Tag Archives: Hot Air

Some Basic Thoughts On Iran

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The article I am sourcing here was posted on Tuesday, so a lot can happen between then and now, but this is how the situation looked then.

On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article about the war in Iran.

The article notes:

Me?

I just want the Iranian regime gone. I realize why we couldn’t state that as an aim at the beginning of this action against them, and that was fine with me. Any strike against the mullahs and crippling of their ability to inflict casualties on Americans at large, and, increasingly, their citizens at home, was fine with me.

Every bomb dropped, every missile that hit, every bullet that hit was one less chance for their deadly, malevolent mischief, and one more blow that should have been struck forty-seven years ago and never had been.

Since we entered the ‘negotiation’ phase, knowing who’s on the other side of the table, I have been waiting for the Iranians’ overconfidence – born from jerking Americans around for nearly five decades – to trip them up. For them to smugly pull a ‘one-step-over-the-line, unforgivable strike or act of bravado that gets them smoked back to stone and ash. 

Trump is capable of it, but what would trigger it?

The article includes an X post from Central Command:

U.S., Partner Forces Defend Against Aggressive Iranian Behavior

TAMPA, Fla. — U.S. forces successfully defeated multiple Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, and conducted self-defense strikes on Qeshm Island in response to attempted attacks by Iran across the Middle East, June 2.

Iran launched several ballistic missiles toward regional neighbors; however, all failed to hit their intended targets. Two Iranian missiles fired at Kuwait fell short or broke apart enroute, and three missiles launched at Bahrain were immediately intercepted by U.S. and Bahrain air defense forces.

Moments earlier, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces shot down three one-way attack drones launched by Iran toward civilian mariners that were rightfully transiting regional waters. American forces also conducted self-defense strikes on an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm Island.

No U.S. personnel were harmed. CENTCOM forces remain vigilant and ready to defend against unwarranted Iranian aggression during the ongoing ceasefire.

It’s time to end Iran’s stall tactics and get the job done!

Good News From The Medical Field

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about some of the recent developments in dealing with cancer.

The article quotes a New York Times article:

A drug nearing regulatory approval, daraxonrasib, is the first to substantially extend the lives of patients with pancreatic cancer. It works by targeting a cellular protein that fuels not just nearly all pancreatic tumors, but also many lung and colon cancers. Those three are the leading causes of cancer deaths.

Now, some scientists predict that the approach could wind up being the most significant advance in cancer treatment in 15 years, since the arrival of immunotherapy…

The drug that opened the floodgates, daraxonrasib, has been fast-tracked for review by the Food and Drug Administration and could win approval later this year. Until then, the agency has signed off on a plan by Revolution Medicines, the small Silicon Valley company developing the drug, to offer early access to some patients.

The pills, three taken daily, are not a cure — eventually, daraxonrasib stops working. Many patients do not respond. And it has side effects that can be harsh, including rash, diarrhea, fatigue, nausea and raw, split fingertips.

Until now, however, patients with pancreatic cancer have typically been offered grueling chemotherapy that does little to extend their lives.

The article also mentions positive developments in breast cancer and prostate cancer research.

The article concludes:

All of these developments are good news for future patients diagnosed with these cancers and could lead to additional breakthroughs as other companies race to find similar drugs they can bring to market. None of this happens overnight of course but with advances in AI we can expect it to happen much more frequently in the coming years. In ten years time, the cumulative change in treatments and survival rates could be pretty dramatic compared to where we are now.

This is really good news!

They Need To Go Back To Spy School!

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On Thursday, Hot Air posted an article about the arrest of David Rush, an ex-Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official. Not only was he charged with the theft of $40 million in gold bars, it has been revealed that his job application to the CIA included fake credentials. Doesn’t the CIA bother to check the information on their job applications? David Rush was hired in 2009 when Leon Panetta was CIA Director.

The article reports:

No doubt, most people will be amazed that David Rush managed to steal $40 million in gold bars from the CIA. After all, each bar weighs over 27 pounds, so you can’t just walk out with them, and if the reports are true, he managed to steal them right under the bureaucrats’ watchful eyes.

He requisitioned them. He actually requisitioned them. You have to admit that was a ballsy move, and in itself it shows that something very very wrong is happening at our nation’s premier intelligence agency.

The article concludes:

We all expect the CIA itself to engage in dishonesty, but we also expect the agency to be good at rooting it out, given that it is in the business of intelligence and of committing fraud against our adversaries.

But no, apparently not. The agency hired a guy who faked his resume. Three different resumes, each more dishonest than the last.

And then hid the fact from those doing background checks and security screenings to ensure that we could trust him with our nation’s secrets. That was the primary part of his job.

Remember, this guy was high enough to requisition $40 million in gold and get it. For “work-related expenses.”

If that doesn’t frighten you, what would?

How did this man get past the basic employee screening process and the security clearance process?

Why We Need To Protect Property Rights

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In 2010, I posted an article about the relationship between property ownership and the wealth of a country. The article essentially said that countries that supported private property ownership tended to be more wealthy than countries that did not. People who own things take better care of them, and property ownership is a way to pass wealth down to the next generation. As someone said–“You don’t wash a rented car.” Unfortunately, Mayor Mamdani of New York City is not aware of the relationship between property ownership and wealth.

On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about Mayor Mamdani’s quest to end private property. The post includes the following X post:

?ABSOLUTELY HISTORIC: 

Mayor Mamdani just unveiled his “Block by Block” housing plan to build and preserve HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of affordable homes across New York City.

The plan includes 200,000 new affordable rent-stabilized homes, billions for NYCHA repairs, stronger tenant protections, and a massive crackdown on slumlords.

“When New Yorkers can afford a home, they can afford to dream.”

This is the LARGEST municipal housing transformation proposal in modern NYC history.

Sounds good, but let’s look at the details. Notice that the homes he is talking about are rent-stabilized–not privately owned!

The article notes:

His headline program will be the new public housing projects, which everybody knows will be models of cleanliness, civility, and livability. 

Right? 

But those are just the tip of the iceberg, and not remotely the point of his program. More city-run housing units, in a city where the government is already the biggest slumlord and abuser of tenants in the country, are just more of the same failed welfare-state policies that have been around for decades. 

Mamdani has bigger plans, as he hinted at in his campaign, and confirmed with his appointment of communist nepo-baby Cea Weaver. 

Cea Weaver doesn’t believe in private property and wants homeownership eliminated, and Mamdani has a plan to begin this path through increased regulation of “slumlords.”

A “slumlord” is basically anybody who gets complaints from tenants, and it is mighty easy to organize tenants to complain about their landlords, especially when you create NGOs to organize them to do so.

The goal is to rack up complaints, charge huge fines, and foreclose on landlords who cannot afford to pay for all the fines.

…You see the strategy? It’s actually quite genius, if you want to implement communism in a society where doing so is especially difficult. Rather than putting everybody you dislike against the wall, you pile up the regulations, selectively enforce them against chosen targets, seize the property, and hand it over to government-approved groups and individuals. 

Hopefully this plan will be before a court soon and will make its way to the Supreme Court. This is a direct attack on private property ownership.

Why Is This A Partisan Matter?

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Yesterday, Hot Air posted an article about the US Senate Homeland Security Committee testimony of James Erdman III.

The article reports:

James Erdman III is testifying today before the US Senate Homeland Security Committee, and he is blowing the whistle on the CIA’s willingness to bow to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s insistence that COVID did not originate in lab leak, likely tied to gain-of-function research.

No surprise there, I have to say. At the time, the CIA agreed to withhold its conclusion that the most likely explanation for COVID’s spread was a lab leak, although it has subsequently stated that the lab leak was likely.

Yesterday MSN reported:

No Democrats attended a committee hearing Wednesday featuring a whistleblower who accused former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Facui of covering-up details about the origins of COVID-19.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee James Erdman III appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to testify about Fauci’s alleged role in covering-up the origins of COVID-19, with no Democrats on the committee being present.

“No Democrats showed. They don’t care to dismantle the deep state,” Gabrielle Lipsky, the deputy communications director for Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Hot Air notes:

This tale, as far as I can tell, is more about the willingness of bureaucracies to cooperate to cover up their own role in disasters than the CIA’s participation in causing this particular one. There is no indication that it played any role itself, but rather that it bowed to political pressure from Fauci et al to cover up their own.

Covid was something that impacted all Americans in some way. Lying to the American people about its origins did nothing to help any of us. The fact that the Democrats did not bother to show up for this hearing is concerning. Their constituents was as impacted by Covid as those of the Republicans.

At Some Point We Need To Admit That It Doesn’t Work

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On Thursday, Hot Air posted an article about the Vineyard Wind farm, off the Nantucket coast.

The article reports:

In the middle of April came word that one of the two partners in the project, GE Renewables, a subsidiary of GE Vernova (which made the infamous blades used in the project), had declared itself no longer a player. It was walking away.

This caused much angst amongst everyone, especially the Vineyard Wind development (with its offshore parents, Iberola and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners), which declared the nearly complete $4.5 billion (with a ‘B’) project could not be finished without GE Renewables full participation. They filed a lawsuit to force GE into honoring the contract.

Within 24 hours, Vineyard Wind had a ruling from a Suffolk Superior court judge telling GE they could not walk away, and to get back to work, calling the GE complaints ‘fanciful,’

…As of yesterday, the Massachusetts judge has agreed to rehear the case because the wind farm is now supposedly ‘operational,’ which completely negates Vineyard Wind’s arguments against GE Renewables’ exit.

…What makes this tit for tat argument interesting are the details. What, exactly, is ‘operational’ in a wind farm?

According to Vineyard Wind, they still need GE around because they’re only partially operational, which sounds kind of like being only ‘mostly dead.’

The article quotes The Citizens’ Task Force on Wind Power:

…When you see the blades spinning, the turbines do not engage the generator to produce power until 6 miles per hour. After 6 mph, they start generating, and they don’t produce full power until around 23 miles per hour. In other words, a 13 megawatt wind at around 12 miles per hour may only produce half its power. Additionally, the turbines are automatically shut down during storms due to high winds or shifting winds. 

The average wind speed off Massachusetts is around 20 miles per hour.

The article at Hot Air notes:

According to the wind farm operator in court in their lawsuit against GE Renewables, it will never pay for itself over the – God willing – 20-year life of the project.

It will never come close.

Nonetheless, there are still silly cultists chanting the mantra, as yet another renewable boondoggle plays out in public.

The article concludes:

…Vineyard Wind’s Final Environmental Impact Statement concludes: “…it is anticipated there will be NO collective impact on global warming as a result of offshore wind projects.”

It’s a shame the same couldn’t be said for consumers’ wallets, the national budget, the ocean, or sea creatures in it.

See also a previous article on the environmental problems caused by the Vineyard Wind project. This project has been a boondoggle from the start.

The New Alliances In The Middle East

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about the new alliances that have formed in the Middle East as a result of Iran’s behavior.

The article reports:

It’s been little noticed by the media, but ever since the beginning of the Iran War, Arab countries have been quietly, but not secretly, coordinating with Israel.

The UAE, for instance, has Israeli advisors on the ground who are helping with air defense, and an Iron Dome battery is based in the UAE. During the 12-Day War, several Arab countries shot down Iranian drones aimed at Israel.

…And now, the UAE has made clear that they are entering the kinetic side of the war, and are coordinating with Israel and presumably the United States, and are not hiding their cooperation with Israel in the least.

…While the media portrays this war as primarily the US and Israel against Iran, most of the strikes that Iran has made have been against the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. During the 12-Day war, Iran not only struck Israel, but also Qatar, which has a US base.

The article concludes:

It is possible that today’s attacks on the UAE are intended to create a rift among the GCC states, especially following the UAE’s exit from OPEC. Qatar’s recent condemnation of the Iranian attacks suggests that this is unlikely. 

Things are getting interesting again. 

Qatar has been playing both sides of the street up until recently. Much of the Hamas leadership was safely ensconced in Qatar after the September 7 attack on Israel. Qatar has also historically been a major funding source for terrorism. It will be interesting to see if that changes. The countries in the Middle East have a choice–do they align with the country ruled by a tyrant whose ordinary citizens still live in the 5th century with very little freedom or do they align with a successful democracy that leads the world in scientific achievement and continues to prosper despite attacks from all sides. Who would you want as your trade partner?

Actions Have Consequences

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The attacks (verbal and physical) on conservative politicians and conservative journalist have been going on for a while. One Representative told people during the first Trump administration that if someone sees a person from that administration they should ‘get in their face.’ That is not good advice.

On Wednesday, The New York Post posted an article about an attack on a conservative journalist in Minnesota.

The article reports:

A Minnesota couple — including a dad who fancied himself “the voice of a generation” — and their daughter were hit with federal charges for allegedly assaulting a Turning Point USA reporter at an anti-ICE protest earlier this month.

Christopher Ostroushko, 51, Deyanna Ostroushko, 46, and daughter Paige Ostroushko, 20, were indicted for the assault of TPUSA reporter Savanah Hernandez outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Fort Snelling, the US Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

Horrifying video from the April 11 anti-ICE rally outside the Whipple building captured Christopher Ostroushko suddenly shoving Hernandez, 29, to the ground with both hands, while yelling, “Don’t f–king touch my daughter!”

The enraged dad’s assault came after a female protester was seen punching Hernandez in the face, knocking her clean off her feet and into a fence behind her, and before another woman tackled her to the pavement once again, according to the footage.

Hernandez previously told The Post that she was tasked with filming protest activity — and did so untouched until she was identified by “a mob” of “left-wingers” for her work with the organization co-founded by assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

On Thursday, Hot Air reported:

Deyanna Ostroushko is probably not looking at actual federal prison time, unless she has a previous conviction on her record. However, Christopher and Paige are looking at the potential for serious time inside a Club Fed or worse if convicted of the top charge in the indictment. Their attorney may argue that Hernandez’ injuries are not serious enough to warrant a felony conviction under that statute, but that’s not how the statute is written. They may not get the full ten years, but it sounds like US Attorney David Rosen plans to make the Ostroushkos an example pour encourager les autres and to establish consequences for the “national scourge” that the Ostroushkos represent. 

That’s certainly the message Harmeet Dhillon intends to send, loudly and clearly. She was “on it” from the beginning, and in terms of grand-jury proceedings, practically sprinted across the finish line to file this indictment against the family that preys together to stay together. We need much more of this tough approach to political violence across the board. It will take more than a prison sentence for the Ostroushkos to re-set the incentive structure around the near-riots around federal immigration facilities and attacks on conservative observers to them.

This is unacceptable behavior. Fortunately, it was caught on firm, so the defendants will have a hard time proving their innocence.

Support From Unusual Places

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On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about a Supreme Court case involving a New Jersey Pregnancy Center.

The article reports:

There was another Supreme Court decision today which isn’t getting as much attention as the Voting Rights decision, but it represents a win for pro-life pregnancy centers against an attorney general seeking to harass them. Here’s the backstory to this case taken from the decision written by Justice Gorsuch.

First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc., is a religious nonprofit organization that has provided counseling and resources to pregnant women in New Jersey since 1985. Believing that “life begins at conception,” and seeking “to protect and honor life in all stages of development,” the group does not provide abortions or refer clients to others for abortions.

In 2022, New Jersey’s Attorney General, Matthew Platkin, established a “Reproductive Rights Strike Force.”… Shortly after its creation, the Strike Force issued a “consumer alert” in which it accused groups like First Choice of “seek[ing] to prevent people from accessing comprehensive reproductive health care” by “provid[ing] false or misleading information about abortion.” App. 357–358. The alert concluded by directing women to abortion providers and asking members of the public who believed they were “victim[s] of fraudulent, deceptive, misleading, or unlawful conduct” to “please file a complaint with the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs.”

In short, this was a partisan witch hunt which turned up no witches. Naturally, that didn’t matter to AG Platkin who resorted to subpoena’s and threats.

Neither the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs or the Attorney General’s office received any complaints. The Attorney General demanded a list of donors, which was refused by the Pregnancy Center.

The Washington Post reported:

The Supreme Court held unanimously on Wednesday that a chain of faith-based antiabortion pregnancy centers can mount a federal court challenge to a subpoena for its donors that it claims is part of an intimidation campaign by New Jersey officials hostile to its views on abortion.

The justices sided with First Choice Women’s Resource Centers Inc., which claimed the request by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin (D) chilled its First Amendment rights to speech and association with donors because disclosure might make supporters leery of contributing money.

Also noted in The Washington Post:

In briefs submitted to the court, a number of organizations noted that having an avenue to fight politically motivated investigations was crucial for nonprofits and other advocacy-based groups.

Among them was the American Civil Liberties Union, which publicly acknowledged it did not fall on the same side as First Choice when it came to abortion policy but signed on to an amicus brief, saying that such broad subpoenas could “put all advocacy at risk.”

Sometimes politics makes strange bedfellows!

The Technology Is Not Quite Ready For Prime Time

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On Friday, Hot Air posted an article detailing what has happened when municipalities decided to use electric buses. The article reminds us that electric buses do not do well in cold weather and that use of electric school buses in New York State and other northern states left students cold and stranded.

The article reports:

In March, I had a field day posting some of the latest news that had come in on both the urban and school district E-bus experiments. Tragically for the tax dollars involved, and, in some cases, the health, comfort, and well-being of the kiddos on the buses, most were abysmal disappointments and many flat-out disasters.

There were mechanical issues galore, scary fires that thankfully erupted in unoccupied vehicles but consumed the fleet in some cases, and maintenance/parts problems arising from bankrupt bus manufacturers that seemed insurmountable.

Tellingly, data was also now available from some of the school districts that had first adopted the E-buses, and the promised affordability was nowhere to be found. This was causing considerable consternation.

…This is with the Naples (NY) School District running only two electric school buses, both of which had initially paid for by federal grants, etc.

36 cents per mile for diesel and $3.18 per mile for electric

The article concludes with an example of this mess from Florida:

Local 10 News has learned that because federal grant money funded a significant portion of the electric bus fleets in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, there are federal guidelines tied to how long those buses are expected to remain in service.

If the buses are taken out of service early, counties may have to repay a portion of that federal funding.

That possibility is now driving decisions in both counties in very different ways.

In Broward County,transit officials have formally asked the Federal Transit Administration for forgiveness in an effort to avoid paying that money back.

“And so one of the things that we are, the application that we submitted to the FTA is for us to be able to get forgiveness from them so that we do not have to reimburse them for the funds that they have provided to us and also to be able to dispose of them,” said Coree Cuff Lonergan, CEO and general manager of Broward County Transit.

In Miami-Dade County, leaders are taking a different approach.

Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the county is still trying to find a way to get the buses back on the road.

“We are still hopeful we can still put them into service. The company that is the successor company is not able to give us the level of service we need,” she said.

…I think they need to scrounge up a new mayor, but that’s just me.

How much money did this electric boondoggle cost taxpayers?

Negotiating With The People Who Want Peace

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Just as Iran has become a county led by tyrants that do not represent the population, Lebanon in many ways has been taken over by Hezbollah. With the funding of Hezbollah by Iran at least temporarily cut off, this is the time to free Lebanon from their terrorist grip.

On Friday, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about the negotiations for peace between Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah was not included in those negotiations.

The article reports:

The Wall Street Journal raises the question of the Rabid Dog That Was Not Allowed to Bark In DC in its analysis of the ceasefire brokered by Marco Rubio between Israel and Lebanon. Reporters Omar Abdel-Baqui and Dov Lieber concede that the pact engineered by the Secretary of State comes as a “historic step” between the two countries, especially since Lebanon has never recognized Israel’s status as a state. However, they wonder just how these negotiations can take place in the absence of “one of the main belligerents”:

The article quotes The Wall Street Journal:

Without Hezbollah at the negotiating table, the cease-fire and the possibility of a successful Israel-Lebanon peace agreement would be on shaky ground.

…In 1983, the countries signed a peace agreement, which fell apart after Hezbollah and other factions opposed it. Another U.S.-backed peace effort in 1993 broke down, owing to opposition from Syria, which then dominated Lebanon, and the impossibility of security guarantees with Hezbollah. A November 2024 deal was supposed to lead to the Lebanese government’s demilitarizing Hezbollah, and Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon and halting strikes on Lebanon. None of those objectives were achieved.

…Meeting a group of Lebanese lawmakers, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun endorses continued direct negotiations with Israel and says that his country is working to secure the withdrawal of Israeli forces, to bring back Lebanese citizens held by Israel and to solve border disputes.

Aoun says “direct negotiations are crucial… and the gateway to advancing the negotiations” with Israel.

The Lebanese Armed Forces “will play a fundamental role after the withdrawal of Israeli forces,” Aoun says, promising they will deploy to the Israeli border and will reassure residents of southern Lebanon, “after their return to their villages and towns, that there will be no armed forces other than the army and the legitimate security forces.”

The article at Hot Air concludes:

That’s why Hezbollah was not invited to participate in the talks. It’s also why Israel is not constrained by the ceasefire if Hezbollah violates it. Hezbollah did not get a seat at the table because Iran doesn’t get to dictate terms in Lebanon any longer. The IRGC regime may not get to dictate terms in Iran for much longer, for that matter. So why invite its terror proxies to discuss their own destruction?

I think the Lebanese are tired of living in a country held hostage by a terrorist organization.

Some Random Thoughts And X Posts About The Rescue Of American Airmen

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On April 6th, Hot Air posted an article about the rescue of the two American airmen shot down over Iran. The article included a lot of X posts that illustrated the difference between some America’s view of the rescue and the European view of the rescue.

My favorite quote from the article was a statement by Former CENTCOM commander Ret. Gen. Frank McKenzie, who PERFECTLY described the situation– “It takes a year to build an aircraft — and it takes 200 YEARS to build a military tradition where you don’t leave anybody behind!”

The article included the following X post:

The article notes:

As soon as the news broke of the downed F-15, a massive divide became evident: Trump’s opponents, to a person, shouted that this was proof that the United States was losing, that Iran had the upper hand, and, worst of all, a creeping sense that some of these people felt absolute glee.

…Not all, of course. It is never all, but the overwhelming sentiment seemed to be satisfaction, and even a creeping hope that Iran would capture our pilot and WSO. And when the pilot was recovered, the intensity of the left’s seeming hope that the WSO’s fate would be determined by Iran was…disturbing.

This is another X post from the article:

I am not sure if we can ever bridge the divide that we see developing in western civilization. We have not had to defend our civilization in this generation, and I am not sure we will be able to defend it if we are called to do so.

Policy Changes Before An Election?

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It’s amazing what politicians will do to get elected. On Saturday, Hot Air posted an article with one example.

The article reports:

Kathy Hochul is up for reelection this year, and has a big, big problem: for all the talk about an “affordability” agenda, every single policy the Democrats like to push increases costs, reduces quality of life, and drives people out of Blue states.

And one of the worst problems she faces is skyrocketing energy bills, and the prospect that those prices will rise even more and faster in the next few years as climate deadlines rapidly approach.

The article quotes The New York Times:

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday moved to alter and delay the implementation of New York State’s landmark 2019 climate law, which calls for gradually decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by certain deadlines.

Those proposed adjustments include delaying issuing the regulations for enforcing the law — already two years late — until 2030 and amending how certain emissions are measured.

“We need more time,” Ms. Hochul wrote in an editorial that was published on Friday morning in The Empire Report, a news site that covers state politics. “So much has radically changed since the Climate Act was enacted, necessitating common-sense adjustments.”

The proposal, anticipated by lawmakers in Albany, comes late in the budget negotiation process. Although Ms. Hochul has considerable leverage to push for her agenda during this time, members of the Legislature will need to approve the final budget, which would include changes to the climate law.

The article notes:

There is not a serious person alive who didn’t understand that imposing huge costs for not meeting impossible climate goals would raise costs for consumers. You had to have had a lobotomy or be a liberal to not predict this.

Passing the climate law in 2019 was perfect for liberal politicians; it helped funnel money in great quantities to political allies for years, and the worst of the price increases was put into the seemingly distant future. But that “distant” future is not so distant now, and Hochul sees political trouble if she doesn’t relieve the artificial price pressure the law has created.

The article concludes:

As always, the Democrats warn about a fake crisis, promise the moon, spend tons of money, make things infinitely worse, and then say they will fix the problem.

Hey, folks, I have a better plan: get rid of these idiots and elect some Republicans. They aren’t perfect, but you get a lot fewer butterfly bridges, fraudulent programs, insane green energy laws, and as a bonus, we won’t put boys in girls’ locker rooms.

Give it a try. You may like it.

The Governor’s election in New York State is going to be fun to watch!

I Think She Has Missed The Point

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On Thursday, Hot Air posted an article titled, “Kathy Hochul Begs Rich People to Come Back to New York.” Why does she think they left?

The article reports:

Hochul’s appeal to the millionaires who are fleeing New York came last week at a POLITICO “Fireside Chat” that was fascinating, if you are into such things. It gave us insight into the dilemma that national Democrats face: their base is radicalized, their records are appalling, and their states are bleeding citizens.

Here are a quote from the chat:

Now, there are some patriotic millionaires who stepped up. Okay, cut me the checks. If you want to be supportive, but maybe the first step should be to go down to Palm Beach and see who we can bring back home because our tax base has been eroded. So I philosophically don’t have a problem, I have to look at the fact that we are in competition with other states who have less of a tax burden on their corporations and their individuals. And I would say remote work changed everything. There were people who could only work in an office in Manhattan or work in New York State and they were captives to our state. They were going to stay. We saw that that’s not the case. Wall Street, businesses looking at Texas? They’re not going there because they have a nicer governor, I know that for sure, but they’re going there because of the tax rate. We have to be smart about this. But we can fund what we want to fund with what we already are taking in.

I have a few questions. How many people have your extensive social programs actually helped? How much of the money collected in taxes actually goes to the people who need it and how much goes to bureaucratic expenses? Why should a businessman bring his business to a place that is extremely expensive to do business?

Bad management gets bad results!

I Didn’t Pay To Be An Ally Of Iran

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On March 5th, Hot Air posted an article about the changing alliances in the Middle East. There are a lot of reasons for those changes–economic, political, and reading the writing on the wall. In an effort to expand the war and apply pressure against Israel, Iran has attacked Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman, and Iraq. Those attacks have not had the desired effect–in fact in many cases those countries have now quietly or openly aligned with Israel. I wonder if these countries are grateful that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.

The article reports:

Donald Trump is breaking the post-Cold War assumptions in foreign policy and rewriting the strategic rules. Campus radicals in America, and antisemitic professors and transnational elites are much more hostile to Israel than Saudi Arabia or even Qatar.

The international establishment can’t wrap its head around the new reality, nor the opportunities that the changes in strategic alliances promise.

Winning the Iran war, or whatever you want to call it, has the potential to reshape the Middle East for decades to come. Especially if the new Iranian regime is relatively moderate, as we can hope, if not expect, yet.

In the1970s the Middle East was divided between Arab states hostile to Israel and an alliance of Israel, Iran, and the United States. Since the Iranian revolution, the Arab states remained enemies with Iran, had reasonable relations with the US, and a mostly hostile peace with Israel.

Could we soon see a new alignment, with Israel, the Arab states, and even Iran coexisting well together?

We can hope.

The Abraham Accords were the beginning of this process. We could be looking at a peaceful Middle East. It has been a long time since that happened.

Doing The Right Thing After Being Told Not To

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about Vinny Martorano, a young reporter who covers Austin, Texas. He was out and about covering the protests and rallies in Austin after the attack on Iran.

The article reports:

He’s just about ready to go when his cameraman hands him a phone with a message from the station bosses, telling him to cool his jets on the ‘Yay, Trump‘ crowd coverage.

‘They don’t want us focusing on that,‘ says the cameraman, and it is hard to make out over the racket of the voices behind him.

WELL, I AM

The article concludes:

What a sad commentary on the state of the media that this one young man’s honest adherence to the essence of reporting the truth of the story in front of him is just a gobsmacker in this day and age.

A reporting job for a major affiliate in a larger market like Austin is a plum opportunity, and to buck the bosses to tell the truth?

To show THE UNADORNED, UNEDITED TRUTH instead of massaging the sensitivities of the pervading ideology?

I’m sorry – that is beyond spectacular.

Maybe it’s because he went to a mid-major like Ball State (yes, I read his bio) that he’s kept his innate integrity. 

Whatever it is, his parents raised what used to simply be known as a ‘good man’ – the same ‘good men’ who are now as rare as Sasquatch sightings in his profession.

I don’t know what will happen once word of this hits the bosses, or if they’ve already ripped him a new one for his report.

All I know is that the media could use more Vinnies on-air and a whole lot less of the national CBS reporters.

I’ll lay you dollars to donuts they do the exact opposite.

Vinny has a future in alternative media. It remains to be seen if he has a future with CBS.

The Alternative

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Some Democrats chose not to attend the State of the Union Address. Some Democrats went so far as to create events running simultaneously with the State of the Union Address. One such event was the People’s State of the Union rally. I am not exactly sure what they were trying to accomplish, but Hot Air posted a few videos on Thursday.

Please follow the link above to see the videos. I could not figure out how to insert them.

The article at Hot Air is titled, “When Democrats Make Donald Trump The Normie In The Room, They’re Losing.” I totally agree.

The article reports:

Donald Trump has had, without question, a first fourteenish months in office that is hard to top in any other administration of my lifetime in accomplishments. And to be fair, it would also be correct to say that no president has stirred up more angst and controversy among his detractors than any other administration in a similar time period.

After last week’s press conference at the White House a day after the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on the tariffs case, Donald Trump’s contempt for the majority opinion was so palpable that one of the questions going into last night’s State of the Union was how soon and how hard the President would rhetorically apply the Trump tattoo to the justices present in the joint session of Congress.

Trump certainly had words, but they were tempered and not made personal. In fact, for virtually the entirety of the address, which came in a few ticks under two hours, the speech was about the best speech Donald Trump has ever delivered.

At times, establishing the narrative that real progress has been made on economic problems created and/or exacerbated by the Biden Regency, and at other points a celebration of American excellence, whether in sports, or bravery, courage, and resilience in all walks of life, this was simply a State of the Union speech unlike any other we’ve heard. And that is a very, very good thing.

One thing to remember when considering the bad behavior of some Democrats who attended the speech–these Democrats were elected by their districts. To be even more clear–Ilhan Omar probably accurately represents the voters in her district. Obviously, we need to think carefully about who we allow to come to America.

The Death Of America’s Big Cities

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about the financial problems of big cities in America. Most of these big cities are run by Democrats, and most of these problems are avoidable.

The article opens with some information about the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:

The Boston Globe ran a poll last December which found that a full third of respondents were thinking about leaving the state because of the high cost of living.

The Globe/Suffolk survey found that about one-third of Massachusetts voters have seriously considered leaving the state in the past year because of affordability pressures, even as a majority still believe the state is generally moving in the right direction. Inflation, health care costs, housing, taxes, and soaring utility bills topped the list of financial stressors.

Boston.com asked their readers how they felt and and even higher percentage said they were looking to move. Here’s one response they received:

“This state just keeps getting more and more expensive and there’s no end in sight. I realize that inflation and tariff impacts are a nationwide problem, but here in MA, it definitely feels worse. I feel that our elected officials, from my own town’s government up to the Governor herself, aren’t doing anything about it. They all just complain and blame the president, which I see as deflecting. My heating bills are insane, my grocery costs are eye-watering, and my taxes just keep going up year over year … It feels like MA is run by the ultra-wealthy elite, and I’m not in the club so I’m out of here.”

Another person said they planned to move to North Carolina and called staying in Massachusetts “financial suicide.” The numbers back up the anecdotes. The state is shrinking.

The article notes:

Blue-state and blue-city voters pay higher taxes. More than half of city and local government expenditures (and 20 percent of state expenditures) are paid out to employees. These blue states and cities often also pay state and local government workers more than similar jobs pay in red jurisdictions, even after adjusting for the cost of living.

Much of this gap is tied up in pension benefits. Workers generally value higher wages today more than retirement guarantees in the future. But pensions are attractive to politicians who pass future costs to future taxpayers. And it is the job of unions to fight for the largest benefits they can…

Consider Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois. A fearless opponent of Donald Trump, his bravery failed him when Chicago police and firefighter unions sought to raise pensions, often by thousands of dollars. Against the advice of civic and business leaders concerned about, as they put it, “grossly underfunded pensions,” Mr. Pritzker signed legislation that partly undid a 2010 attempt to rein in benefits for new employees.

The new law will cost the city $60 million next year — more than enough money to cover the city’s summer job program — before ballooning to $11 billion over three decades. Because of Illinois’s Constitution, the commitments cannot be reversed.

…Finally, Fareed Zakaria had a good segment on his show in which he made the case that blue cities are out of control. He’s primarily talking about New York City and Los Angeles, but the problems are the same as the ones in Boston and Chicago. High taxes and high cost of living created by ever-expanding city and state budgets that outstrip the rate of inflation and ignore shrinking populations.

Please follow the link to the article and watch the video in the article. Elections have consequences, and a number of American states and cities are going to collapse financially if voters don’t make changes in the leadership of those places.

Be Wary When The Lobster Shows Up

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On Saturday, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about the rising tensions with Iran.

The article notes:

What will happen next in the standoff with Iran? Donald Trump drew a red line nearly two months ago, and the regime brutally crossed it. Trump acknowledged this yesterday, announcing that US intelligence estimates the mullahs murdered more than 32,000 Iranian protesters last month:

…Since those massacres, Trump has assembled one of the largest naval and air armadas the Middle East has ever seen. He has demanded that Ali Khamenei stop all uranium enrichment activities, put serious limits on its ballistic-missile systems, and end support for terror proxies Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. Iran keeps trying to offer a sequel to the deal the mullahs cut with Barack Obama, a JCPOA-Lite that only addresses their nuclear-weapons development – and that only for the next three to five years. 

The article notes:

Taking Khamenei and his princeling off the chessboard would be satisfying, but it would change very little. They are not the only mullahs in the clique that runs the theocracy in Iran. The other mullahs are almost certainly not living in close connection to each other, either, likely housed in residential districts where civilian collateral deaths would be almost a certainty. A decapitation strike would have to be timed for a plenary meeting of the mullahs, and the Iranian regime would be idiotic to call one at this time. This option might take the Khameneis out, but another mullah will take their place, and so on. It would end nothing. 

So what’s next? Whatever it is, it may come quickly. The Times of Israel reports today that an “unbridgeable impasse” has emerged in the indirect talks between the US and Iran, likely over Trump’s demand for a full-spectrum retreat by Iran. It’s bad enough that the Iranians are refusing to read US proposals on missile limits:

On Sunday, MSN reported the following:

While there is no official confirmation, a common belief suggests the US military serves its troops a ‘last meal’ with a fancy menu including steak, lobster, and pie, before sending them on a war front. Some link the hearty meal to a dangerous deployment or an extended mission. The theory has circulated on social media for years and often resurfaces during periods of geopolitical tensions. …

Last year, in June, similar reports surfaced on social media on June 18 after military soldier Antonia Lopez posted a lavish meal video that went viral on social media. The day also coincided with the US Army’s birthday. In the clip, Lopez showed that she was given steak, lobster, caprese salad, asparagus, hush puppies, a baked potato, shrimp cocktail, fruit salad, garlic bread, cake, and pecan pie in the meal.

Days after the video was posted, the United States carried out military strikes on Iranian targets on June 22.

Hang on to your hats–the road ahead is going to be bumpy for a little while!

The Fulton County Saga Continues

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I wonder if the people who ran the election in 2020 thought that they would still be in the news at 2026. The truth is getting closer, and I hope the people responsible for whatever shenanigans took place will be held accountable.

On Tuesday, Hot Air reported:

If I were a more cynical man, I would think that the election officials in Fulton County have something to hide. 

As a Pollyanna, though, I am certain that it means nothing at all that Fulton County is suing to stop the FBI from examining the evidence that could prove or disprove whether shenanigans that likely cost Trump the 2020 elections took place in that county. 

Liberals believe that the 2020 election was “the most secure in history,” which is about as ridiculous as praising the Quality Learing Center for its curriculum and stewardship of public money. There were, in fact, few speed bumps to even slow down election fraud, and despite many lawsuits being filed, there were no efforts to check whether election laws were followed or ballot security enforced. In many states, the elections weren’t even run by the Secretaries of State, having handed the process over in all but name to the Zuckerbucks nonprofits.

Fulton County has spent years hiding the ballots, and even tried to destroy them well before the legal time requirement. The county has violated court orders to keep them hidden and has already admitted that they broke the law in how they counted and verified the vote totals.

Now that the ballots are in the FBI’s hands due to a search warrant, Fulton County is trying to keep them from being examined, and will have a heck of a time explaining why the 40 boxes they claimed existed do not appear to be in FBI hands. 

The article concludes:

For years, the Georgia political establishment defended the process, even as the Fulton County elections office was cleared out due to its manifest “incompetence.” We can only speculate why even Republicans defended the vote count—perhaps it was only that Pravda and leftist prosecutors went to enormous effort to punish anybody expressing doubts, and perhaps for another reason.

But the defense is likely to collapse, in the same way that the Fauci/Pravda line that COVID came from a raccoon dog, not the WIV, has collapsed. Unfortunately, that means that the truth will come out, but nobody will pay a price.

Most ironic of all is that the RICO case against Trump was entirely predicated on the quality of the Georgia vote count, which Trump didn’t believe for a second. As usual, Trump will be proven right, his critics will be proven liars who use lawfare to suppress the truth and to try to deny Trump an election victory, and…nobody will pay a price, and liberals will still cling to the lies.

Stay tuned. This case may have broader implications.

One Of The Side Effects Of Shutting Down USAID

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The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was a taxpayer-funded agency that provided money for a number of non-governmental (NGO) agencies. Over the years it evolved into something you could reasonably call a money laundering scheme. When a country needed something from America, rather than give the money directly to the need, the money went through an NGO and then to where it was needed. Obviously, the NGO got their cut. What the NGO used their cut for was not necessarily reported. I don’t know if President Trump fully understood what would happen when the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) caused the end of USAID, but the consequences are politically significant.

On February 12th, Hot Air posted this headline:

Look at What Happens When the NGO>Democrat Pipeline Shrinks

The article reports:

Presidential years tend to be high-turnout elections, and off-years not so much. And since elections are won by margins, every bit of voter motivation matters. Getting a larger share of your voters to the polls can make all the difference, even in situations where the majority of people disagree with you. You need the majority of people who VOTE to win, not the majority of people who have an opinion.

With all that said, the Democrats face one very big problem: after Harris’s disastrous 2024 performance, which burned through so much cash to no effect, donors are not excited to give Democrats money. And, more importantly, DOGE and the fraud investigations have put a huge dent in the supply of reliable Democratic cash: government spending that goes into a black hole and then comes back to fill the party’s and its candidates’ coffers.

…Democratic voters may be foaming at the mouth, but it turns out that the mouth foamers have never been the big source of cash that the Democrats always claimed. ActBlue has been a money laundering machine, and USAID and other government programs have been handing over billions of dollars to NGOs that do the Democrats’ dirty work, and that firehose of cash has been cut to a trickle.

The article concludes:

Now that the money spigots are being turned off one by one, starting with USAID but going far beyond that, the Democrats can’t seem to tap into that sweet flow of cash anymore.

And no, the cash disparity can’t be attributed to Republicans being in power again—the Democrats had a huge cash advantage in Trump’s first term. Trump and the Republicans may be doing well in raising money, but the Democrats’ money supply really has crashed.

I can’t predict what the cash advantage will mean come November. The evidence seems to be that spending makes a marginal difference, but far less than you would expect given how often you see ads on TV. Probably the best money spent is on “Get Out the Vote” (GOTV) efforts, which Democrats are quite good at.

Or at least they were, using all those phony NGOs. We’ll see this year.

I am not crazy enough to try to predict the results of the midterms. There are too many factors–the economy, the propaganda, voter integrity, etc. But this is definitely turning out to be an interesting year.

Beware The False Narrative

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On Saturday, Hot Air posted an article about the narrative the media (and the Democrats) have put forth about the shooting in Minneapolis on Saturday. The narrative somehow does not acknowledge that resisting arrest when having a gun is a really bad idea.

The article reports:

Few people really know what exactly happened this morning in Minneapolis, and that certainly includes the governor and Mayor of Minneapolis. 

Yet both of them started making statements blaming ICE for the shooting of an armed man who was resisting arrest, and seemed to be encouraging the citizens of Minneapolis to attack ICE because they are part of an “invasion” of the state. 

Enforcing federal law is not an invasion of the state. In this case it is the federal government doing the job the state is supposed to do.

The article notes:

Democrats have already settled on a narrative, which amounts to a claim that ICE and the Border Patrol are not legitimate law enforcement officers, that they are kidnapping children and peaceful American citizens, and that everybody being arrested is a “neighbor” who was just minding their business and making our communities stronger.

…Senate Democrats, who haven’t a clue about conditions in Minneapolis, are attacking ICE as a violent version of the Keystone Cops. They are untrained, incompetent, but also Gestapo agents who are arresting innocent rapists and murderers who are, through adding their diversity, increasing the strength of our community.

…The reality is that the streets are being taken over by Black Bloc rioters who are assaulting federal agents every day, and that death threats against ICE agents are a fact of life here in Minneapolis. Random people are being stopped in the streets by anti-ICE “protesters” and harassing them.

…Frey and Walz have all the tools to keep the peace, and could, at any time, tone down the temperature and the rhetoric. All they need to do is assist in the peaceful apprehension of known criminals and turn over the criminal illegal aleins in jail.

…But the media and the Democrats think they have a winning issue on their hands, and want to make Trump back down. They have chosen a more violent version of the same strategy used in the shutdown. They hold the power to end the problem, but milk it for political reasons and blame the president for not doing what they, themselves, have the power to do.

When was the last time you saw a Democrat do something good for his country rather than something he thought was good for his party?

If you want peace in your city, elect someone who will uphold the law!

Taking Action In Minnesota

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On Tuesday, Hot Air reported that subpoenas were served on Monday to at least five Democratic officials in Minnesota as part of of the investigation into the response to the federal government crackdown on illegal immigrants in that state.

The article quotes a New York Times report:

Federal prosecutors issued subpoenas on Tuesday to at least five Democratic officials in Minnesota, ramping up the Justice Department’s investigation into their response to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown in the state, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The subpoenas sought documents from Gov. Tim Walz, Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis and Mayor Kaohly Her of St. Paul related to their policies on immigration enforcement efforts in the state. Two Minnesota prosecutors, Keith Ellison, the state attorney general, and Mary Moriarty, the Hennepin County attorney, were also sent similar subpoenas…

While the subpoenas did not cite a specific criminal statute, the inquiry as a whole was said to center on whether elected officials in Minnesota had conspired to impede the thousands of federal agents who have been in the state since last month looking for undocumented immigrants. But the investigation is likely to run up against stiff pushback for examining political speech and conduct that is traditionally protected by the First Amendment.

Free speech is protected by the First Amendment. The right to worship is also protected by the U.S. Constitution.

The article concludes:

The polling on Walz’s attacks on ICE must have been pretty bad because he’s really done a 180 in the past week. Instead of repeating that the state was at war with federal agents he’s now, for the second time, calling for calm. Walz is acting like an arsonist who suddenly decides to make friends with the fire department to help his image. If you want calm, governor, stop throwing rhetorical bombs at the feds and making demands you have no right to make. And you could make a call to Mayor Frey and ask him to dial it back a bit as well.

I have always heard the expression, “Minnesota nice.” I am not sure it applies right now although I suspect that a lot of the people who are making trouble are not actually residents of the state.

Were They Making Wishes Or Predictions?

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On January 3rd, Stephen Moore posted an article at Hot Air about the predictions by the so-called economic gurus about the economy in 2025.

The article reports:

Well, Donald Trump has done it again!

He stumped the chumps. The “chumps” in this case were the “blue-chip” academic and financial economists whose consensus forecast this time last year was of high inflation and low economic growth. Wrong on both counts.

As you’ve probably heard, the GDP growth for Q3 came in at a red-hot 4.3%, following 3.5% for the second quarter. Some 90% of professional economists got it wrong — all underestimating the strength of the Trump economy. QED: These weren’t random errors. These were “hate Trump” errors.

They also predicted inflation of above 3% for 2025. It’s going to come in at closer to 2.7%, with the last two months trending down to the Fed inflation target of 2%.

Starting in the second quarter, GDP has been nearly twice as high as predicted.

To quote the inimitable special agent Maxwell Smart, “Missed it by that much.”

This isn’t the first time the whiz kids whiffed on the Trump economy. These are the same Keynesian economists who warned at the start of Trump’s first term that we would see a stock market crash. The stock market is today at record highs on all three indices. Paul Krugman, who won a Nobel Prize in economics and wrote regularly for The New York Times for years, famously feared a second Great Depression if Trump policies took hold.

The danger in putting a businessman in the White House was that if he succeeded, he would make all of the politicians look useless. How long have Americans put up with wasteful spending and fraud from a government that was constantly demanding more of the taxpayers’ money? On a side note, who wrote the grants for the daycare centers in Minnesota, who approved them, and who signed the checks? Would that fraud have been discovered and dealt with under another administration?

The article concludes:

If these blue-chippers had any integrity, they’d admit that they don’t know what they are talking about and send back their Ivy League PhDs.

Fat chance that will ever happen. Instead these prophets of doom will continue to give the entire economics profession a black eye. No wonder it is known as “the dismal science.”

A Well Informed Citizenry…

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Thomas Jefferson said, “A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.” (source here)

I am not sure we are currently meeting that criteria.

One of the major stories that finally got national attention this week was the rampant fraud in the Somali community in Minnesota. This is not a new story. The story finally went national due to a video posted on YouTube by Nick Shirley. How many other states that we have not heard about are also guilty of medicaid fraud or other fraud in government programs? I haven’t heard any real outrage from the major media.

In an article posted at Hot Air on Monday, Duane Patterson states:

Now I know what you’re saying. Media isn’t covering this new scandal. In fact, the Star-Tribune and Pioneer Press, the two papers of the Twin Cities, haven’t spent so much as a column inch on the story. The glorious thing about 2025, and a trend that shows it will accelerate going into 2026, is that people are not getting their news from old leftist media anymore. That 42-minute Nick Shirley video I showed you earlier? 90 million views in two days. 90 million! Not bad for a 23-year-old kid doing the unthinkable – reporting and journalism. 

Alphabet networks and Minnesota local stations will continue to ignore the story into oblivion, like they did with Powerline’s Medicaid fraud scandal. But the truth has this funny way of getting out. As white hot as the internet is with Nick Shirley’s reporting, Fox News jumped in over the weekend, and by the time they interviewed him about the Somali daycare scandal, another 10 million had seen his video on YouTube. 

What is happening in Minnesota is not an isolated incident. At what point will American voters become so disgusted with fraud that they will ‘throw the current bums out’ and elect a new set of bums?

How many college students who supported “Palestine” in campus protests actually knew what happened on October 7th or how the hostages taken were treated? How many young female American college students understand that rape was part of that day and part of the treatment of the hostages? Would they still support “Palestine” if they knew? On Monday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article that included the testimony of one of the Hamas hostages from October 7th. Where are the women protesting the idea that rape is a valid part of war?

We will not survive as a republic if people don’t begin to discover their own alternative sources of news rather than relying on the mainstream media.