The March Through The Institutions Is Complete

From the Federalist: "Fired Insubordinate Officers Reveal Massive U.S. Military Resentment Against Elected Civilian Command." From the article:

    There is a cancer in America’s military ranks, and it must be expunged before it’s too late. That cancer lies in uniformed service members’ widespread rejection of the uniquely American concept of civilian control of the military and disregard for the absolute necessity that America’s military officers remain apolitical in the face of the constitutional will of the electorate.

    Recent events reveal this cancer, and they include the relief for cause of Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield after she reportedly refused to hang photos of President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on her headquarters’ customary “Chain of Command” board and reportedly told her subordinates in a town hall that she would “wait [the Trump administration] out” the next four years. They also include the relief for cause of Col. Sussanah Meyers, commander of the U.S. Space Force’s base in Greenland, after she openly questioned (to all of her subordinates via email) Vice President J.D. Vance’s official pronouncements regarding the United States, Greenland, and Denmark.

    Since Trump’s inauguration, numerous other senior generals and admirals have been relieved by President Trump for various publicly unspecified reasons, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown; Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti; Adm. Linda Lee Fagan, the commandant of the Coast Guard; and Air Force Gen. Timothy D. Haugh, director of the National Security Agency and commander of U.S. Cyber Command. Each of these four-star firings is publicly shrouded in a certain degree of mystery, but rumors abound that so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) played a part in one way or another.

The author relates:

Since Trump’s inauguration, I have been flooded with reports of insubordination in the ranks toward Trump and Hegseth. Those reports range from fairly senior officers in the Pentagon showing open disrespect around the E-Ring coffee maker, all the way down to junior enlisted disrespecting their president and secretary of defense in the ship’s galley or the chow hall.

And:

I have heard from some anti-Trump officers that it is acceptable for them to challenge Trump and be “disloyal” to him on political matters because while the enlisted oath of office includes the phrase “that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States,” no such words regarding the president appear in the officer oath of office. This idea is highly disturbing. 

And, he warns:

The trends we are seeing feel dangerously close to an embrace of 1970s South American-style military juntas. Think about Gen. Mark Milley telling China he would warn them about U.S. military activity. Think about Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman using his position on the National Security Council as a springboard for impeaching a president because he did not like the way that president was lawfully discharging his duties. These are not the marks of healthy civilian control of the military. They are instead marks of a military approaching the rationalization of a coup.

    I can't remember the source, but years ago I came across a quip that the military could never plan a coup because there wasn't enough computing power on the planet to run all the Power Point presentations that would be needed. But that is just someone whistling past the graveyard. It seems apparent, according to other comments in the article, that the author believes that Marxist ideology, in the form of DEI, has become a core value of the military; and thus, the author suggests, "when Donald Trump seeks to exercise his constitutional powers to purge a purely political doctrine, the generals and admirals mistakenly see this as an effort to purge a fundamental, essential, and apolitical military ethos. This gives them license to feel justified in 'resisting' the lawful orders of their commander-in-chief and engaging in insubordination as they falsely imagine they are protecting a core competency of our nation’s defense."

    I'm more cynical, and would suggest that is is not just DEI they are defending, but threats to the largess and mutual backscratching we see between industry, finance, and the military--what Eisenhower termed the industrial-military complex. What will they do when DOGE turns its eyes on the Defense Department?

CIA To Go After Drug Cartels?

From Breitbart: "CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis: CIA to Create a ‘Finely Tuned Machine’ to Destroy the Cartels." The CIA has long been in bed with drug traffickers, smugglers, and other criminal organizations. It is an unfortunate aspect of both police and intelligence work that police and spies sometimes have to work with or obtain assistance from criminals, crime organizations and sleazy politicians (both here and abroad). But there have long been conspiracy theories that the CIA has been complicit in the drug trade as a means of funding stretching back as far as Vietnam. There are even a couple Wikipedia articles on the topic:

• "CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking"
• "CIA drug trafficking allegations"

Thus, it will be interesting to see how effective is the CIA at destroying the cartels and reducing the importation of drugs into the United States. Perhaps it will be different this time around because the cartels have aligned with China.

UVB-76 Waking Up?

UVB-76, variously called "MDZhB", "The Buzzer", and has been coined "the Doomsday Radio Station" in the media, is a military shortwave radio state that began operating in 1976 and broadcasts in Upper Side Band mode on the frequency of 4625 kHz (wavelength of 64.8 m). Per the Wikipedia article on it, "[i]t broadcasts a short, monotonous buzz tone, repeating at a rate of approximately 25 tones per minute, 24 hours per day," or "sometimes cartoon character Yosemite Sam saying 'Varmint, I'm a-gonna b-b-b-bloooow ya ta'smithereenies'." But as the article goes on to explain, starting in 1997, the buzzing signal would sometimes be interrupted by a voice transmission in Russian. There are three main formats of the voice transmissions, although there have been a few exceptions, believed to have been inadvertent transmissions or someone hijacking the frequency. 

    Two common theories for the station are that it is used to transmit messages to spies; or that it is a "deadhand" station intended to trigger a Soviet/Russian military response should it go dead. Per the Wikipedia article, however, the first is unlikely because of the low power of the transmission which limits its range and the voice broadcasts are at irregular times; and the second is unlikely because the station has gone off the air several times (for instance, the station suddenly went radio silent for 24 hours on June 5, 2010).

    Another theory is that the Russian military is broadcasting on the frequency to preserve its use: that by broadcasting continuously, they prevent someone else from "poaching" the frequency. The source of the signal had allegedly been narrowed down to a location near Povarovo, Russia, about halfway between Zelenograd and Solnechnogorsk - 6.2 miles northwest of Moscow, but then was apparently moved in September 2010. "The station then popped up near the city of Saint Petersburg and the village of Kerro Massiv - possibly the result of widespread reorganization of the Russian military seen that year," reports the Daily Mail, adding that "[a]s of writing [October 2024], The Buzzer now appears to be broadcast solely from the 69th Communication Hub in Moscow, possibly due to more reorganization efforts for the particular area, in the Moscow Military District."

• More: "Dead Hand Or Something Else? A Possible Explanation For Strange Numbers Station UVB-76"--IFL Science. 

    However, the station appears to have become more active recently. On March 4, 2025, EurAsia Daily (a Russian news site) reported that the station had become sharply more active in February:

    The so-called "Doomsday Radio Station" UVB-76 became sharply more active in February 2025. This is evidenced by the logs of the ether, which are maintained in the Telegram channel "UVB-76 logs".

    During the month, the station aired 46 times. A record number of 25 messages were sent to UVB—76 on February 12. Then the words "coarsening", "child", "suckling", "buinaksk", "optoshum", "offspring", "sortostage", "yeletsobazaz", "shtatognom", "menrosharzh", "commissar", "zhadyuga", "long", "khrushchoplob" were transmitted. On this day, the Presidents of the United States and Russian President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation.

    The last messages were heard on March 3. The words "iotolast" and "runic" got on the air.

The article cited unnamed experts who warned against panic and assured that "UVB-76 is in no way connected with the Russian nuclear deterrent forces."

    And, earlier today, the British paper, The Express, reported that "Russia's doomsday radio wakes up and sends four eerie cryptic messages." From the article:

    ... On Tuesday, the station signalled four words, according to Telegram channel UVB-76 logs. These were: Neptune, Thymus, Foxcloak, and Nootabu.

    The channel, which constantly logs the station’s activity, said the radio buzzed the eerie messages within 24 hours, which is highly unusual. Speculation over the meaning behind the signals include codes for secret military operations, yet its purpose remains a mystery. ...

The article adds:

In February, UVB-76 released a staggering 25 messages within 24 hours, according to Russian state media, which include: Synopsis, Boulevard, Coarsening, B*******, Optoshum, Elecbase, Shtatognome Commissar and Volkokran.

Japan's Population Continues to Decline

The Daily Wire reports that Japan's birth rates have hit a new record low despite a $25 billion program to encourage women to have children. Per the article:

    Japan’s population plummeted for the 14th year in a row in 2024, declining by nearly 900,000 people despite massive government spending aimed at encouraging childbirth.

    New data released on Monday by Japan’s Internal Affairs Ministry shows the number of Japanese nationals declining by 898,000, marking the steepest annual decline since authorities began keeping records in the 1950s.

The article also notes:

The country’s fertility rate in 2023 stood at just 1.2 expected births per woman over her lifetime, far below the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population, reflected in Japan’s child population declining to a record-low 11.2% of the population, 13.8 million, after a decline of 343,000 last year. 

Buy why aren't the Japanese having children? "Surveys show many younger Japanese are reluctant to marry or have families, discouraged by bleak job prospects, rising living costs outpacing salary growth, and corporate cultures incompatible with dual-income parenting." And:

Ryuichi Kaneko, demographer and professor at Meiji University, told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper: “I believe one of the reasons Japan’s declining birthrate has become especially severe is that, in the postwar period, the country built a society that prioritized economic activity to an extreme degree.”

I've noted before that the only populations in developed countries (and even many "third world" countries) that have fertility rates above replacement levels are those that are highly religious. Not just "kinda religious" but with high levels of religiosity. It may be a matter of hope in the future, feelings of duty, or just faith in a higher power, but whatever it is, religiosity is the key. And, in this regard, I would note that unadulterated capitalism does not care about God or religion anymore than does communism. What we need is a religious revival in the West. 

    But this is where the Devil is in the details, for what better way to ensnare men than for the Devil to drive us into a misery so great that people will beg for anyone to save them, even if it turns out to be the Anti-Christ. 

VIDEO: "Money Power is Destroying Everything"
Richard The Fourth (9 min.)

Gun & Prepping News #28

 Some items that have caught my attention:

• First up, if you haven't done so already, be sure to check out Greg Ellifritz's Weekend Knowledge Dump from last Friday, April 11 for some more firearm and prepping related articles.
• "The RXM Versus the Glock Gen 3 – Who is the Most Glock?"--Guns America.  A hands on comparison between the new Ruger RXM and a Glock 19 Gen 3. Because the older Glock did not have a slide cut for mounting an optic, the author just compared the two using the standard iron sights each shipped with. Some highlights: the RXM uses a chassis system, so you can get different grip modules; the RXM has better factory sights (including a tritium night sight on the front sight blade); the RXM has slightly better ergonomics because the grip is slightly thinner than the Gen 3 Glock; while the magazine release is basically the same, the author indicates that sculpting of the grip made reloads quicker with the RXM. 
• Back to basics: "How to Clean Your AR-15: A Complete Guide"--The Firearm Blog. Tips, tricks, and recommended tools and supplies, as well as detailed step-by-step instructions. 
• "How To Wield the Shockwave Effectively"--Guns America. Advice on how to effectively run the Mossberg Shockwave firearm and the similar Remington Tac-14. The author also discusses the pros and cons of these type of firearms. 
• "Savage Revel – A New Lever-Action 22"--Guns America. The rifle comes in .22 LR, .22 WMR, and .17 HMR, but the model reviewed is .22 LR. This also appears to be the basic "Classic" model, and Savage also has a higher grade model (the DLX) which comes with a slightly fancier stock and threaded barrel. The two primary items that stick out about this rifle is that it can easily be broken down for cleaning, maintenance, or transportation by removing two pins; and the low price relative to many other .22 lever actions out there. The MSRP for the classic is $439 which means it may be available from dealers for less than $400.
  
• "Ruger American Generation II Ranch Rifle in .350 Legend"--The Truth About Guns. Although the .350 Legend was designed for hunting in states that require using straight wall cartridges, the author thought it would do well in the forests of Pennsylvania. The article reviews both the Ruger American Gen II Ranch Rifle and the author's experience shooting it with the .350 Legend. 
• "Franklin Armory’s Reformation Returns"--The Firearm Blog. The Reformation was a firearm that was manufactured with straight grooves in the barrel in order for it to qualify as merely a "firearm" and, thereby, get around the restrictions on SBRs but without being classified as a shotgun. Because it doesn't have true, curved rifling, it is intended only as a short range weapon. But, as the article reports, "[i]n 2019, however, the ATF classified the Reformation as a GCA-only regulated short-barrel shotgun - last month this was overturned." Consequently, "7.5-inch and 11.5-inch barrel length versions of Reformation are now available for purchase through Franklin Armory’s dealer network in the vast majority of US states." Models are available with or without Franklin Armory's binary trigger, and the weapon is available in 5.56 or .300 BLK.
  
• Some firearm history: "The International Harvester M1 Garand: A New Rifle For The Nuclear Age"--American Rifleman. When the Korean War broke out, the U.S. found itself having to once again manufacture M-1 Garand rifles. Because of the risk of a single nuclear strike wiping out most of the highly concentrated firearms manufacturing base, the Army opted to award one of the contracts to a company hundreds of miles away from the New England firms, which is how a farm equipment manufacturer, International Harvester, wound up with a contract. The article goes on to describe some of the obstacles that International Harvester had to overcome, as well as differences between the WWII and Korean War rifles.
• And more firearm history: "The 'M1917 Carbine'"--American Rifleman. Most of you probably know that when the U.S. entered World War I, the U.S. Springfield Armory couldn't produce enough of the M1903 Springfield rifles as it needed and so turned to Remington (which was already producing rifles for the British military) to rechamber that rifle in .30-06 for use by American forces, thus giving birth to the M1917 "Enfield" rifle. After the war, there were large numbers of the M1917 rifles left over. As the article describes, a large number of these rifles were supplied to China after the outbreak of World War II. But because the rifle was large and cumbersome, a number of the M1917 were cut down--shorter barrels and butt stocks--to make them easier to handle for the smaller Chinese troops. 
• "Kydex Vs Leather Holsters: Which Is Best For You?"--The Firearm Blog.  The author discusses the pros and cons of kydex and leather holsters, and also looks at various hybrid models available. Having carried daily for decades, I much prefer the leather holsters for comfort. However, I still use both--it depends on the use and the firearm. For instance, I have a snub-nosed revolver with a shrouded hammer, which doesn't work well with a thumb-break strap. Thus, I tend to use it with a Kydex/polymer holster if carrying it outside the waistband.  
• "Concealed Carry Corner: Why Less Really Is More"--The Firearm Blog. The article covers several topics, but the first and foremost is a large gun versus a small gun:

When it comes to carrying a concealed firearm, size and weight are two of the biggest factors to being able to carry it comfortably all day long. Sure, you can carry just about anything for one full day, but by the end of the day, you may have hot spots so bad you can’t comfortably carry next day. Various upgrades like a better belt and properly fitting pants can help tremendously, but these items don’t automatically make carrying a larger gun easier. No matter what tricks or upgrades you use, there’s no overcoming just how heavy some guns can be, especially on hot summer days when your skin may be more irritated. 

• Oops: "Chicago Buyback Blunder: Glock Turned In, Ends Up In Teen’s Hands"--Guns America. A Glock pistol turned into police at a gun buyback event "somehow disappeared inside the precinct and magically resurfaced a year later—in the hands of a 16-year-old fleeing a crime scene." 
  
• "The Cheapskate Contrarian’s Guide to Prepping – Learn to Wear Long Sleeves All Year"--Jerking the Trigger. Why you should learn to wear long sleeve shirts year long, including to replace having to use sunscreen (and how much of that do you have in your prepping supplies, anyway). The author notes that thrift stores have plenty of long sleeve shirts for cheap. He also likes the hooded sun shirts.
• "The Disaster Laptop Computer" (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) -- Survival Blog. Part 1 goes into the basic computer system. The author opted for a Nimo N171 I3-1215U computer with the Windows operating system because it could run the software he needed, and it used a USB-C charging system, meaning that it could be charged off a power bank (whereas most older laptops would need a 110 V power supply to charge). It also discusses other hardware, the set-up (including the apps he removed), and a general list of software he intended to load.

    In Part 2, the author goes into more detail on specific software including "unzipping" compressed files, for radio programming, document reading, calendaring and task management, and creating diagrams.

    In Part 3, the author goes over books and videos to download as reference sources, as well as sources to obtain these items. 

•  "Different Fishing Setups You Should Know About"--SHTF Preparedness. These are three basic setups for fishing lakes and ponds: (i) a setup for cast and retrieving; (ii) another for fishing off the bottom; and (iii) suspended bobber and bait fishing.
• "Apartment Safety Upgrades to Consider in 2025"--Apartment Prepper.  Some basic things you can do (and probably without upsetting a landlord) to make your doors and windows more secure, improve lighting, and some other tips. My wife and lived in apartments and rentals for the first 6 or 7 years we were married and a few of the basic things we did were: (a) in one apartment, we needed to install longer screws into the hinges of a patio door; (b) we picked up some simple stick up door alarms that would set off a chime or alarm when a door was open; (c) we picked up a brace designed to fit under a door handle to better secure the main entry; and (d) picked up a brace designed to better secure a sliding patio door.
• "How to Start an Edible Garden for Preppers"--Modern Survival Online. A lot of good tips, so check it out.
  

When Feminism Hurts Women

From the Daily Mail: 

    The first black woman to go to space scolded a CBS News anchor live on TV after he used the term 'mankind' during a discussion of the historic all-female Blue Origin space flight.

    Dr Mae Jemison corrected CBS' Vladimir Duthiers after he made the slip while asking about the significance of Monday's mission.

    'Explain to our audience why even a trip like this one, all the trips that we take into space, benefit mankind?' Duthiers asked.

    'First of all it benefits humankind and I'm going to keep correcting the mankind and the manmade and the manned missions,' Jemison replied, prompting hasty apologies from the anchor. 

According to Wikipedia, "Jemison graduated from Stanford University with degrees in chemical engineering as well as African and African-American studies. She then earned her medical degree from Cornell University." And yet she still has difficulty with English. 

    "Mankind," of course, means "human beings considered collectively; the human race." "Manmade" means "made or caused by human beings (as opposed to occurring or being made naturally); artificial." And the definition of "manned" is "carrying, staffed, or performed by one or more people." People like Jemison are not trying to make the world a better place, but simply have a chip on their shoulder and a desire to make the rest of us suffer for their pleasure or satisfaction by destroying useful, concise terms in favor of ungainly neo-Marxist BS. And her obsession over this rather than answering the deeper question posed to her shows that Jamison is not a serious person. 

• Related: "This Would Be Why"--Vox Day. Day uses the all female Blue Origin flight to explain why many men do not take women seriously, noting the obsession over stylish flight suits and makeup among the members of the "crew".
  

Vox Day's Review of "Survival of the Richest"

 Vox Day published last week a review of  Douglas Rushkoff’s 2022 book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires. Rushkoff apparently has been employed as a consultant by billionaires to evaluate their preparations for the end of the world. Based on his experiences, he describes a belief--he terms it "The Mindset"--that they can somehow survive everything by escaping and leaving it all behind. Day is not impressed with the book, however:

    The Mindset, as Rushkoff tries and fails to coin a Very Important Term to describe what is quite obviously neither a religion nor a philosophy, but merely an attitude held in common by the selfish sociopaths he is describing, is nothing more than the realization that when the global economic system collapses, as it inevitably will, very rich people are going to be targets. Which, of course, is why they are building bunkers in New Zealand, buying private islands, and desperately trying to figure out how to either a) upload their brains to a hard drive or b) colonize Mars.

     Rushkoff’s solution for them, and I am not kidding you, is “be nice to your security team and pay for their daughters’ bat mitzvahs” which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about Rushkoff, the billionaires who seek his advice, and the value of that advice.

 And he adds: "There is virtually no discussion of the actual problem, which is the subversion of Western civilization and the embrace of usury that has led to the tidal wave of debt that has engulfed the global economy and benefited the selfish, short-sighted sociopaths of whom the tech billionaires are merely a subset."

    But Vox held back some of his thoughts from that review, discussing them in a post at his own blog entitled "The Billionaires are Scared." And, as he explains, they should be: "They’ve been financially raping the West in general and the USA in particular for the last 52 years, kicking the can down the road, and now the time of reckoning is rapidly approaching." He doesn't specifically mention the corruption revealed around USAID and other government programs that have come to light, but I supposed he doesn't need to. 

   There are other ways to ensure survival of the elites, and the billionaires' bolt holes is just one facet--albeit, a very personal one. But there are collective measures to keep a lid on things. For instance, as Vox Day recounts in another article, "Gangstalking is Real and Federally-Funded," there are some 300,000 people on the government's no-fly list, even though "[t]he Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General audit reports concluded that 97% of the people on the TSDB have 'No known ties to terrorism' and do not represent a threat to national security. Only .28% of the list contains the names of actual 'known and suspected terrorists.' The vast majority of this 'blacklist' is reserved for whistleblowers, activists, J6ers, parents that protest at school boards, and any enemy of the Deep State."

    Another method is simply reduce the number and influence of undesirables. Thus, at one end, as Vox Day describes in yet another article, there is a war on fertility, and on the other end are the countless ways in which white Americans are kept out of the plum universities and jobs. 

    At some point, AI and robotics will reach a point that there simply won't be any need for the elites to keep a large population of "worker bees" around. Case in point, the article "Horsepower! When everyone owned a horse . . . or did they?" notes that in the year 1900 the number of horses and mules in the U.S. was about 21.5 million (versus a human population of roughly 76 million) but had dropped to 3 million in 1960. The number of horses and mules has grown a bit since then, but the point is that when horses and mules were no longer needed, their numbers dropped precipitously.

Covid Lockdowns To Blame For Increase in Late-Stage Colon Cancers

The Daily Mail reports on the increased number of people being diagnosed with late stage colon cancer, relating: 

    A record number of young people are being diagnosed with late-stage colon cancer due to disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, new findings suggest.

    The study found the number of patients diagnosed with the killer disease was three times lower during the pandemic, meaning thousands of cancers were missed and allowed to spread and worsen.

    The pandemic led to hospitals cutting staff due to decreased patient volumes and financial pressures and people postponed seeking care due to factors, including fear of infection and changes in healthcare access.

So how, exactly, did the lockdowns save lives? This is just one illness. How many more negative health outcomes resulted from the lockdowns.

Karmelo Anthony's Bond Reduced--To Be Placed On House Arrest

From Fox 4 News: "Frisco track meet stabbing suspect's bond reduced to $250,000." The article reports that "[t]he judge reduced the teen's bond to $250,000, and he will be placed on house arrest," but also notes that Anthony's Go-Fund-Me has raised $412,000.

Ben Stoeger: More on Sig 320 Uncommanded Discharges

In this video, Ben Stoeger recounts an uncommanded discharge that occurred at an Achilles Heel Tactical training class with plenty of witnesses to indicate that the firearm discharged just sitting in a guy's holster with him not touching or fiddling with it. Achilles Heel Tactical indicates that it is banning the Sig 320 from its classes going forward.  Stoeger also mentions another similar incident last month at an IDPA match. But Stoeger also relates some theories that the discharges may be due to issues with the striker spring. 

VIDEO: "A 320 goes pop in class!"
Ben Stoeger (7 min.)

Latin Kings Ambush Police In Chicago

Chicago City Wire reports on an ambush of Chicago PD conducted by the Latin Kings gang. From the article:

    The source said the incident unfolded late night on Friday, April 4, when police responded to a 9-1-1 call at 2340 South Sacramento.  

    However, when the police vehicle approached the location, it became clear the call was a setup, with gang members who were hiding in an alley opening fire on the car.

    According to the police source, the “ambush” could have escalated dramatically had the gang members' gun not malfunctioned. The gun purportedly jammed, preventing future shots from being fired.  

The ambush came about a week after an "anonymous" threat was phoned into the Chicago PD declaring a war on the Department after crackdowns in an area called Little Village known for it heavy gang activity and illicit drug trade.

Alaska Volcano Warning

The Daily Mail reports that an uptick in earthquakes near Mount Spurr, in Alaska, is a sign that magma is rising beneath the mountain and causing stress and cracking in the surrounding rock. 

    Emergency plans have hastily been put in place for the more than 300,000 residents of Anchorage, warning them to stock up on food, baby supplies and pet necessities as the eruption could disrupt supply chains and lead to delays in deliveries.

    The city's residents have gone on a buying frenzy of N95 masks, water jugs and protective gear as they brace for an eruption.

    When it blows, the event 'would be explosive,' Matt Haney, scientist-in-charge at the AVO told DailyMail.com, adding that it would spew multiple plumes of ash rising as high as 50,000 feet into the air.

    Each ash-producing explosive episode would last three to four hours, resulting in Anchorage and other nearby communities being engulfed in a giant cloud.

    While Anchorage is not within the impact zone, massive clouds of ash are likely to engulf the city and residents.

    Volcanic ash can irritate the eyes, nose and throat, and cause more serious health issues for people with asthma, other forms of lung disease and severe heart problems.

VIDEO: Stopping An Unarmed Attack

 Some more melee advice:

 VIDEO: "Former CIA Officer Explains The Best Way to Stop an Attacker"
Jason Hanson (2 min.)

VIDEO: What NOT To Do Before A Fight

 A recommendation not to back up:

VIDEO: "What YOU Should NEVER DO Before a FIGHT"
Fight SCIENCE (5 min.)

The Diversity Report #24

 A selection of articles showcasing the benefits of diversity, equity and inclusion: 

• "Head of IRS to resign in protest as agency inks deal to share tax data on illegal immigrants with DHS"--New York Post. Melanie Krause "decided to resign in an apparent protest of the Trump administration’s actions, sources told the Washington Post." Federal law already provides an exception to the confidentiality of tax records for law enforcement purposes. Is Krause signaling that she doesn't believe that illegally entering or residing in the United States should be a crime? Or that illegals shouldn't be investigated for other crimes?
  
• Related: "DOGE Official Confirms What We've Known All Along: Illegal Immigrants Are on Medicaid and Voting"--Red State. Describes the process, under the Biden Administration, that illegals could obtain Social Security numbers, which then opens the door to a whole slew of fraud and public benefits. 

"So now you’re in the country with some quasi-legal status, you’re waiting for your court date, while you’re waiting for your court date — six years is the average by the way, it could be longer than that — you can fill out an asylum application, so without an interview, just an application … once that application is in, you can file another form, a 765 [form] to get work authorization, once you get that, you get a 766 which is the authorization and we automatically send you a Social Security card in the mail. No interview, that is the majority of the growth you see in these numbers. [Emphasis added]"

• Related: "DOGE Discovers Giant Social Security Fraud"--Lawrence Peterson's Battleswarm Blog.

One day after Elon Musk and Antonio Gracias—founder and CEO of the Chicago-based investment firm Valor Equity Partners, and now a DOGE official—unveiled a “mind-blowing” chart showing a surge in Social Security numbers issued to illegal aliens over the Biden-Harris administration’s first term during an America PAC town hall in Wisconsin on Sunday, Musk’s America PAC hosted an online tele-town hall with Wisconsin voters on Monday night, where he provided more color on the SSN fraud.

• Related: "Shocking Report Results Indicate that One Fifth of the Voters in the 2024 Election in Orange County, CA Were Non-Citizens, Invalid or Phantom Voters"--Joe Hoft. 

 In total, an estimated 298,000 votes were illegally counted without verification. This is 21% of the vote, or just over one in five ballots counted. Six US House seats are now caught in a massive election scandal involving Orange County and California State officials who clearly certified fraudulent election results.

• They like the fraud, thank you: "19 Democratic state attorneys general sue over Trump's election integrity executive order"--Just The News.  They are objecting to an executive order on election integrity that included enforcing a citizenship requirement for voters in federal elections, directed the attorney general to prosecute election crimes, take action against states that accept absentee ballots for federal elections after Election Day, and ensure that foreign nationals do not donate to federal elections or that organizations that receive federal funds do not engage in lobbying.
• Ditto: "208 Democrats Vote Against Legislation To Keep Noncitizens Out Of Elections"--The Federalist. Democrats would rather destroy the country than lose power:

    After sitting back for four years while the leader of the Democrat Party allowed millions of illegal aliens to invade the country, 208 Democrats voted against legislation Thursday that would keep foreign nationals out of American elections.

    The Republican-led House passed the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act 220-208. The legislation, introduced by Texas Rep. Chip Roy, would require documentary proof of citizenship in order to register to vote.

• "Elon Musk’s DOGE discovers millions in taxpayer dollars wasted on unemployment claims for ‘fake people’"--New York Post.  The article relates that "DOGE claimed it reviewed an initial survey of unemployment claims since 2020 that found that 9,700 people whose birth dates aren’t for another 15 years have claimed $69 million in benefits" and "[a]nother 24,500 people over the impossible age of 115 claimed $59 million in benefits; and some 28,000 people between the ages of 1 and 5 years old claimed $254 million in benefits, DOGE discovered." I'm sure that some of these are due to typos and data entry errors, but all of them?
• Still forum shopping:  "ACLU files suit to block Alien Enemies Act deportations"--The Hill. This time being filed in the Southern District of New York. 
• "Black Americans Throw Support Behind Massive Migrant Detention Facility that Democrats Seek to Shut Down"--Breitbart.  

    An organization representing black Americans is throwing its support behind the reopening of a massive migrant detention facility in Newark, New Jersey. Meanwhile, Democrats are using the courts to try to get the facility shut down.

    A letter from Sherman Lea with the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice, exclusively reviewed by Breitbart News, urges Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) to drop his opposition to the reopening of Delaney Hall — a facility that will be able to hold up to 1,000 criminal illegal aliens for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

• "Trump administration to speed up construction of California-Mexico border wall"--Los Angeles Times. Issued an environmental waiver to speed construction.
• "Trump’s DHS revokes legal status for migrants who entered the US on Biden-era CBP One app"--AP. 

    Migrants who were temporarily allowed to live in the United States by using a Biden-era online appointment app have been told to leave the country “immediately,” officials said Monday. It was unclear how many beneficiaries would be affected.

    More than 900,000 people were allowed in the country using the CBP One app since January 2023. They were generally allowed to remain in the United States for two years with authorization to work under a presidential authority called parole.

    “Canceling these paroles is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect national security,” the Department of Homeland Security media affairs unit said in response to questions.

    Authorities confirmed termination notices were sent to CBP One beneficiaries but did not say how many. They were urged to voluntary self-deport using the same app they entered on, which has been renamed CBP Home.

• And to encourage them to leave quickly: "Trump administration to fine illegal migrants $998 a day unless they self-deport"--Just The News. 

    "Illegal aliens should use the CBP Home app to self-deport and leave the country now," Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday. "If they don’t, they will face the consequences. This includes a fine of $998 per day for every day that the illegal alien overstayed their final deportation order."

    The administration is using a 1996 law that will allow illegal migrants to be fined if they don't leave the U.S.

    Property can also be seized from illegal migrants who don't pay the fine.

• "Trump Deputies Cancel Illegal Migrants’ Social Security Numbers"--Breitbart.  

The action marks the start of a major campaign by the Trump administration to force out potentially hundreds of thousands who are living in the U.S. illegally but who have a Social Security number, allowing them to collect Medicaid, Medicare, unemployment insurance, federal loans or other benefits, the people said. The next target for inclusion in the database will be 92,000 undocumented immigrants with some kind of criminal conviction, the White House official said, but the effort will expand to undocumented immigrants without criminal histories after that.

• "Trump cancels hundreds of student visas, forcing rapid departures"--USA Today.  From the article:

The cancellations reflect a small percentage of the estimated 1.5 million international students studying in the United States, but have sent shockwaves through the collegiate community. Some of the cancellations appear to be connected to things as minor as roommate disputes or as off-campus traffic tickets, university officials said, while others appear to be connected to pro-Palestinian protest participation. 

Universities prefer foreign students over American students because they can charge full sticker price to the foreign students.

• "Trump admin bars illegal migrants and non-permanent residents from receiving taxpayer-backed mortgages"--New York Post.  

    The Trump administration will no longer allow illegal migrants to receive Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgages, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner announced Wednesday.

    “Today, HUD terminated Biden’s taxpayer-backed FHA mortgages for illegal aliens,” Turner wrote on X. “American taxpayers will no longer subsidize open borders by offering home loans to those who enter our nation illegally.”

    A HUD official informed FHA-approved mortgage lenders on Tuesday that the agency will also no longer consider any “non-permanent resident” eligible for the government-backed, low-income home loans. 

• Fifth columnists: "Two L.A. Schools Refuse Entry to Federal Homeland Security Officials"--Breitbart. Note that the agents were not with ICE, but from the Homeland Security Investigations unit within the Department of Homeland Security, so likely investigating something more serious than just illegal entry. 
• "D.C. Cardinal Slams Trump’s Migration Reforms as ‘Crusade’"--Breitbart. He bizarrely tries to draw a comparison between the parable of the Good Samaritan and welcoming invaders into our country. The illegals are akin to the robbers of that story; the victim is like the people across the nation that have lost jobs or been forced to accept lower wages because of foreign labor, seen housing and food prices shoot up, lost social cohesion and trust in their community, and have to deal with the crime and drain on the public fisc.
  
• "University of South Carolina student, 21, killed in hit-and-run crash involving illegal immigrant: DHS"--Fox News. 
• "Illegal immigrant released by Biden admin indicted on murder, rape and other charges"--Yahoo. 

A Honduran illegal alien accused of murdering a Georgia mother of five in a random attack earlier this month, faces additional charges including rape and necrophilia.

• Diversity is a strength: "16 NYC youngsters who terrorized neighbors with months of gun violence arrested in gang takedown"--New York Post. "Youngsters"? Really?
  

    Sixteen alleged teenaged gangsters in rival East Harlem crews were charged Tuesday with terrorizing their innocent neighbors in a months-long barrage of gun violence.

    Members of the “LA World” and “Wuski” gangs — most of them under 18 — were behind 21 separate shootings from March 2024 until this February, Manhattan prosecutors alleged in two sweeping indictments.

    The crews sent bullets whizzing down crowded sidewalks and into building playgrounds and lobbies — accounting for a whopping half of the 23rd Precinct’s total 38 shootings between March 25 and Sept. 30, 2024, cops and prosecutors said.

 * * *

    The brutal turf war erupted after Harry Mendoza, a 25-year-old member of LA World — which is based out of the New York City Housing Authority’s Lehman and AK Houses — was fatally shot, along with a 16-year-old girl, at Lexington Avenue and East 128th Street on March 24, 2024, authorities said.

• Different cultures have different values: "Family of boy charged with murdering athlete, 17, at track meet gets huge boost"--Daily Mail. The article reports that the family of Karmelo Anthony "have received a whopping $245,000 in donations via their fundraising page." Anthony is currently being held on a $1 million bond, but his lawyers are seeking for the bond to be reduced. 
• "The Menace of Malicious Compliance in Our Military"--Hot Air. From the article:

    There have always been examples of the concept in government. For example, during a shutdown, the National Park Service will go to great lengths to close off open parks, like the monuments in D.C., that don't require any National Park Service presence to begin with, just to make their point. In much the same way, they recently expressed their ire with the Trump administration by having only one person with keys and restroom rescue knowledge in all of Yosemite. See what happens to the park when the knuckle-dragging Luddites furlough him?

    HAH! GOTCHA

    This has been the case in the military since the moment Pete Hegseth issued his first directive. What might have been interpreted in the beginning to be confusion at the abrupt change or scrambling to please the new boss without thinking things through is starting to very much shape up as a deliberate campaign of a sort that's easy to spot.

    These elements across the US military are playing what we Marines refer to as [rhymes with] 'CLUCK-CLUCK' games. The instrument being employed to warp the intention and public perception of SecDef and the Trump administration is 'malicious compliance' ....

Malicious compliance than gives a good story for leftists to hold up to show how terrible is Trump, such as this recent video from InRangeTV complaining of an article taken down from a federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) website concerning a possible gay marriage in the Old West.

What's the Point, Then, Of Calling It A Beauty Contest

 In news from the UK: "Beauty pageant queens to be judged on CPR skills instead of ‘outdated’ bikini modeling: ‘I’m glad I know how to do it’." The article relates that "[i]n a move to modernize a 97-year-old [Miss England] competition and scrap its outdated swimwear round, contestants will now be judged on life-saving skills like chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation," and noting that "[t]he new challenge encourages contestants to showcase CPR knowledge in creative ways, either by teaching it in their communities or sharing techniques online."

China Hurting But Will It Lash Out?

Having forced most of the world to at least come to the negotiation table to address trade practices that take advantage of the United States, Trump has paused his announced tariff increases for most countries, but not China. As NPR reports, "[m]ost countries will be left with 10% tariffs on their exports to the United States, while China — which had retaliated against Trump's moves — will now face tariffs of 125%." China has reached out to other countries to oppose U.S. efforts, but has largely been unsuccessful. It has also raised its tariffs on U.S. goods to 84%, but the trade imbalance is so extreme between the two countries that this will largely be a meaningless gesture.

    Although China puts on a show of wanting to engage in "free trade" with other countries, its actual trade policies hearken back to mercantilism, "a nationalist economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports of an economy," and which held that "the main purpose of trade was to enrich one’s own nation by keeping exports at a maximum and imports to a minimum." As one article explains:

    Most of the mercantilist policies were the outgrowth of the relationship between the governments of the nation-states and their mercantile classes. In exchange for paying levies and taxes to support the armies of the nation-states, the mercantile classes induced governments to enact policies that would protect their business interests against foreign competition.
    
    These policies took many forms. Domestically, governments would provide capital to new industries, exempt new industries from guild rules and taxes, establish monopolies over local and colonial markets, and grant titles and pensions to successful producers. In trade policy the government assisted local industry by imposing tariffs, quotas, and prohibitions on imports of goods that competed with local manufacturers. Governments also prohibited the export of tools and capital equipment and the emigration of skilled labor that would allow foreign countries, and even the colonies of the home country, to compete in the production of manufactured goods. At the same time, diplomats encouraged foreign manufacturers to move to the diplomats’ own countries.

While China pretended to support concepts of free trade to gain access to Western markets, once it had access, it became increasingly protective of its own industry while shamelessly stealing technology and know how from those foreign businesses that sought to do business in China. The goal was to become the world's factory and reduce or eliminate manufacturing in foreign countries and, thereby, make them dependent on China for manufactured goods. 

    Which takes us to this New York Post article, "How China has amped up its factories and is threatening to crush US industry with a new ‘tsunami’ of cheap products" describing how China has followed a strategy over the past several years to pump money into its manufacturing sector in order to flood foreign markets and destroy foreign manufacturers. From the article:

    A $1.9 trillion “tsunami” is headed for American industry — and it’s coming from China.

    The Communist country of 1.3 billion people has shifted that much cash into amping up its factories in just four years in an effort to overwhelm manufacturers around the world with an influx of cheap goods.

    President Trump’s 125% tariff on all Chinese imports into the US — which he announced Wednesday as he paused steep duties on most other countries — is actually just the latest protective measure against China.

    The European Union, Brazil, Mexico and Thailand have either imposed new tariffs in the last few months or are considering such measures to protect their own industries from Chinese imports.

    “The tsunami is coming for everyone,” Katherine Tai, trade representative for former President Joe Biden, told the New York Times.

The following video from China Uncensored goes into greater detail on how China weaponized "free trade":

VIDEO: "Trump’s Tariffs Ruined China’s Master Plan"
China Uncensored (11 min.)

    So what is the end game of all of this? Vox Day believes that while China could win a military conflict with the U.S., it cannot win a trade war because "[i]n addition to the fact that the nation with the trade surplus is the one with the weaker hand in a trade war, there is the situation regarding China being the leading holder of US debt." 

    But that dichotomy between its military and economic options may be the crux of the matter. Arguably, the extensive trade between China and the U.S. actually makes a shooting war more likely than was the case between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In The Future of War by George and Meredith Friedman, the authors explained why countries with extensive economic ties were more likely to go to war. 

    The argument that interdependence gives rise to peace is flawed in theory as well as in practice. Conflicts arise from friction, particularly friction involving the fundamental interests of different nations. The less interdependence there is, the fewer the areas of serious friction. The more interdependence there is, the greater the areas of friction, and, therefore, the greater the potential for conflict. Two widely separated nations that trade little with each other are unlikely to go to war--Brazil is unlikely to fight Madagascar precisely because they have so little to do with each other. France and Germany, on the other hand, which have engaged in extensive trade and transnational finance, have fought three wars with each other over about seventy years. Interdependence was the root of the conflicts, not the deterrent.

    There are, of course, cases of interdependence in which one country effectively absorbs the other or in which their interests match so precisely that the two countries simply merge. In other cases, interdependence remains peaceful because the economic, military, and political power of one country is overwhelming and inevitable. In relations between advanced industrialized countries and third-world countries, for example, this sort of asymmetrical relationship can frequently be seen.

    All such relationships have a quality of unease built into them, particularly when the level of interdependence is great. When one or both nations attempt, intentionally or unintentionally, to shift the balance of power, the result is often tremendous anxiety and, sometimes, real pain. Each side sees the other's actions as an attempt to gain advantage and becomes frightened. In the end, precisely because the level of interdependence is so great, the relationship can, and frequently does, spiral out of control. (Friedman, pp. 7-8) (emphasis on original).

The Friedmans then compare and contrast the Cold War with the situation prior to the outbreak of World War I, and suggest that it was the independence of the Soviet Union from the United States that allowed each to forgo extreme measures and gave them freedom to maneuver. However, prior to World War I, the European nations' interdependence, measured by international investment and trade, was greater than it is now (at least at the time the Friedmans wrote their book), and it was this high amount of interdependence that created the conditions for war.

    Right now, China is going to feel a lot of pain. And no matter the outcome--whether it negotiates a trade deal that is more fair to the U.S. or refuses, leaving the new tariffs in place--it means more pain to the average Chinese citizen. This could result in increased civil unrest and dissatisfaction, forcing China to do something to distract its citizens, such as a war.

What's Going On With The Sig 320?

The Sig 320 has had a rocky history. There is evidence that indicates that when the firearm was first issued it was not completely drop safe. The military determined in 2018 that there were circumstances under which the firearm would discharge if dropped and demanded changes to the trigger and other parts. There were also issues with the civilian/law enforcement models that could go off if struck at a particular angle on the back of slide, including if dropped on a hard surface. Sig has offered to "upgrade" the pistols manufactured before August 2017 without admitting to any problem or initiating a formal recall. 

    But there has also been rare, yet persistent, reports of the firearms discharging even when sitting in a holster, with several videos showing such incidents. Sig has denied that anything is wrong with the firearms and blamed user error and/or holsters. On March 1, 2025, Sig categorically stated: “The P320 CANNOT, under any circumstances, discharge without a trigger pull – that is a fact” and suggesting that those saying otherwise were trying to profit off negligent discharges, avoid responsibility for their negligent discharges, or are simply anti-gun. 

    A recent article at The Truth About Guns digs into one particular incident involving a law enforcement officer, blaming the "accidental discharge" in that case to gaps in the holster necessitated by the use of a weapon light. ("Are SIG P320 Discharges Really About the Gun… or Just Overloaded Duty Rigs?"). The author (I believe it to be Rich Grassi based on this very similar piece at the Tactical Wire) explains:

    Seattle’s KING-5 News recently covered an incident involving a sheriff’s deputy responding to a call involving an emotionally disturbed individual. During the takedown, a round discharged from the deputy’s holstered P320. No injuries, fortunately.

    But here’s where it gets weird: the agency claimed the discharge was caused by a loose handcuff arm getting into the trigger guard while still holstered.

    You read that right.

    The holster in question was fitted for a weapon-mounted light, which inherently adds bulk and leaves a wider opening. That extra room between the gun and the holster mouth? It’s an invitation. Whether it’s a cuff arm, zipper pull, drawstring, or even a suspect’s finger during a scuffle, you’ve now got a clear path to the trigger.

    We’re not looking at a design defect. We’re looking at a setup fail. 

From there, the author moves to a general discussion of whether police (or other shooters) are attaching too much stuff to their pistols, and in particular questioning whether every officer needs a weapon light on his or her pistol; and, if officers are using a weapon light, urging that the holster needs to be designed for that particular pistol and weapon light combination. "If your current holster setup allows foreign objects—or body parts—to reach the trigger," the author writes, "that’s not a pistol problem. That’s a training and equipment problem. Full stop."  

    Others, such as YouTuber "Carry Trainer," have suggested that where there is smoke there just might be a fire. Ben Stoeger, in a YouTube video, suggests that there may be tolerance stacking issues with the sear and striker that could lead to the handgun going off. 

    What do you think? Is this a big "nothing burger" or a repeat of the Remington 700 trigger fiasco? Sound off in the comments.

Communism In Action: Chinese Copper Mine Poisons Major African River

Breitbart reports: "Chinese Copper Mine Causes Giant Acid Spill in Zambia: Major River ‘Totally Dead’." From the article:

    On February 18, a tailings dam at the Sino-Metals Leach Zambia mine collapsed, resulting in a worst-case calamity: 50 million liters of toxic slurry poured into a stream that connects to the vital Kafue River. This river provides water for plants, fish, animals, and about 12 million human inhabitants, including residents of the national capital, Lusaka. In fact, about 60% of Zambia’s population lives in the Kafue River basin.

    Environmental activists called the toxic spill an “environmental disaster of catastrophic consequences” and pronounced the 930-mile-long Kafue River “totally dead.”

    Huge numbers of dead fish began washing up on the river banks, wiping out the local fishing industry. Crops watered by the river withered and died. The Zambian military used planes and speedboats to dump hundreds of tons of lime into the river to neutralize the acid waste.

    Adding insult to injury — in fact, adding both insult and injury — another Chinese mine suffered a smaller acid waste leak a few days later. A mine worker was killed at this second mine after falling into the acid. Local officials accused the Chinese mine owners of first attempting to conceal the smaller leak and then defying government orders to halt operations. Two managers from the second mine have been placed under arrest.

Grifterism and the Democrats

 An author writing under the nom de plume, "Cynical Publius," has coined the term Grifterism to describe modern Leftism. In his article, "Grifterism: The Economic Engine of Democrats," Publius explains:

    ... Like the Politburo of the former Soviet Union, the words of Democrats often bear little resemblance to the actions their words embody. “Equity” is an excellent example, as when Democrats say “equity,” they really mean highly inequitable policy solutions. Sometimes, however, Democrats deliberately fail to coherently describe the meaning of their actions, and then it becomes even harder to ascertain meaning. Such is the case with the basic economic policies of Democrats. Many on the right like to say that Democrats support socialism, but that’s not wholly true given how many capitalist components exist inside Democrat economic policies. Similarly, it is inaccurate to describe Democrat economics as being purely capitalistic because wealth redistribution is one of their core competencies. Some say that the Democrats enjoy government control of capitalist entities, rendering their economic persuasion fascist in nature. Yet, even that is inaccurate, given that fascist states view their economies as a source of nationalistic pride and strength, while Democrats tend to abhor nationalistic pride in the United States.

    It’s not socialism. It’s not capitalism. It’s not fascism. What, then, is the overarching label that explains the economic policies and priorities of Democrats and their leadership?

    It’s Grifterism. (I did not invent that word, or at least that’s what Google tells me. However, I believe I am the first author to ever use that term to describe a formal system of national economic governance, so I’m going to run with it.) 

    Grifterism is, as the name suggests, a system run by and for the benefit of grifters. Webster defines the verb “grift” as “to acquire money or property illicitly.” Grifters have always been a part of human society, but it took the 21st-century Democratic Party to turn the idea into a comprehensive economic system. The best way to understand this system is to analyze the four classes of citizens upon which Grifterism relies, and into which all American citizens are divided one way or another: Billionaires, Productives, Dependents and, of course, Grifters.

And just because Publius differentiates the Billionaires and the Dependents from the Grifters, he does not mean to let them off the hook. For instance, speaking of the Billionaires, he notes that they "are actually complicit with the Grifters by funding Grifterism in exchange for their existence being tolerated, and when it comes to economic policies, they are actually on the same side as the Bernies and the AOCs, it’s just not that obvious."

    You see, the Grifters rely on a vast regulatory state that makes it very, very difficult to found new, Billionaire-creating businesses—unless you are already a Billionaire. Regulatory regimes like Dodd-Frank, the 1934 Act, the CFPB and a host of other business-harassing federal regulations and agencies mean that the greatest wealth-creating businesses can only exist when they hire legions of white-shoe law firms and high-priced accountants to ensure compliance with the regulatory burden. As such, only Billionaire-owned companies have the wherewithal to fund such compliance measures, effectively creating monopolies that shut out anyone else from ever joining their club.

    As an example, Dodd-Frank has done little for America other than ensure that the big banks are bigger and the small banks are fewer, all by imposing massive regulatory burdens on an ever-dwindling population of small banks. A regulatory scheme that was purportedly designed to help “the little guy” only helped the Billionaires, purposely and deliberately suppressing the ability of the Productives (more on them later) from climbing higher and threatening to join the elite circle of the Billionaires.

    The tryst between the Billionaires and the Grifters gets even worse when considering the concept of regulatory capture—i.e., the Billionaires are busy writing the Grifters’ regulations that will govern the Billionaires. Remember when the health insurance industry wrote the Obamacare legislation? THAT is “regulatory capture.”

Read the whole thing.

Jimmy Soul Was Right (and Wrong)

Jimmy Soul was a musician from the 1960s best known for his hit single "If You Wanna Be Happy," advising that "If you want to be happy for the rest of your life / Never make a pretty woman your wife," noting the faithfulness of the less attractive mate versus how "A pretty woman makes her husband look small / And very often causes his downfall / As soon as he married her and then she starts / To do the things that will break his heart." 

    This recent article from the New York Post--"My $11K nose job helped me leave my husband"--seems to nicely illustrate the lesson of the song. Per the story, Devyn Aiken had an unfortunately sized and shaped nose. She related: "'I struggled immensely because of the bullying from boys,' she recalled of the juvenile jerks who called her 'witch,' 'toucan' and 'Pinocchio.'" "The incessant shots at her snout weighed on Aiken’s self-esteem, causing her to settle for an ill-fated relationship," the article continues. 

    But after 7 years of marriage, she opted for surgery to reshape her nose:

“It’s changed my life,” Aiken said of the nearly six-hour operation, which she paid for on her own. “I had a lot of time to recover after the nose job and it made me think, ‘I need to finally get the divorce so I can move on with my life.’” 

So, in essence, she had the surgery, becoming the "pretty woman" of the song, and, realizing she could do better than her current husband, threw him to the curb. I suspect that if Jimmy Soul were to write his song today, it would probably have a line about not letting the less attractive woman get plastic surgery.

SCOTUS Vacates Judge Boasberg’s Order Blocking Deportation Of Tren de Aragua

 From Legal Insurrection: "Supreme Court Vacates Judge Boasberg’s TROs As To Tren de Aragua Under Alien Enemies Act." As you probably remember, President Trump had declared certain foreign criminal gangs to be alien enemies under the Alien Enemies Act, allowing them to be summarily deported. But Judge James Boasberg, a district judge in the judicial district for the District of Columbia, issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking those deportations, even going so far as to order that a plane flying these gang members to a prison in El Salvador turn around in mid-flight and return them to the United States.

    The Supreme Court has vacated the TRO on procedural grounds, holding that the suit by the gang members was the equivalent of a writ of habeas corpus, which must be brought in a court in the district where the person is being detained. Therefore, the court ruled, Judge Boasberg lacked jurisdiction to hear the case or issue the TRO. Notwithstanding what other news stories seem to indicate, the court did not decide whether the Alien Enemies Act could be applied to the gang members and indicated that the suspected gang members are entitled to at least some due process on the issue of whether they are gang members. 

    But at least they are out of the District of the District of Columbia courts and the matter will have to be pursued before a court in Texas where the gang members are being detained. 

• Related: "A Third Of All DC District Judges Were Not Born In United States"--The Federalist. As the author notes, "[w]hile country of origin doesn’t come up in most jobs, it is worth asking if judges with ties to foreign nations and cultures are the right ones to make decisions affecting the U.S. military or immigration."
• Related: "Judge Boasberg is not my president"--Don Surber. An excerpt:

    Why is Judge Boasberg so insistent that we keep child rapists and other terrorists in our country? Follow the money. Like many other politicians, he benefits from the mass refusal of Democrat presidents and the second Bush to enforce federal immigration laws.

    Boasberg’s daughter Katharine defends MS-13 and TDA gangsters, receiving pay from an NGO, Partners in Justice, which raked in $3.3 million in 2023 year from the federal government. 

Kamala Harris' Was The Astroturf Candidate

From PJ Media: "It Was All Fake: Far-Left Billionaires Astroturfed the Tidal Wave of Early Enthusiasm for Harris." I've maintained for years (decades, now) that the Republicans are the party of millionaires and the Democrats are the party of billionaires. Robert Spencer says essentially the same thing--at least the last bit--in his piece:

    Last summer, after Old Joe Biden was forced out of running for reelection and Kamala Harris was anointed as the Democrat candidate for president, the far left’s propaganda arm (that is, the establishment media) made a massive push to make this failed vice president and longtime party hack seem new and appealing. A key part of this effort was a gaggle of young “influencers” who took to Instagram and TikTok with an enthusiastic pro-Harris message. It was sincere, it was spontaneous, it was exciting — or at least that’s what it seemed to be. Now (I know, knock me over with a feather) it turns out that the whole thing was faked: the entire Harris bubble was the artificial creation of a bunch of leftist billionaires.

* * *

    There was plenty of money available for this quixotic effort. All the Harris fake enthusiasm and sexual libertinism fearmongering was “quietly funded by an elusive group of Democratic billionaires and major donors in an arrangement designed to conceal the payments from voters.”
 
    RealClearInvestigations discovered that Way to Win, “one of the major donor groups behind the effort, spent more than $9.1 million on social media influencers during the 2024 presidential election.” The money went to coaching “influencers” on “phrases, issue areas, and key themes to ‘disseminate pro-Kamala content throughout the cycle.’” No fewer than 550 “influencers” were on the payroll, getting “talking points that were rapidly distributed” on key issues that would help sell Kamala to the American people. The social media wonks worked hard for their money, producing an impressive 6,644 posts on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and X. 

Like Biden, she was intended to be, as James Blish put it, "a dummy ruler chosen for low intelligence and complete moral plasticity, who amuses himself and keeps the masses distracted from their troubles with bread, circuses, and brushfire-wars."

The Telegraph: "Britain is lurching towards civil war"

Tim Stanley, writing at the British Telegraph, argues that "Britain is lurching towards civil war, and nobody knows how to stop it." 

    The cause of the impending sectarian conflict is, unsurprisingly, multiculturalism. Stanley notes that David Betz, a professor of conflict studies at King’s, London, "argues that the conditions for a failed state we ordinarily apply overseas are now found here: frayed social contract, falling trust, polarisation."

     Into this mix Britain injected multiculturalism, encouraging millions to move here without expecting integration.

    If you think “fear of the other” is a human instinct, the policy was mad to begin with. Combine it with economic decline and you invite ethnic competition over services and jobs.

Stanely also points to new sentencing guidelines that treat minorities better than white offenders, adding: "In this spirit, says Betz, the modern state acts like an imperial administrator, promoting the interests of preferred minorities while trying to avoid a riot."

    And the concept of a color blind society now seems naive to Stanley. 

    Over the past 30 years, liberal institutions have taught us to see race again – by stressing the wonders of diversity so persistently that some white people feel the state has actively taken a side against them. Ancient, binding concepts, such as “equality before the law” ring hollow. The latest Police Race Action Plan openly rejects the principle of “treating everyone the same” in favour of “equality of police outcomes”.

    A situation in which millions believe cops are not impartial public servants but an occupying force is the headline metric of state failure. Mainland Britain has become Ulster.

 And in this regard:

    Betz notes that while Islamist terrorism is more lethal than far-Right extremism, there are only 4 million Muslims whereas there are around 50 million whites.

    Were the latter group radicalised, things might go south very fast, hence some in the security forces clearly regard white Britons as the emergent threat.

* * *

    Every conspiracy theory is confirmed, and without a democratic outlet for anger – seeing their aspirations limited and being too poor to emigrate – where else will a militant faction of angry whites go but to violence? 

The title of the op-ed is misleading, though, in stating that no one knows how to stop it. Stanley tacitly acknowledges there is a solution being bandied about even as he automatically rejects it--repatriation. He even admits that something radical is possible by citing to the Covid lockdowns: "Did you ever think the state could imprison us in our homes? And if it can isolate the diseased from the healthy, the vaxed from the unvaxed, do you think it can’t, or won’t, someday separate us based on race or religion?" 

Time Magazine: The Return of the Dire Wolf (Updated with video)

Time Magazine reports on a company called Colossal Biosciences which has "bioengineered" dire wolf pups. 

Relying on deft genetic engineering and ancient, preserved DNA, Colossal scientists deciphered the dire wolf genome, rewrote the genetic code of the common gray wolf to match it, and, using domestic dogs as surrogate mothers, brought Romulus, Remus, and their sister, 2-month-old Khaleesi, into the world during three separate births last fall and this winter—effectively for the first time de-extincting a line of beasts whose live gene pool long ago vanished. TIME met the males (Khaleesi was not present due to her young age) at a fenced field in a U.S. wildlife facility on March 24, on the condition that their location remain a secret to protect the animals from prying eyes. 

In describing the two pups the author was allowed to see, he writes:

At their young age [6 months] they already measure nearly 4 ft. long, tip the scales at 80 lb., and could grow to 6 ft. and 150 lb. Then there’s their behavior: the angelic exuberance puppies exhibit in the presence of humans—trotting up for hugs, belly rubs, kisses—is completely absent. They keep their distance, retreating if a person approaches. Even one of the handlers who raised them from birth can get only so close before Romulus and Remus flinch and retreat. This isn’t domestic canine behavior, this is wild lupine behavior: the pups are wolves. 

The company is also planning to bring back the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the Tasmanian tiger. The process is not cloning, exactly, but changing certain genes in the wolf genome to match that of the dire wolf. 

Update: I came across this video from Time about the dire wolves:

VIDEO: "No Longer Extinct? Colossal Biosciences' Dire Wolf Project"
TIME (8 min.)

Wilder: Civil War 2.0 Weather Report

Just letting you know that John Wilder, at Wilder, Wealthy & Wise, has posted a new Civil War 2.0 Weather Report. On his scale that goes from 1 to 10 (with 10 being open war), he puts us at 7: "Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly." I'm sure that Tesla owners would agree. John hits the issues of instability due to multiculturalism pretty hard, including H1B visas, special benefits to Indian migrants, and the export of jobs overseas (particular India), so be sure to read the whole thing. Particularly the final graph on how the different races rate each other. 

Trump More Popular Than Ever

While the globalists cry doom over tariffs, I saw this tidbit of news: 

But a new DailyMail.com/J.L. Partners survey actually found the president is more popular now than before his tariffs announcement.

The poll conducted from March 31 to April 3 found that Trump's approval rating rose to 53 percent, a 4-point increase over the prior week when it was 49 percent.

Do European Elites Really Think War Is Coming?

 A few weeks ago, France announced that it was preparing a survival manual for every household. A couple weeks later, media reported that "[t]he EU wants every member state to develop a 72-hour survival kit for citizens to face any new crisis that might emerge as part of its Preparedness Union Strategy which also calls for more stockpiling of essential supplies and for improved civilian-military cooperation." 

    Then, this past weekend, the Daily Mail ran this headline: "Brits should prepare a 72 hour 'survival kit' as Putin plots to sabotage gas pipelines and cause mass blackouts, warn spies." The article explains:

    As the UK pursues Net Zero environmental targets – leading to the closure of coal-fired power stations – the country has become increasingly reliant on supplies of gas and electricity from abroad in order to 'keep the lights on'.

    Nearly 40 per cent of the UK's gas supply is imported from Norway, much of which comes through the single, 700-mile Langeled pipeline.

    Concerns that the Russians are planning a sabotage operation have escalated since one of their spy ships, the Yantar, was detected mapping the UK's critical underwater infrastructure in the North Sea in recent months.

    With the UK reported to have come close to blackouts during the past winter – saved only by emergency reserves and electricity imported undersea from Denmark – security experts have argued that British households should follow the example of the EU, which has advised citizens to pack a three-day survival kit.

    This should include water, non-perishable food, medicines, a battery-powered radio, a torch, identity documents and a Swiss Army knife.

And, today, "Germany tells teachers to get children ready for WAR: Schools urged to give 'greater focus' to civil protection after EU told citizens to prep 72-hour survival kits amid growing WW3 threat." That article relates:

    Germany's Interior Ministry has called for civil defence training in schools and is urging citizens to stockpile food, water and essentials in response to the deteriorating security situation in Europe and a growing WW3 threat.

    The unprecedented move, confirmed in a statement to Handelsblatt newspaper, would see German schoolchildren taught how to respond in volatile war-like scenarios.

    A ministry spokesman said civil protection 'should be given greater focus, including in schools', given the alarming recent geopolitical developments and expert testimonies that Russia could be ready to strike NATO territory within a few years.

    Defence spokesperson Roderich Kiesewetter for the conservative CDU party said it was 'absolutely necessary' for schoolchildren to train for emergencies, calling them 'especially vulnerable and particularly affected in an emergency'.

    He is calling for mandatory basic training in disaster response, modelled on systems in Finland, which has been preparing citizens for the possibility of a war with Vladimir Putin's Russia for years.

    Berlin says it even stands ready to provide all schools and teachers with national crisis materials via the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) - and this is although technically education matters are something decided independently by each federal state.

    The ministry also approved a new EU Commission initiative on wartime readiness, and recommended that all German citizens even prepare emergency supplies to last at least 72 hours as per recommendations from the European Union.

    Don't get me wrong: I commend efforts to encourage citizenry to prepare for disasters. But I also realize that most governments care little for their citizens and discourage anything that might make their citizens less dependent on government. In that regard, it comes across as scaremongering intended to influence public opinion.