First off, a country promoting the "World's Largest LGBT Festival" is NOT "America's best ally."
However, it is an ally of *someone* who occupies the Land of Eternal Hate.
We're not done!!
Guess where this event will happen?
...This celebration of degeneracy and non-straight lifestyle choices — set to take place near what is believed to be the site of Sodom...The Blaze, quoted at Moonbattery
Will history repeat itself?
Last Refuge pins the tail on the jackass:
...For those who might not know, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a parasitic Wall Street and K-Street lobbying organization that has been locked out of trade influence since President Trump took office in 2017. It was the U.S. CoC who sold out our manufacturing base, paid-off prior administrations and wrote the actual trade language in almost every trade deal that destroyed U.S. manufacturing.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a lobbying organization who focuses on the bottom-line profits of U.S. multinational corporations, and they don’t care what happens domestically to American jobs, American manufacturing and American wages. The CoC is the organization who created the rust belt and destroyed our manufacturing base under the guise of promoting a “service driven economy.”...
Yes, well.....while the CoC engineered this treachery, Clinton and Bush the Dumber signed off on the treaties, pushed along by the Senate.
One does not have to love ALL of Trump's policies to admire his stand on recovering good jobs for US citizens. We don't, and we do.
Some politicians care about their constituents.
Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Bryan Steil, Rep. Glenn Grothman, and Rep. Tom Tiffany, hosted a news conference on Monday, April 27, regarding the future of emissions testing in southeast Wisconsin.
They announced the Fair Air Standards Act, legislation to "address Southeast Wisconsin’s non-attainment designation and federal emissions testing requirements."...
Rep. Fitzgerald and Rep. "See My Stylish Glasses??" Moore apparently were NOT there.
In the last 10 years, merely finding a place which performs those tests has become a serious challenge; and if your car fails, repairs can be very expensive, indeed. Rep. Moore's constituents are affected by the cost problem.
Fitzgerald apparently had something better to do.
One thing is certain if one follows "Roman news." Rumors outnumber news by about 1000-1.
But the rumors can be fun. Here's one that has currency:
... the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is preparing for the possibility of excommunicating not merely the bishops involved, but the “whole SSPX.” His clarification narrowed that phrase to Society members in holy orders, meaning bishops, priests, and clerics, not the lay faithful who attend SSPX chapels. Still, the point remains radioactive. Rome appears ready to place the canonical gun on the table, not against German bishops blessing homosexual couples, or against ecumenical theatre at the tomb of St. Peter, or against Anglican sacramental cosplay in Rome, but against priests whose central offense is that they continue to exist outside the approved postconciliar containment system....
We would be very surprised if that happened, but not *SHOCKED*.
We have not opined on the "Leo vs. Trump" narrative. Here we go.
1) Leo decried war, using language which implied that God is not happy about warmongers, either. No doh. But God does not forbid war. Never did, never will. That's why there is Just War Theory.
Trump, being Trump, took it personally. He never thought that Leo could be talking to Israel, or to Iran, or to Hezbollah. But Leo certainly COULD have been talking to them; they deserve a good talking-to.
By the way, Just War Theory allows heads of States to determine whether a threat is serious and imminent enough to counteract with a 'first strike.' Therefore, Trump's smackdown of Iran is well within Trump's purview and authority. We happen to disagree about his action, as this is Israel's war, not ours--but Trump has the advantage there.
2) Leo talked smack about US treatment of illegal aliens--yet he acknowledged, out loud, that countries have the right (and duty) to control their borders and immigration policy. There are a FEW instances of ICE behaving badly, but Leo's indiscriminate and broad condemnation of ICE's procedures is simply unwarranted, and likely the result of his taking seriously the activist reports lies about what happened here or there with ICE. Trump has the advantage here, too.
3) Finally, Leo mentioned that the Church does not approve of the Death Penalty. What Leo did NOT mention was that this is old news. St. John Paul II was very clear: countries which could afford life-in-prison for certain crimes should use that instead of the DP. The US happens to be one of those countries, so Leo is correct--as it pertains to the US and a number of other First World countries--as he hints in his statement.
But Leo got silly when he yapped about 'depriving [criminals] of the possibility of redemption' by using the DP. In reality? Nothing concentrates one's attention better than the realization of certain near-term death. "Redemption" can be accomplished in the time it takes to say "I am sorry" and mean it--preferably to a priest. So this is a half-Trump/half-Leo point.
Taken in total: Trump acted and spoke exactly as all his enemies hoped he would. Leo spoke--as he often does--with a lack of precision.
Both would do well to use their spokes-critters more often.
The Other McCain, an ink-stained wretch, explains that Smirking Twit on TMJ4:
...As a journalist, one of my biggest gripes is that TV news has given people a mistaken idea about what journalism actually is. Writing a 700-word news article is a full day’s work for the reporter who has to rely on his own notes of conversations with sources. To be an actual reporter — as opposed to a TV talking head — means spending a lot of time on the phone, trying to get people to tell the truth when it would better suit them to keep the truth out of the newspaper. By contrast, if you understand what TV news actually is, you realize that the anchorman is paid for his ability to convey the proper emotion about what he’s telling you.
As Mamet remarked, newscasters are hired “not for their probity or for their intelligence, but for their ‘believability,'”...
Now you know.
You're reading sob-stories about ex-USAID personnel being reduced to $19.00/hour jobs at Costco. Don't shed any tears. They were part of one of the best-funded anti-US outfits in the world.
Putin and XI stand in awe of the destructive power of USAID.
Grim figured out the connex between USAID money and the SPLC. He quotes X:
USAID was funding the SPLC through an organization called the Tides Center, based in San Francisco.
From 2016 through 2024, USAID granted $27 million to the Tides Network to “strengthen global civil society organizations, promote transparency, accountability, citizen engagement, and serve as fiscal agent for USAID’s Civil Society Innovation Initiative.”The Tides Center set up a fund through its Tides Foundation with that money for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Vote Your Voice” initiative....
PJBuchanan was--arguably--the most significant voice calling out the Israeli Lobby in the last 50 years. Not too surprisingly, he did that while running against George HW Bush, a fanatic Israel-supporter and (ironically) the grandson of a Nazi financier.* Buchanan won in New Hampshire, sealing his fate as a target for extinction. He's still alive, but somehow, forgotten.
GHWBush's son, George the Dumber, began a war with Iraq based on Israel's Solemn Word that Hussein had "weapons of mass destruction"--which was a solemnly-worded LIE bearing a very strong resemblance to Israel's current Solemn Word that Iran is only 2 days weeks years from having nukes. You know: "weapons of mass destruction."
Perhaps the tide of "Israel First" is turning. More and more Americans, particularly the young voters, have found out that Israel has been running US foreign policy in the Middle East for decades. At the same time, they are seeing pictures and reading reports on Israel's Way of War: bombing the daylights out of anyone they don't like. Amalekites, ya'know. Kill them before they kill you.
(Was Pope Leo speaking to Hamas? Israel? or the US?.....when he decried war? A good question.)
... Millions of Americans have begun to suspect that they were not simply misinformed, but managed. They are asking whether one of the most consequential features of American foreign policy has been insulated from democratic accountability for decades. They are asking why criticism that is routine in every other arena has been treated as intolerable here. And they are asking what happens when a political order built on taboo begins to lose its grip....quoted at Meaning
In a way, Muslim theology is a boon for Israel, as they are able to say with a straight face that Mohammedan dominance of the world is perhaps worse than Israeli dominance of the world.
Maybe it is, but to be clear: both of their "theologies" despise Christianity. Hmmmm.
The discovery that Israel's military doctrine of Slaughter All of Them is producing a serious push-back. That, in turn, has produced a counter push-back.
... Power rarely fears criticism in the abstract. What it fears is legitimacy draining away in public, especially all at once. Once a subject ceases to be untouchable, institutional authority can weaken with surprising speed. A taboo often looks permanent right until the moment it collapses. Then it collapses everywhere.
The response to such a collapse is usually not persuasion. It is discipline.
One can already see the outlines of that discipline taking shape. Protesters have been arrested. Students and faculty have been investigated, suspended or fired. Speech on major platforms appears increasingly vulnerable to moderation policies that are opaque in method and political in effect. The pressure is often indirect, which is what makes it both effective and deniable. A platform tweaks an algorithm. An institution cites safety. A donor makes a call. A government invokes extremism. A career narrows quietly. No single act appears decisive, yet the cumulative effect is unmistakable. People learn where the invisible fences are....
That "speak no evil" thing has turned into a law in many States, including Wisconsin. Whether it's Constitutional to criticize Israel is irrelevant because it will cost you thousands of dollars to win your case.
Get it yet, Goy?
Perhaps there are another 5-10 million P J Buchanans, which likely will overthrow the Israeli Combine in the US. We will find out soon; hopefully before several economies collapse due to oil and fertilizer shortages.
*Prescott Bush was a Bonesman and very tight with Bill Paley of CBS. He MAY have plotted to overthrow FDR and was a vocal opponent of Sen. McCarthy of Wisconsin, voting for his censure. And of course, he was an early supporter of Planned Parenthood. How the Hell this guy managed to have a 'clean' reputation is mysterious, no?
In "Porgy & Bess", the musical written by the Gershwin brothers, the character "Sportin' Life" sings 'It Ain't Necessarily So'. The song is filled with dry humor about how aging affects one's .....ahhhh.......romantic ......life with the clear implication that Sportin' Life himself is still rarin' to go.
Turns out Ira Gershwin's lyric was dead-on.
Scientists revived a “zombie worm” that had been frozen for 24,000 years in one of the most forbidding environments in the world. The “zombie worm” has been frozen deep within Siberian permafrost since the Late Pleistocene, the final epoch of the Ice Age....
....This one immediately started reproducing.
They should name him Sportin' Life.
.,...or anything, but Coffee Man has this to offer:
...Three different venues, three different attackers, three different sets of local circumstances— yet in each case the gunman materialized precisely where the security architecture was thinnest, as if he’d been handed a highlight reel of the weak spots. An unsecured rooftop in Butler, a scrubby fence line along a golf course, and now a magnetometer choke point close enough to allow a 50‑yard sprint at a black‑tie dinner where the president, vice president, Cabinet, and much of Washington’s press corps were all in the same room.
You needn’t believe in a grand conspiracy to notice that the “random loner” keeps showing up exactly where the professionals left the door cracked open....
Surely Bongino will have something to say. Probably he'll talk about the SAVE Act.
Buried in the middle of an essay on England's problem with criminal gangs' grooming and sexual/trafficking & slavery are two very important grafs:
....What multiculturalism has done—specifically, what decades of managed, largely unexamined mass immigration has done—is import organized criminal networks that have expanded and entrenched the market in ways that would not otherwise have occurred. The institutional failure lies not merely in fearing being called racist, but in allowing those networks to operate in order to perpetuate the founding myth of multiculturalism: that all cultures are equally civilized.
Once that piece is recognized for what it is, the mechanism loses its mystery: migration brings communities. Communities generate trust networks. Trust networks, in any society, can be exploited by criminal elements within them—and in some cases, those criminal elements migrate alongside the communities they prey on and profit from. ...
It's not only sex trafficking. It's fraud schemes, break-and-enter networks, car-thefts, etc. That's Minneapolis. That's Los Angeles. That's Miami. That's Dearborn. That's NYC. Some of you will recognize that pattern from the '30's: The Mob (NYC, Chicago, Vegas), or its Irish equivalent in Boston.
The list will get longer, as long as The Myth of Equal Civilization endures.
Ugh.
Apparently this move is backed by the United States.
...Israeli Finance Minister and settlement official Bezalel Smotrich announced that Israel intends to expand its borders into the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria.
Speaking at the opening of a new settlement on Thursday, Smotrich said: “We always talk about the military part and then the political part, and there are those who criticise us, saying there are only military achievements without a political component.”
He added: “There will be a political component in Gaza to expand our borders, another component that will extend into Lebanon up to the Litani River at defensible boundaries, and a third component that will extend into Syria, ending at the peak of Mount Beit She’an and at least a security zone.”...
No doubt the Lebanese and Syrians wholeheartedly approved this in a referendum.
At the bottom of this post we have a graphic describing the members of the "Democrat Socialist Party".
(That's the Communist party with a nicer-sounding name. Who can resist "democracy" and 'socialism'? Well, you could begin with everyone in the Gulag.)
Moving on....
You remember that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee employs a woman who advertised that she would "help" illegal immigrants? On Archdiocesan time, of course, in Archdiocesan offices. Well, here's one of her sisters-in-"law"!! A member of the Democrat Socialist party!!
Birds of a feather!
Here's your demographics info. Who knows? These insurrectionist assholes could live next door to you and work in the same office.
Tony Evers' early-release policy....
A Milwaukee man, who was recently released from prison for shooting people over a game of dice, is now accused of killing one man and wounding another – over another game of dice....
Last time he was losing at dice....
...Court filings show Berry was convicted of multiple felonies after prosecutors said he shot several people at a dice game after losing money in 2017. Wisconsin Department of Corrections records show he was released from prison onto supervised release on Dec. 30, 2025....
Supposedly the shooting was about $40.00 in losses.
In another 10-15 years, he can try to WIN at dice again.
Well, DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM didn't happen when AlGore said it would (20 years ago), so.....
He and his pals still have "interests" in the climate-change scam, ya'know.
So DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM will happen in 25 years. Exactly. Mark it on your calendars.
Breitbart ID's the guy as a California "Teacher of the Month."
Cal Poly M.E. grad.
A nutbag with all the usual lines and lies....
...Cole Tomas Allen, signal boosted posts on the left-wing social media platform Bluesky arguing that President Donald Trump should be "immediately removed from office and tried for high crimes"...
What "high crimes"?
..."the president of the united states is personally looting the treasury to the tune of literally billions of dollars and that he is not being immediately removed from office and tried for high crimes against this country is a devastating indictment of every part of our political system," read one of the posts, which Allen shared about a week before the dinner..,..
Sure. Trump is writing checks to himself on the Treasury.
Can't you see that??
Yah. The unemployment rate in D.C. is now over 6%.
... Almost all of the $35 billion spent by USAID in 2024 went to Washington-based contractors, not to people in need overseas. Eliminating USAID has now created an unemployment problem for all of those DC-based federal contractors, NGOs and USAID employees....
From the same author:
A few years ago, I was eating breakfast in a DC hotel listening to two men talk about their schedule for the day. Their business was decorating homes for Christmas, and they were discussing their heavy workload.
As I listened quietly the men were describing premium rates for DC families who wanted their decorating services completed fastest. The average rate was $15,000 per residence for 30-day interior holiday decorating, and the rates went up from there. They were overwhelmed with business calls.
I sat there stunned doing spit-takes with my coffee while thinking, “holy cow, who has that kind of money to blow, just renting Holiday decorations?”...
Lack of Christmas in D.C. is YOUR fault, you miserable scum taxpaying untermenschen!!
This piece does a very good job of summing the Modern-Day Catholic illness.
For a long time, progressive Christians have tended to equate the faith with humanitarian illusions—with utopian sentimentality rather than a morally demanding politics of prudence rooted in right reason and natural law. Divine caritas has been displaced by a selective, highly politicized compassion, and the Christian affirmation of moral equality has transformed into a doctrinaire egalitarianism, at once naive and aggressive. Inequality per se is now treated as a grave moral fault, as if the comprehensive leveling of the social order were either possible or desirable.
An older Catholic Church’s recognition of the grave evils associated with totalitarian regimes and ideologies has largely been forgotten. Islam is described as a “religion of peace” by popes, theologians, and bishops alike, and any suggestion to the contrary is dismissed as rooted in fear or ignorance. In recent papal pronouncements, self-governing nations are treated with suspicion, while international organizations—however prone to denounce decent Western political orders and imbued with hostility to a Christian view of the human person—are assumed to be the primary vehicles of a global common good. Borders must remain open, whatever the consequences for the stability of political communities facing large-scale immigration; “migrants” are cast as the contemporary image of the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt ahead of King Herod’s henchmen. The survival of Europe’s age-old “Christian mark,” as the French Catholic political philosopher Pierre Manent has put it, no longer appears to be a vital concern of the Vatican....
FWIW, that summary defines the Progressive Heresy and, incidentally, the Masonic Heresy.
And it is operative in most US Diocesan offices, the USCC "Catholic Charities" office, and the USCC itself.
Other than that, things are just fine.
Ron Johnson is one of two Wisconsin Senators.
Ron Johnson has been investigating the CoVid Vaxx scandal for years.
Ron Johnson just made a VERY impressive presentation during a hearing with RFKjr.
You never saw this clip on Wisconsin TeeVee.
Maybe Ron Johnson, Wisconsin native, Wisconsin Senator, subject-matter expert, is not interesting?
Or maybe Wisconsin TeeVee doesn't like what he shows.....
You didn't see this one, either.
Maybe Wisconsin TeeVee producers don't know who Ron Johnson is????
The Feds LOVE to spy on you.
Speaker Comrade Johnson introduced the "new" S.702, claiming it had "protections" so that Feds cannot spy on you--as happened thousands of times over the last 20 years or so.
The Old 702 did not require a warrant.
The NEW 702 does not require a warrant.
See? Speaker Comrade Johnson says they are different. It should be obvious to you, peasant.
But just in case they are NOT different,.....
...Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is sold as a tool to spy on foreign terrorists. What surveillance hawks leave out is that when a foreign target — who can be virtually anyone — communicates with an American, those messages get swept into the database too. No warrant. No notice. And then the CIA, NSA, and FBI search through those private communications using Americans’ names, emails, and other identifiers — and no warrant is required for that either.
These “queries” for Americans’ information is what we call “backdoor searches,” and it is central to the raging fight over whether to reauthorize FISA. A federal court called it unconstitutional. The searches keep happening anyway.
Now add artificial intelligence to that picture. The government can now train AI on information about your constitutionally protected activity, from what you buy to what websites you visit to where you sleep at night, all based on information purchased from data brokers without any court or law authorizing agencies to do so. The Cato Institute has documented how AI tools are being used to generate the legal justifications for initiating surveillance in the first place — the government is using algorithms to write its own permission slips....
But Speaker Comrade Johnson says "No Worries!! Be Happy!!"
We have something to say to Speaker Comrade Johnson.....
THE NEED FOR CONTROL IS A REACTION OF FEAR.
As usual, TDS-afflicted "judges" are usually wrong. This one, however, is unique. He did not (yet) get reversed--that will take a while.
But he managed to shut down the entire vaccine industry (!)
When Judge Jackass Murphy determined that the Trump/Kennedy board of review for vaccines was illegal--or sumpin'sumpin'--he also:
....accidentally created a Big Problem for Big Pharma. “The ruling leaves the CDC without a functioning advisory body to recommend new vaccines or updated uses of existing ones,” Reuters explained. It quoted —who else?— the CDC’s former Satanist Demetre Daskalakis, who complained, “It’s just uncharted territory.”...
Here comes the twist, the “uncharted territory.”
...Flu/Covid season is rushing toward us like an out-of-control cash train. Very soon now, all annual vaccine updates will need CDC approval and guidance for doctors and insurers. For instance, every year, both covid and flu vaccines have ‘updated’ annual formulations that must be green-lighted by the CDC, which in turn relies on recommendations from the ACIP.
Without the committee’s recommendations, the CDC can’t approve the updated jabs. Nor, without a functioning ACIP, can it approve any other new vaccines. Checkmate.
This is the most bureaucratic kind of chaos, which makes it even more entertaining than it sounds. Judge Murphy’s vaccine-panel war has left the CDC without a functioning advisory body. Unless something changes quickly, the fall vaccination season could arrive without approvals for annual flu and covid boosters, leaving those jabs and any new vaccines in limbo, with insurance coverage questions sliding around like loose scalpels in the back of a speeding ambulance.
This is exactly what happens when judges try to micromanage health agencies. Your move, Judge Murphy. What will you do now? Start reviewing vaccines in court?...
Whoops!! Whoopsie!!
Nah, You never heard of that town. Even if you live in SE Wisconsin, you probably never heard of it.
But the Town of Linn apparently had a VERY serious problem with marauding gangs of criminals wearing body armor and driving armored Suburbans, and stuff like that.
So the Chief of Police of the Town of Linn (pop. 2,700 or so) took action.
He ordered FOUR HUNDRED EIGHTY-NINE THOUSAND ROUNDS of 7.62x54 APHE ammo.
Pro Tip: Do NOT plan an assault on the Town of Linn.
The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District (MMSD)--an outfit created by Democrats and run accordingly--has an announcement about flooding in Milwaukee!!
...MMSD hopes to prevent some of that flooding by converting Jackson Park into a flood management basin. It’s one of four basin projects the district is fast-tracking after last August’s historic flooding....
...The basins will be built in Jackson Park, north of 35th and Capitol, in Wilson Park, and near Alro Steel at Sixth and Bolivar.
What they're saying:
"Once these four projects are built, they'll add about 200 million gallons of storage into the waterways, so you'll be able to store water in parks or in open areas, and not put water in people's basements," Shafer said.
Those projects are slated for completion between 2029 and 2033 and are part of $900 million in future flood control work planned over the next 10 to 15 years....
What are they NOT saying? Glad you asked!!
"Whoops!! Whoopsie!! The calculations we made for floods and flood-controls were compromised by politicians who didn't have the courage to tell tax-payers what it would really cost. So we are now adding ONE BILLION MORE DOLLARS to the overall total cost of the project and hoping that you won't notice. Please send your poison-pen letters to Henry Maier and John Norquist. Sincerely, MMSD"
Democrats run on "environmental" issues. They spend enormous amounts of money to "fix stuff," but the enormous amounts are never enough because the Democrats lie, and lie, and lie to cover their incompetence and Pie-in-the-Sky promises.
Oh--by the way--the entire City of Brookfield will be contributing to this despite the fact that the western half of that City is in the Mississippi River watershed. Thank you, Katie Bloomberg!!!
Good legislation. Note well: ZERO Democrat support and very, very thin Republican support. (That's how you know it's a good proposal.)
A bill that would pause the issuance of H-1B visas for three years to reform the program for when it resumes has been introduced by Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) and co-sponsored by a half dozen other House Republicans....
The proposal is a comprehensive "Americans First" bill:
...The cap on visas issued would be reduced from 65,000 to 25,000, the existing exemptions to the cap would be eliminated, and the allowance of two three-year visa terms would be reduced to just one. Applicants would be required to have a foreign residence to which they intend to return when their terms are up, instead of continuing to live in the U.S.
Employers would also be faced with stricter guidelines, with companies seeking to import H-1B visaholders being required to attest that they are unable to find a qualified American worker for that position, that bringing in a foreigner would not adversely affect American workers, and that they have not laid off workers in the previous year and will not lay any off in the following year. Employers would also have to pay the H-1B at least $200,000 per year.
If the bill passes, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) would be required to distribute H-1B visas according to the highest wages offered as opposed to a lottery system.
H-1B workers would also be barred from being employed by more than one company at a time. Third-party employers, or staffing agencies, would be barred from employing them. ...
The H-1B scams and frauds run by such as Microsoft, Adobe, Deluxe Data, Kohl's, and the staffing firms cancers such as CapGemini have doomed US citizens who 'did everything right' to slop-jobs. There is no question that H-1B abuse is rampant and--frankly--anti-American.
This bill will not pass, but it is a model for pro-US citizen legislation.
Last Refuge puts it in pixels.
...For years we have suspected that financing for civic unrest and racist endeavors was coming from the far-left, today’s indictment proves that very point. Democrats fuel chaos and finance the organizations they label as Facist or racist. Democrats funding the Unite the Right chaos in Charlottesville, then Democrats construct a false narrative about Unite the Right supporting republicans. Antifa, Occupy Wall Street, Anarchists, Black Lives Matter, Dream Defenders, etc. etc.
The DOJ indictment identifies the SPLC as one organization doing this: but really, it’s an entire network. Keep digging into this issue, specifically this type of approach, and we will likely find the financial mechanism of most toxic American division – Democrats....
Remember that political chaos inevitably leads to dictatorship.
Do you understand yet???
The "Ace" of Ace of Spades blog is giving up on the war in Iran. He has been supportive, but not nutso-fanatical like Liiiiiiiiiiiiindseeeeeeeeeeeeey!! or Tel Aviv Levin or Jerusalem Benny.
Ace is giving up mostly because Trump can read the room.
...Trump just doesn't have the Bush-like indifference to public opinion and sheer bullheadedness about continuing an unpopular war. Iran believes that if they just refuse to concede, Trump will eventually be forced, by public pressure, to just declare a (false) victory and go home. Just making more and more extravagant threats isn't changing Iran's posture.
I don't know where this goes from here. I think Trump can afford to just wait Iran out with a long and crippling blockade, but I don't know that Trump feels like he has enough public support for several months of low-intensity warfare.
I've feared from the start that there is just no way to truly win a war without some ground component -- you have to literally blow their heads off and hang them from street-lamps -- and without an armed civilian overthrow, I'm thinking this war ends in a stalemate. Lots of damage inflicted on the mullocracy -- but the mullahs left in place to rebuild....
Yes, Bush was truly a dummy.
We mentioned that the most serious problem in this country is the "Progressive" problem--one certainly tied to the Democrat Party, but not just that bunch. It is a Republican 'virtue' as well. See, e.g., Trump's embrace of gay "marriage" among other deviations. In the end, "progressives" deny the truth of human nature.
So what do Pennsylvania's Republicans do about the impossibility of "transitioning"?
Affirm it!
... Lisa Baker is a Pennsylvania State Senator. Several years ago, she championed the introduction of a software program called Kooth into Pennsylvania schools. Kooth is an online “mental health platform” which claims that it is focused on the well-being of children. It is anything but. It is a platform for injecting radical transgender ideology straight into your kid’s mind.
Baker is now being challenged by Tyler Meyers, a veteran and staunch conservative. Meyers has made Baker’s support for Kooth and the fact that her son was working as a lobbyist for the company when she pushed its products on Pennsylvanians a major issue in his campaign. He has called out her support for transgender ideology as being incompatible with the values of GOP voters....
So, the Pennsylvania GOP has done the only thing possible – It has intervened in the primary to support Baker and her record against Meyers and his advocacy of traditional values....
See?? PROGRESS!!!!
Credit to the reporter here for asking the right question.
A bunch of Democrat Leggies announced that they will give (nearly)-free EVERYTHING to EVERYONE if they get majorities in the State Legislature and grab the Governor's chair.
The usual laundry list: prescription drugs, child care, energy, food, housing, yadayadayada.
Then the fun started!
... When asked how much all this would cost, they didn’t have an answer,...
Of course not. That's because they don't give a flying damn about "cost." Beyond that, they cannot and will not get their Camelot Plan enacted. They promise you everything, then.....you know, like, disappear into their hidey-holes.
In the Good Old Days of the mid- '70's, a "very generous" benefit plan cost about 33% of payroll dollars. IOW, for every dollar one was paid, another 33 cents were paid by the employer in benefit costs: the Social Security tax, health insurance, pension, unemployment comp, disability, etc., etc. Those numbers were common with Miller Brewing, Allis-Chalmers, Rex Chainbelt--the "big players" in Milwaukee's industrial landscape.
But by 2010 or so, a "very generous" benefit plan's cost was around 25% (or less) of payroll dollars. Pensions disappeared in favor of 401(k)s, health insurance was reduced, and some other trimming was done.
But not in the Milwaukee Public Schools!!!
So now, Da Yooonion is looking for Moar Money and an argument ensued:
... MPS estimates payroll tax and benefit costs would be 53%. In a statement, district officials said, "MPS’s 53% benefit rate is correct and validated by external audits. Both the rate and our proposals have been validated by our team as well as veteran school finance expert who has worked for some of the nation’s largest school districts."...
Da Yoonion says the cost is only 17%. My guess is that Da Yoonion is lying--but even if you split the difference, bennie cost comes out to 35%.
Remember how Act 10 was supposed to help the taxpayer with public-employee expense?
In Milwaukee, the school system did not change one. damn. thing. in its benefit plan. Remember this: whatever Da Yooonion got for its employees was also paid to Administration members; so everybody is happy!
Unless you're footing the bill.
Why do WE care about the F.I.B.'s war on carbon-fueled electricity?
Because in about five years, Illinois will be sucking electricity out of Wisconsin.
...New York state’s tax policy is exiling millionaires to Florida. California’s craziness is banishing billionaires.
But Illinois has them beat with its climate change laws that are forcing two-thirds of an electric plant in Elwood to take the advice of Suzy Bogguss and drive South with the one they love.
Reddy Kilowatt packed its power plant and headed for Texas, which welcomes gas-powered electric plants. The company that owns two-thirds of that plant is hauling away the equipment that will generate 900 megawatts of power for Texans....
Estimates are that in five years, Illinois will be in need of that 900 MW. Since a Chicago utility owns Wisconsin Electric, and since WE is part of MISO, which directs electricity to places in need.....
Oh, well. There is some good news here.
Dairyland Power of LaCrosse bought the remaining one-third of the generating capacity of the plant. But they will sell the power only to DOWNSTATE Illinois. So it won't go to Chicago.
BTW, do you share our suspicion that the town in question was named for one of the Blues Brothers??
The Republicans ginned up a new Wisconsin law which Evers signed.
Here's an example of "anti-Semitism" from the guidepost cited:
Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish
collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country
cannot be regarded as antisemitic.
Oh. So one may criticize the State of Israel, but ONLY IF one also criticizes any other country for 'similar' offenses.
The main guideline?
" Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews."
How bad is this thing?
... Opponents of the measure argued that some of the examples used by the IHRA in support of the definition conflated political criticism of Israeli government actions with antisemitism — exposing people to being accused of antisemitism, or possibly facing criminal penalties, for criticizing Israel’s response to the Palestinian population or advocating on their behalf....
However, Rep Tusler (R) inserted a provision protecting free speech (and thought) for anyone on a college campus.
He recognized the First Amendment for college profs and students!!! This is to be praised. Right? Right???
Own a home in Milwaukee? Think about selling. Fast.
... [Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent] Cassellius said asking voters to approve a new referendum is not out of the question.
"I've not ruled that out," she said. "I've tried to be really honest with the public. I have said that I do think there's a point where we need to come to the public for referendum. ...
And the buildings!! They are ANCIENT!!!
...I think there's also a point to have a conversation with the public around our buildings. The age of our buildings is 85 years old. They are really getting at the lifespan of their use."...
Marquette High School's main building is 100 years old this year.
And the kids can read, write, and do sums.
Stuff here worth knowing. You won't get this from Fox News nor the White House.
...America’s troubled relationship with the Iranian people dates not from the 1979 U.S. embassy hostage crisis but from 1953, when the United States and Britain clandestinely overthrew the country’s fledgling democracy and instituted the brutal dictatorship of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the country’s latest (and, as it would turn out, last) foreign puppet-ruler....
That was a British-inspired move; the Brits wanted the petroleum and promised to share it with the US. By the way, the Little-Boy-Pahlavi running around claiming that he can move right in and take over ruling Iran? Not likely at all.
The democracy that the US overthrew (thanks, Allen Dulles!) was actually favored by the Shi'a Muslim clerisy.
... Shia Islam had been adopted by Iran in the 16th century as a form of resistance against the perceived tyranny of the Ottoman empire, whose caliphs claimed the right to rule the whole Muslim world as the successors of Muhammad and sought to encroach on Iranian sovereignty....
... the 18th-century American British colonists were fascinated by Iran’s Shia resistance to the Ottoman empire and saw it as a fulfillment of Persia’s long tradition of civilized refinement and benign rule stretching back to Cyrus the Great. In fact, colonial Americans developed a sort of love affair and even obsession with Iran in the early 18th century....
It's American, ya'know, to become a formal ally of dictators--so long as they dictate in a US direction. So Turkey is a member of NATO, and the Shi'a are now The Enemy.
Hard to keep up, ain'a--unless you own shares of British Petroleum (BP--the "green" gas stations.)
Unfortunately for the first Pahlavi dictator, he got palsy with one A. Hitler. So the Brits and Russkies got rid of him and installed his son as the Shiny New Shah--and the Brits took the petroleum in exchange.
... However, the new shah faced strongly democratic forces in Iran that were backed by much of the Shia clergy, who were seeking the country’s independence from foreign economic and political control. By 1951, the parliament had forced the shah to accept the strongly reformist Mohammad Mosaddegh as the country’s prime minister. Mosaddegh immediately began to curtail the power of the shah and to nationalize the country’s oil industry....
Can't have THAT!! So MI6 and CIA saw to the elimination of Masaddegh, leaving Pahlavi solely in charge.
Then comes a twist that will shock most Americans (it did that to me, too.)
...The United States and the State of Israel began to work with the shah to ensure that nothing would threaten his rule in the future. With the help of the CIA and Israel’s Mossad, Mohammad Reza established SAVAK, a secret police force that would arrest political dissidents and systematically torture them in hidden prisons. Thousands of Iranians suffered this fate, including intellectuals who had been able to freely publish and speak only a few years earlier....
In return.......
... The shah abolished all political parties in the parliament, restricting who could run and permitting only a single, pro-shah party that acted as a rubber stamp and a defender of his absolute rule. He dutifully invited the United States to send its major oil companies, including Exxon, Mobil, and Texaco, to manage the country’s oil resources and take 50 percent of the profits along with British Petroleum....
Fifty percent? That's the classic "Beyond the Dreams of Avarice."
... By the late 1960s, the shah was so isolated from his people and drunk on power that he scheduled a coronation ceremony to have himself crowned as “Emperor” (literally, “King of Kings”) of Iran, a vanity title from Iran’s ancient past that only had meaning in the narcissistic dream world in which he was living...
The Greeks had a word for that.
The Iranian hoi polloi became restive and the clergy helped move that along, as "progressive" US values pushed by such as Planned Parenthood showed up on scene.
... In 1978, protesters began to hit the streets, encouraged by the Ayatollah Khomeini still in exile, and they were consequently joined by the nation’s Shia clergy and clerical students. The shah’s U.S.-backed military began to massacre street protesters, but each wave of killings brought even more protesters into the streets month after month. Graffiti written on the walls read, “Death to America’s Shah.”...
Jimmuh Cartuh now proved beyond a doubt that he was dumber than GWBush:
...The turning point came in late 1978, when Jimmy Carter made a personal phone call to the shah—after a particularly bloody massacre that used helicopter gunships against protesters—in which Carter “reaffirmed the close and friendly relationship between Iran and the United States,” as the White House summarized the call.
The United States had clearly thrown the Iranian dissidents under the bus. The population became more enraged and protests continued to grow. Finally, the shah fled the country, and in February of 1979 the Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile in a plane filled with Western journalists, now received by colossal mobs of literally millions of joyful supporters, and by almost the whole range of political opinion, as the de facto leader of the Iranian Revolution....
Cahtuh's stupidity ensured that the Iranians would keep the hostages until he left power in the US. Maybe you believe the fable that the Ayatollah feared Reagan? Actually, the Ayatollah was working as hard as he could to FREE the hostages. He had morals, unlike certain current US and Israeli leaders.
... Iran soon began to ally itself with other countries and causes linked to anti-colonialism in the Middle East and worldwide, especially with fellow Shias. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and committed a massacre against thousands of Palestinian refugees at Sabra and Shatila under the protection of U.S. Marine “peacekeepers,” Iran began to aid Shia Muslim organizations in the area that eventually came together to form Hezbollah (the “Party of God”), a political party and militia created to resist the Israeli occupation....
But Netanyahu tells you that Hezbollah does that massacre thing. Yah, well, they were taught the technique by Israel.
...When American corporations tried to break the ice and begin doing business with Iran again in the mid-’90s, neoconservative pundits, AIPAC lobbyists, and the State of Israel went to work to shut them down....
... a multi-billion-dollar oil drilling deal with Conoco was nixed by Bill Clinton via a seeping executive order in 1995, which prohibited virtually all commerce, either direct or indirect, with Iran....
So Iran began to develop nuclear power plants. That technology was given to them by none other than the good old USA.
Why are the Houthis so nasty?
...When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Iran gave arms to Shia militias there to help them run the United States out of the country. Meanwhile, the United States and Israel funded the Sunni-aligned terrorists affiliated with Al Qaeda and ISIS, enabling them to wreak chaos in Syria and to finally install an Israel-friendly, Sunni regime. The United States also continued to support Israel in its own terrorist policies against the Palestinians and other Arab countries in the region. In turn, the Iranians built up Hezbollah to a massive fighting force and made an alliance with the Houthis in Yemen, while also supporting the Palestinian Sunni Muslim party Hamas, in Gaza....
Now Trump has both feet planted in the quicksand in a monumental case of FAFO for the US.
Israel it holding our coat. How very sportsmanlike of them!
.
It is useful to know that the Wall Street Journal is a Globaloney Outfit par excellence. Odd that Murdoch owns it AND owns the home of Hannity, but there you have it.
... The WSJ has an article out that highlights the truth that Trump largely winged his war, with no real plan, against advice, and under the direction of Netanyahu. He recognized he had failed early on, but now—as predicated by Professor Pape’s doctrine of the “escalation trap”—sees no other option that to … double down....
In another venue, Robert Barnes and Larry Johnson discuss whether or not Trump has gone off his rocker. Seriously. That's what Barnes proposes.
Barnes has always tended to be a bit buffoonish (U of Wisconsin Law grad) and desperately wants to be regarded as a "neutral" guy. He mentions that he voted for Trump three times. But he does love him some clicks.
Barnes also states--flatly--that JDVance will NOT run for President in '28. Is this a double-secret reverse-pin vomited out to hype the campaign of Rubio? Maybe. Barnes observes that Rubio is doing a disappearing act vis-a-vis the Iran negotiations.
UPDATE: That was then. This is now--and much more in accord with the Israeli/Hannity/Globaloney Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran WSJ of the Good Old Days:
... the Journal is suddenly in lockstep with the President. On Air Force One last night, President Trump said he might not extend the ceasefire with Iran if no deal is reached by Wednesday, and that he may “have to start dropping bombs again.”...
If Trump is truly "plan-less" or worse, mad as a hatter, why does the WSJ want him at the bomb-switch?
Egads.
Well, he's no longer a patsy.
...Prosecutors revealed the campus cameras captured Tyler Robinson going to the snipers perch, taking the shot at Charlie Kirk, and then running away into a wooded area....
Shoulda known that his "trans" stuff had meaning.
