’t necessarily love. The American people like this MOU deal. A majority supports it. They want the current kinetic phase over. They don’t love Iran. They don’t hate Israel. They just want this fighting to stop. I don’t agree with them, but I don’t get to tell them what to think. Trump’s the guy who has to deal with that. And Trump understands the stakes. If the Democrats take the House (which is not entirely assured, as recent polls show the Democrats losing ground) and/or the Senate, that would be really bad. He’s got to consider that. And he is considering that. He wants the economy kicking. He wants the shooting to stop. He thinks that’s the best way to survive the midterms, and he’s got pretty good instincts.

There are complaints that the Iranians are going to be able to sell their oilagain, but any deal was going to allow them to do so. They were selling their oil before the conflict started, and their country's economy was still in ruins. It will still be in ruins after it starts selling oil again. 

As for sanctions relief and this $300 billion rehabilitation fund, we will see. That is only supposed to happen if the mullahs cooperate. But, of course, the mullahs aren’t going to cooperate. They are going to be a continual pain in the tush. We need to see whether President Trump will reward them for their misbehavior. He will, if he thinks it’s to his advantage. Now, there’s an idea out there that Donald Trump actually believes and trusts these guys, and that’s either unbelievably stupid or pure wishcasting. He knows exactly who these people are, and he’s got to know that they will screw with him from now until November. But that’s OK. A bunch of these savages getting on Twitter and making their announcements is not the same as actual fighting. 

Trump is going to try to drag this out past the midterms. That 60-day nuclear negotiation? Of course, that’s going to get extended. There’s precisely zero chance that’s going to be resolved. But understand that their nuclear program has been blown to smithereens. We are not back in a worse position than we were before we entered this righteous conflict. We’re in a much better position. And in the long term, the correlation of forces is in our favor. Israel is wiping out its proxies. The Gulf states are strengthening their defenses, so Iran can’t do again what it just did. We are rebuilding, rearming, and retargeting. And Iran’s regime? It’s still impoverished and teetering on the edge of collapse.

You wouldn’t know it from all the whining online and the self-serving crap of the Democrats, who seemed just as mad about us not shooting as they were at us shooting, but we’re in a good position for the future. All the Iranian mullahs are just crying like the little b****s that they are. They accepted the MOU because they need the MOU as much as Trump does, maybe more. So, at the end of the day, crying like a little b***h is all they can do.

Podcast thread for June 22

 

oh brother.

Bring Back the Patriarchy

American Thinker 

I’d like to use Father’s Day to make a humble request: Let’s bring back the patriarchy.  Whatever we currently have just isn’t working.  

Empowering an odd collection of feminazis, soy boys, pronoun people, emotional nutcases, women pretending to be men, and men pretending to be women has produced a dysfunctional world that makes no sense.  We’ve got gays celebrating Muslim jihadists who throw gays off buildings for sport.  We’ve got “Me Too” pink-hat-ladies defending pedophiles and rapists from decorated military veterans now serving as ICE agents.  We have male Democrat Party politicians harnessed with strange contraptions that allow them to “breastfeed” adopted babies.  We have Hillary Clinton clones wearing pantsuits and using the lowest register of their vocal chords to bark orders in the most raspy, gruff, masculine voice they can muster.  

I remember when Hillary Clinton and other female politicians used to stare up at the stars just beyond the glass ceiling and wistfully ponder, “What a wonderful world it would be if only women were in charge.”  Even before the cancerous Clintons rented out the Lincoln Bedroom, traded military secrets for Chinese campaign contributions, and built a money laundering operation disguised as a family charity, it had become quite common for the chattering class to go all twinkly-eyed on television as corporate news mouthpieces told the public that wars would probably end once women were running things. 

In 2026, does anybody believe women are the missing link to global peace?  Have you seen those Minneapolis harpies screaming in the faces of ICE agents?  And that coven of Cloward-Piven communists hail from a state so broadly admired for its distinctive generosity and graciousness that the rest of us once fondly described its spirit as “Minnesota nice.” “Nice” does not come to mind when I watch videos of angry women running over federal agents with their cars, blocking officers from arresting violent illegal aliens, and yelling all manner of profanities at guys and gals who risk their lives to keep Americans safe.  

If the women of America’s “nicest” state can be so venomous, just imagine the unholy scenes of female madness that erupt outside of a New York City Chick-fil-A when a young employee politely says, “Thank you, sir,” to a bearded man in a dress who demands to be addressed as a “Ma’am.”  Women jump on tables and start throwing things faster than J.B. Pritzker and Chris Christie tag-team-devouring a buffet.  (Nota bene: Never suggest to a woman ransacking a restaurant that she behave as a lady; such suggestions produce the opposite result.)

As I’ve watched women ascend the political hierarchy, take over corporate boards, colonize the university campus, and fill up the arts, music, and entertainment spaces with some of the raunchiest content in my lifetime, my thoughts have not drifted toward the conclusion that the world will heal and all will be well once women are firmly in control of everything.  On the contrary, I fear that — much like Slim Pickens riding a nuclear bomb as if he were busting a bronco — we’ll have a future female president twerking atop the Resolute Desk as she disposes of foes as if they were cheating exes.  The “girl boss” routine that fills up most books, movies, and television shows these days makes me think that the future-is-female contingent prefer picking fights and then sitting back as discarded members of the “patriarchy” are called to defend the instigators from their own provocations.  “Girl power” apparently means being supported by strong men who obey.  It might be a good time for everyone to brush up on the basics of “duck and cover.” 

Say what you will about “toxic masculinity,” but when boys grow up learning how to take and throw a punch, they become men capable of both aggression and restraint.  You don’t have to get hit in the face too many times before figuring out a few things: (1) Don’t start what you can’t finish.  (2) Not every personal slight requires a response.  The art of compromise is practiced best by those who have witnessed firsthand the cost of conflict.  When fighting and warring are dismissed as unnecessary aberrations arising from “dangerous” masculinity, vital human lessons are never learned.  Being a leader is not about shouting orders; it is about putting yourself in harm’s way enough times to learn the safest passage through future hardship.  Successful leaders are not anointed; they struggle and keep moving forward until everyone else is following.  

Masculinity is about far more than physicality or force.  It’s about the willingness to use one’s strength to protect a wife, family, community, and country.  Building bigger muscles means nothing if those muscles are just “for show.”  Strengthening the body and mind is masculine only when done with the aim of becoming a better man.  Violence untethered from moral constraint and wisdom is evil.  However, when strong men obey God and use their gifts to protect others, masculine virtue is invaluable.

Protecting others means that masculinity is sacrifice.  It is a willingness to put yourself between a loved one and a threat.  It is a recognition that you will give everything you have — including your life — to shield those under your protection.  It is an acceptance that, although you will not win every fight, you will fight, regardless.  

Whatever kind of society we currently have, it is certainly not a patriarchy.  We have far too many children growing up without fathers.  We have far too many men who say and do nothing as evil men do evil things.  We have far too many men who have chosen to leave society behind rather than defend it.  They have been called names.  They have been told that they are culpable for every bad thing that has ever happened.  They are described as redundant or even anachronistic in the modern family.  Television shows and movies depict them as stupid, boorish, privileged, unwanted, unneeded, and easily replaceable.  

Western societies that have rejected masculine virtue produce the same natural result: Everything breaks.  Families stop functioning properly.  Neighborhoods are overrun with crime and violence.  Communities turn into bickering tribes.  Love of country is replaced with self-hate.  Personal sacrifice fades.  

What happens when men stop building, protecting, and sacrificing for the countries that they call home?  Barbarians breach the gates.  Countries get conquered.  Innocents die.  Towns vanish.  Mass invasion does not succeed simply because the United Nations, the European Union, and the political Establishments of Britain and the United States prefer to sow chaos and make money from open borders.  Invasion succeeds because men have disappeared.

Right now, unfortunately, too many men have been cowed into silence.  Those calling themselves “men” spend their energies defending “transgender” predators who hunt inside women’s restrooms and child sex-slavers who hide behind the virtue-signaling smokescreens of mass amnesty advocates.  When masculine virtue dries up, the wolves start preying on the weak.

There’s only one way out of this mess: We must bring back the patriarchy.  Men must be roused from their slumbers and reminded what’s at stake.  They must do the hard things once again no matter how much civilization’s destroyers complain.  This century-long experiment of demonizing, removing, and replacing men has failed.  

What happens next will not be for the faint of heart.  In fact, bringing back order to a society addicted to chaos will require more heart than most men have ever used.  But it’s the only way to save the West from those who wish to put it in the ground.  It will require men who are willing to be called horrible names while they protect others.  It will require men with calluses, purpose, and restraint.  It will require men of courage, sacrifice, strength, and honor.  These men will not be appreciated by everyone alive today.  They will, however, be remembered by every generation that follows.

The Four Jokers of the Apocalypse: Carney, Starmer, Macron, and Merz

The Four Jokers of the Apocalypse: Carney, Starmer, Macron, and Merz

Fear merchants can’t sell Armageddon if nobody listens.

J. B. Shurk for American Thinker

The so-called “leaders” of Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany are the four jokers of the apocalypse — each doing his damndest to drag what’s left of those nations into Hell.  

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has given several speeches recently in which he reaffirms his commitment to fighting “climate change” by severely limiting Canadians’ meat and dairy consumption, clothing allowance, private ownership of vehicles, air travel, and other basic lifestyle choices. 

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer — who did nothing while Islamic rape gangs hunted young British girls — has rolled out a totalitarian system for online speech controls, mandatory digital identifications, and device-level scanning under the pretense that Big Brother must “protect the children” from “harmful” content.

French President Emmanuel Macron pretends that Christians are not under attack while churches and other sacred sites burn to the ground.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has decided that the only way to save the German economy from the self-inflicted and “severe strategic mistake” of shutting down its nuclear reactors is to juice Germany’s defense industry by investing in prolonged war with the Russian Federation.

Net-zero communism, online censorship, Christian persecution, and endless war — these are all pillars of the globalist, “progressive,” anti-Western apocalypse that Carney, Starmer, Macron, and Merz continue to unleash.  The “Build Back Better”-“Green New Deal”-“Net-Zero”-“Great Reset”-“Climate Change” program will make it impossible for people to own anything.  “Protect the children” controls over the Internet will make it impossible for people to exchange information freely and anonymously.  Continued attacks on Christians’ religious beliefs and their houses of worship will make it impossible for people to exercise their freedom of conscience without punishment.  Using war to distract citizens from “green energy”-induced inflation, central bank currency destruction, and the totalitarian architecture of the West’s national security surveillance State will make it impossible for people to marry, have children, prosper, and live in peace.  

These are not popular policies.  If any one of these globalist pillars were put on a ballot for a general referendum, voters would overwhelmingly strike it down.  But the dictators who pretend to be leading “democracies” will never allow the people to decide their own futures.  After Ukraine voters surprised European elites in 2010 by choosing a president (Viktor Yanukovych) aligned more with Russia than the European Union, British voters surprised the ruling class by opting for Brexit in June 2016, and American voters surprised the Deep State by electing President Trump later that November, the Establishment realized that the successful implementation of its new-world-order policies would depend upon rigged elections and the sabotage of unapproved victors (see, e.g., the U.S. State Department’s 2014 Maidan coup d'état in Kyiv, the United States’ mail-in-ballot-tainted 2020 election that installed Joe Biden in the White House, the European Union’s annulment of Romania’s December 2024 presidential election, and Keir Starmer’s April 2026 national address effectively canceling Brexit).  Government by mandate and oppressive regulation is the dystopian system that has swallowed most of the West.  Elections with uncontrolled outcomes are to be avoided whenever possible.

Notice how the four jokers of the apocalypse govern by emergency.  When Carney talks about energy controls and economic regulation, he emphatically declares that man-made “climate change” is causing imminent destruction of the planet.  The “science” is not only “settled”; we’re all about to die!  A member of the British government said of Starmer’s social media spying: “Keir has been clear we need a game-changer to keep our children — and future generations — safe online.”  You hear that?  We must give up online privacy in order to keep the children safe!  In Macron’s France, even circumspect suggestions that millions of unvetted Islamic migrants might have something to do with the inexplicable spate of church fires across the country are met with government “hate crime” charges and public denunciations of right-wing nationalists and racists!  Poor Merz is so desperate to distract Germans suffering under the continent’s economically suicidal “green energy” policies that he’s substantially increased defense spending and taken steps toward mass conscription while warning that the Russians could invade Berlin at any time! 

In other words, if “climate change” doesn’t kill us, “right-wing nationalists” will!  And if those “racist fascists” don’t get us, the Russians will!  And if we somehow manage to survive those villains, too, well, a free, open, and uncensored Internet will certainly murder our children in their sleep!  All very scary things.  No time to use our brains to consider whether the four jokers of the apocalypse might have ulterior motives for their globalist policies.  No, sirree!  We have enough time only to listen to the government and do exactly what it says!  You know…just like during COVID…when the “experts” told us we could not question government rules for surviving the apocalypse — no matter how irrational, silly, or plain insane most of those rules proved to be — because grandparents, children, cute puppies and kittens, and maybe every person on the planet were all about to die…unless we obeyed the government!  

Globalism is an evil ideology that generates endless “emergencies” in order to frighten and intimidate people into surrendering their rights and freedoms.  Carney, Starmer, Macron, and Merz sell fear in exchange for power.  They’re good at what they do.  Peddling the apocalypse ad nauseam isn’t easy.  Fear merchants must constantly be ready to produce a new “emergency” just as soon as the current “emergency” grows stale.  That’s how “global cooling” turned into “global warming” before becoming “climate change” which morphed into threats from “extreme weather.”  Every time the temperature changes — heck, every time there’s a little extra sun, snow, wind, or rain — Mark Carney and his fellow “climate change” conmen are ready to sell the apocalypse!

It makes me wonder whether Western citizens will ever grow exhausted of being perpetually punked.  Will people realize that surviving on wind-powered unicorns downgrades life to what it was before the Industrial Revolution?  Will they figure out that mass surveillance and social credit scores are inimical to personal freedom?  Will they recognize that the Islamic conquest of Europe effectively means that there will be no Europe?  Will they notice that the constant fearmongering regarding Russia’s supposed intent to conquer the European continent mirrors Orwell’s satirical critique of perpetual war among the thinly-disguised fictional superstates of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia?  

I really hope they do.  For all of our sakes, I really hope that a “great awakening” occurs during which ordinary Westerners accept that their “experts” are frauds, their “money” is fake, their “democracy” is a lie, and their “leaders” are totalitarians.  The line separating the Carneys, Starmers, Macrons, and Merzes from the Stalins, Mussolinis, Maos, and even Hitlers is smudged and getting only more blurry.  

To some people, that might read like hyperbole.  But these Western demagogues posing as “leaders” are allowing Christians to be violently attacked and prosecuted for imaginary “hate crimes.”  They do nothing as churches not-so-mysteriously go up in flames.  They let Islamic rape gangs hunt young girls and even cover up their horrific crimes in order to protect globalism’s support for mindless “multiculturalism” and forced “diversity.”  They censor speech in the name of “protecting children” and pump out endless propaganda while attacking dissent as “disinformation.”  They tax and regulate and take, take, take.  Then, after confiscating the public’s incomes and properties so that they and their cronies can have more wealth and more power, they go on television to hyperventilate about threats from invading Russians, right-wing fascists, and “global warming.”  Western “leaders” destroy minds with their lies.  They do not deserve our sympathy.  They deserve prison.

When the four jokers of the apocalypse come calling, pay them no attention.  Fear merchants can’t sell Armageddon if nobody listens.

Image: Mark Carney.  Credit: Policy Exchange via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

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Adam Schiff's Latest Elon Musk Wealth Grab Fantasy Is Even Worse Than It Sounds

RedState 

We've seen a variety of Democrats make ridiculous remarks since Elon Musk became a trillionaire following the initial public offering (IPO) of his company, SpaceX. 

They all seemed to think this was the time to talk about how much the government should grab from Elon and/or billionaires to redistribute to those who didn't earn it, and punish success. The Democratic nominee for the Senate from Maine, the scandal-plagued Graham Platner, even said that they should make sure that Musk was the "last trillionaire." California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said we needed to "democratize the economy."   

There was Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17), who revealed why we should never vote for his party and had problems with math as he spoke about a 5 percent wealth tax on billionaires. 

This the basic difference.  

Republicans believe that that if you let the wealthy spend capital` it will make Americans prosperous.  

Democrats believe that the federal government investing in the healthcare & education of our people will make America prosperous & productive.

As I noted then, Democrats think that "prosperity" comes from taking more of your money because they know how to spend it for you. What an ad for why we shouldn't vote for them. 

However, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) apparently decided he wanted to top Khanna with an even worse idea. Actual redistribution of Elon's trillion to other people. 

First, he says you could distribute it to all American households. Then, he claims the trillion could pay for the college education of 7.7 million people. Finally, he suggests you could use it to pay for all child care costs from birth to 18 for 4.3 million kids. 

The Democrats are literally now proposing the idea of confiscating all someone's money. Can we talk again about how they are rushing headlong to embrace radical leftist thought? 

Leaving aside the questions of Schiff's math, Musk doesn't have a trillion dollars lying around in cash you can grab. It's locked up in the stock and the value of the companies. If you grab it, you destroy the companies and all they would provide, including the scientific advancement and the space exploration. You put all the tens of thousands of employees out of work. You destroy the investments that Americans have in his companies and probably tank the stock market, so you hurt all those people as well. 

Then you would probably cause billionaires to flee the country, if we had a government idiotic and communistic enough to do this, tanking the economy and the country even more. 

Then, too, can we talk about how bad they already are with the money they have taken from American taxpayers? It isn't Elon grabbing your money; it's the government. Elon was actually working hard to save us money when he was helping out the Trump administration with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Elon has created value, while politicians have created debt. 

But hey, just trust the Democrats, bro. They really mean well, even though the government has already gotten trillions and not done any of these things. All you need to do is give them more money. Not to mention, it isn't the role of the government to pay for the things he's talking about. 

Then, to top it off, Schiff doubled down on it after the backlash, posting Fox's take on his video, calling it (appropriately) a "war on success." 

Fox News: Adam Schiff points out how far $1 TRILLION would go to help Americans afford the cost of living if tax shelters didn’t allow it all to go to one person.  

Me: Yup.

Nope. Fox didn't say in that clip, "if tax shelters didn't allow it all to go to one person." That doesn't even make sense, as the money is wrapped up in stock value, not tax shelters.

Schiff called Musk's success a "product of a corrupt system." Musk's success is due to hard work and ingenuity. He earned it. Meanwhile, Schiff has been part of the system that just keeps spending more and piling up the debt, so what is he even saying? 

Any Democrat who comes up with these kinds of ideas should be willing to put up some of their own money. After all, if they care about "income inequality," it's the least they can do if they're going to push these ideas. 

Conrad Black - Trump’s Foibles, and Rising Concern Over Iran Peace Deal, Offer a Gift to the Democrats

 The controversy over the Iran cease-fire agreement and growing public concern about foibles of President Trump’s personality have obscured the palsied state of the Democratic leadership and the approach of that party to a commitment to the extreme left that could easily become an act of collective political suicide. Mr. Trump is

 testing the theory of many previous presidents that too much exposure annoys the public and creates a sense of boredom, particularly as he gets close to the last quarter of a two-term presidency.

These circumstances have obscured the extreme vulnerability of the policy positions of the Democrats and the weakness of their leadership. 

Not even in the worst phase of the Vietnam era, when the Democrats had deserted their president, Lyndon Johnson and their war, and as demonstrators burned American flags, vandalized the Wall Street statue of George Washington, rioted constantly throughout the country, and as the New York Times put it, advocated a harsher peace for the United States and South Vietnam than North Vietnam was asking for, has a major political party been so out of step with the country.

Because the official leadership, Senator Charles Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries in the Congress and Vice President Harris, Governor Gavin Newsom, and Secretary Pete Buttigieg as possible presidential candidates, are so dreary and mediocre, and so terrified by the radical left, they have, and deserve, no credibility. And the Democratic Party is gradually being taken over by Senator Bernie Sanders, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Squad and their demands for class warfare, appeasement of militant Islam, outright antisemitism, open borders, toleration of crime, truckling to transgender activists, the Green Terror, and paroxysms of socialist authoritarianism. 

The far left are astutely presenting their candidates in left-wing cities where they have a reasonable chance of election, and their principal constituency is the brainwashed product of the intellectually bankrupt and largely anti-American university system. Whatever happens in the midterm elections, the greater the inroads of the extreme left on the Democrats, and the decrepitude of the old guard clinging to the ramparts, the Democrats’ softness on almost all the principal issues will be a disaster. 

They are becoming a completely unelectable party of spavined party wheel-horses and shrieking extremists and in two years they will be running against a new face, probably Vice President Vance or Secretary Marco Rubio, and Trump-hate won’t cut it for them. I have always thought, from the first extremely successful days of the military action against Iran by Israel and the United States, that the war would, one way or another, be a Republican vote winner in November. 

I think the negotiations will produce a complete Iranian renunciation of nuclear weapons, and of any ability to interfere with traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, and a drastic reduction in assistance to terrorist organizations, in exchange for relaxation of cash seizures, and sanctions, or Mr. Trump would have demonstrated that he had given peace a chance, and then finished the job in Iran with an aerial blockade, American management of oil exports through the strait, and the destruction via bombardment of Iran as a modern state, all in a few weeks.

In addition to the fluid response to Iranian developments, the pre-midterm election prospects have been affected by the beginnings of a lame-duck political handicap attaching to the president. This is not just the traditional approach of the end of the second term. It has been aggravated by the controversy with the former Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, the bad taste left by the unsuccessful advocacy of the fund for excessively or falsely prosecuted victims of the alleged trespassers on January 6, 2021 at the Capitol. 

The country became very impatient with the president’s oscillation between draconian threats and predictions of imminent peace.

Claims by the president that he had gained an unconditional surrender seem just as hollow as the Democrats’ false assertion that Trump was no more successful than President Obama’s infamous surrender to Iran in 2013 and 2015. The Obama arrangements were only a delay in development and deployment of nuclear weapons, and signing the agreement brought a Niagara of cash delivered at once by airplane to Iran. 

Trump almost completely destroyed the Iranian nuclear program and he has wrung from Iran a pledge not to revive it or meddle in the Strait, and cash, which will not come from the United States, will be released according to the progress of the discussions.  There have been other events that have shaken the confidence of the president’s less tenacious supporters. 

His rambling monologue for the press in France with several cabinet secretaries standing uneasily behind him as he referred to himself as a “genius,” and other flattering encomia, was not reassuring.  And the ridiculous and demeaning controversy with Premier Giorgia Meloni of Italy over whether she had been anxious to have her photograph taken with the president, which resulted in her foreign minister cancelling a scheduled visit to the United States, was a disturbing and unseemly episode.

And the president’s relentless ambition to have his legislation adopted to preserve the integrity of American elections, which is vital and has public opinion behind it, is running up against the cowardice of pre-Trump Republican senators and congressmen, as well as the rank hypocrisy of the Democrats. 

If the president raises his game, he can still win all these points, while the Democrats splinter and waffle into a left-wing wasteland where few voters dwell.

https://www.newenglishreview.org/trumps-foibles-and-rising-concern-over-iran-peace-deal-offer-a-gift-to-the-democrats/

 

Are iPhones Dialing Up the Birth Dearth?

Are iPhones Dialing Up the Birth Dearth?

America’s fertility crisis has many causes, but a new study suggests the device that changed how we communicate may also have changed how we connect.

Thaddeus G. McCotter for American Greatness

When I call you up, your line’s engaged

I have had enough, so act your age

We have lost the time that was so hard to find

And I will lose my mind

If you won’t see me . . .

Time after time

You refuse to even listen

I wouldn’t mind

If I knew what I was missing

—The Beatles, “You Won’t See Me”

As one heads into senescence, the milestones begin to fade in the rearview mirror. Yet every now and again, something jars the memory to refocus your recognition of such milestones and on how time has truly flown.

Recently, I was reminded that nearly an entire generation of Americans has been born after the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. As a Gen Xer born before the introduction of the answering machine, I felt the weight of my sixty years, along with a gnawing anxiety about the future.

No, not because I won’t be around all that much longer. Despite the myths of the ubiquitous cult of youth promoted by our callow commercial culture, the increasing aches and pains accompanying my journey into old age are an insistent reminder that no one lives forever. Rather, my concern is how few Americans will be born to replace me and the other older members of our aging nation.

As reported by Elise Winland in Zeale News, a new study suggests the 2007 introduction of the iPhone has played a significant role in the declining U.S. fertility rate.

Written by Caitlin K. Myers and Ezekiel Hooper and issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the title of the working paper says it all: “Is the iPhone Birth Control? Causal Evidence from AT&T’s 2007–2011 Carrier Monopoly.”

The study’s methodology is straightforward, as are its implications for our nation. As succinctly explained by Ms. Winland: “The paper draws on a natural experiment created by Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T. When the iPhone launched in June 2007, it was available only on AT&T’s network until February 2011, giving researchers a way to compare areas with different levels of early iPhone access.”

While this deal was fortuitous for the researchers, the consequences were disastrous for the nation’s birth rate. According to Myers and Hooper:

The diffusion of the iPhone deepened the decline in births among women under 30 while suppressing the rise in births among older women. Overall, the diffusion of the iPhone explains 33–52% of the decline in the general fertility rate among women aged 15–44. National-survey evidence on time use and sexual behavior is consistent with the iPhone reducing in-person interactions, increasing pornography use, and reducing sexual frequency.

Importantly, Myers and Hooper are not asserting that the iPhone is the sole cause of the steep decline in America’s birth rate, which they cite as having dropped by 22 percent since 2007, again, the year of the iPhone’s introduction. For, as Winland notes, the researchers believe the nation’s record low birth rate of 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 “cannot be fully explained by the common explanations such as the Great Recession, increased access to contraception, rising housing and childcare costs, and delayed marriage.”

The researchers do argue that “studies imply that access to the iPhone reduced births by 4.5–8.0% at ages 15–19 and 3.2–6.6% at ages 20–24, with statistically significant but smaller declines among older cohorts.” (It is worth noting that the iPhone had a salubrious impact on reducing teen pregnancies; however, the enduring detrimental effects stemming from the loss of social interaction and its accompanying skills will be carried into the future by today’s teens.)

Anyone with a cursory acquaintance with Marshall McLuhan’s work will see his dictum, “the medium is the message,” at work here. Every new technology affects human beings, both in how they interact with that technology and in how they subsequently interact—or fail to interact—with other people by using it.

The math—specifically subtraction—is elementary: by spending more time in your virtual cocoon, you have less time for interacting with real human beings. One must therefore consider how much of the iPhone’s contribution to the birth dearth stems from the technology’s unconscious effects on its users. Indeed, unlike, say, birth control or a career choice, the iPhone is not being used deliberately to delay or prevent pregnancy. Rather, the birth dearth is exacerbated because the iPhone user is more rapt with the device and the stimulation it provides than by another person. After all, there are only so many hours in the day—and night.

Meanwhile, the birth rate continues its decline. It is an indicator of national health. An optimistic, future-oriented nation has at least a replacement birth rate, if not a growing one. A declining nation has a declining birth rate. In America today, the atomization of our citizenry and its accompanying anomie continue apace, as algorithmically personalized prison cells push us out of gen pop and into solitary confinement. Thus does the insidious, circular logic of the siren song of decline become the mantra: life is unfair, inequitable, and horrible, so it is better—in fact, virtuous—not to bring a new life into this morass of meaninglessness.

The result of this is the declining birth rate found in both the United States and Europe, where the apostles of postmodernism hold sway, filling the perceived vacuity of modernity with a creed that holds the most “tolerant” belief is to believe in nothing—including one’s inherited civilization. A postmodern generation taught to loathe itself does not care to procreate. For what better way to reject the meaningless future than by making sure there are no succeeding generations to perpetuate it?

While my bachelor’s degree is only in political science, and despite all the technological advances during my lifetime—including the internet, social media, AI, and the answering machine—I nonetheless feel confident in declaring, “You can only make a baby in the real world.”

A healthy nation prizes real life over a virtual world. It doesn’t have a birth dearth. And I’m inclined to believe it has more answering machines—or at least call waiting—and fewer smartphones.

I had to interrupt and stop this conversation

Your voice across the line gives me a strange sensation

I’d like to talk when I can show you my affection

Oh, I can’t control myself . . .

Don’t leave me hanging on the telephone

Hang up and run to me

Oh, hang up and run to me.

—Blondie, “Hanging on the Telephone”

* * *

President Trump Lets Iran Have Both Metaphorical Barrels in Stern New Hormuz Warning

RedState 

There are signs that talks with Iran are not going well. Iran, or at least elements in Iran, are threatening the Strait of Hormuz again. President Trump has wasted no time letting Iran know that he isn't about to put up with any of that. Hormuz, the president informed Iran in a Sunday verbal broadside, is staying open. Fox News' chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst reported on that early Sunday morning.

The post reads:

"You close it and you won't have a country." President Trump said he told Iranian officials about the Strait of Hormuz. "You won't even make it back to your fu*king country." 

"We may take over the Strait, if we have to," Trump said. "If they don't make a deal, we'll collect tolls." 

Trump added the U.S. could become the "Guardian Angel" of the Strait, and take 20% of the oil.

Never let it be said that President Trump is one to mince words.

Here's what Trey Yingst reports in the video:

Trey Yingst: Hey guys, good morning. I just spoke with President Trump for more than 20 minutes, and he gave some new insight and reaction about the ongoing talks that are taking place in Switzerland, and the threats that are coming from the Iranian regime. President Trump telling Fox News that the U.S. may take over the Strait in the future, if they have to, and collect tolls. The president described this as the United States being the guardian angel of the Strait of Hormuz, and the Middle East. And the president said ultimately that would involve taking 20 percent of the oil that passes through the Strait.

It's not at all clear what value the United States charging any such toll would serve; it will likely be referred to as compensation for the United States ensuring free passage for all ships in the Strait, but it would only last as long as the Republicans hold the White House or Congress. 

Trey Yingst: Remember, this comes in reaction to the Iranians, saying they will close the Strait of Hormuz, in response to Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon. President Trump tells Fox News he spoke with Iranian officials overnight, and said, "You close it, and you won't have a country." He went on to tell these officials, "You won't even make it back to your effing country." Now, earlier today Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said this about Iranian enrichment of uranium, the president also reacting to that. Take a listen.

(Iran's President Pezeshkian, through an interpreter): We will not give up our right to enrichment. And they, too, will be forced to accept it. You all know what the so-called president of the United States was saying. He had made a complete 100-degree (sic) turn. He was saying that Iran must surrender unconditionally. Iran has no right to do this; it has no right to do that.

This tells us that Iran's president apparently intends Iran to continue on its path toward a nuclear weapon. Denying Iran such a weapon, remember, was the original goal of Operation Epic Fury and Operation Midnight Hammer before it. It also tells us that the Iranian interpreter could use a few lessons in geometry.

Trey Yingst: President Trump, during our call, responded directly to those comments by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. President Trump told Fox News, "He'd better watch his mouth, he'd better shape up, or we'll take over the rest of the country. And so clearly the president reacted directly to these comments from Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and also, President Trump talked about the broader memorandum of understanding, indicating this is just a cease-fire extenstion; this is not the final deal with the Iranian regime, and the president says he holds the cards, and maintains a variety of options, if the Iranians don't make these serious commitments at the negotiating table. He said "I have a 60 day option, and I can do whatever I want, after that option." So again, President Trump leaving a variety of considerations on the table, and says that the United States could become the guardian angel of the Strait of Hormuz and collect tolls itself, while taking oil, around 20 percent, the president says. As it relates to oil, the president also said, that 19 million barrels of crude oil have exited the Persian Gulf yesterday, as a result of this memorandum of understanding, with the Iranians. 

Note that taking over the rest of the country, as President Trump puts it, would be an operation that would dwarf everything that we've done to date in the region. It's also an exercise that could easily get out of control, spilling over into neighboring countries. And, if Iran lacks the capacity to build a nuclear weapon, who says they can't purchase one, if driven by desperation - or that North Korea, just to name one likely candidate, might not agree to sell them one?

As all this is happening, Vice President JD Vance is in Switzerland, and talks with Iran are proceeding. (Note: Live update page, refreshes regularly)

Diplomacy is, very often, the art of saying "Nice doggie, nice doggie," until one can find a rock. In this case, the United States has all the rocks, but the question is where, when, and how to use them. Iran's president may be posturing for a negotiating advantage. The United States, candidly, can't afford to get caught up in a land war in Iran. The Iranians know this. They also know the American midterms are coming, and that 2028 isn't all that far away. Time, in this case, works for Iran, not necessarily for us.

The talks are ongoing. Stay tuned. This thing isn't over yet.