The real reason America created public schools… had nothing to do with education.” It’s a bold claim—but the truth is more complex, and far more interesting than the headline suggests. 🧠

Public education in the United States began taking shape in the 19th century, especially during the Common School Movement led by Horace Mann. His goal wasn’t to avoid education—it was to expand it. At the time, schooling was inconsistent, often private, and inaccessible to many families. Public schools were created to provide free, basic education to all children, regardless of social class. 🏫

But education wasn’t the only purpose. These schools also aimed to create a more stable and unified society. In a rapidly growing nation with waves of immigration and industrial change, leaders saw schools as a way to teach shared values, civic responsibility, and basic skills needed for work and participation in society. 🌍

Critics often point out that early public schools emphasized discipline, routine, and conformity—preparing students for factory life during the Industrial Revolution. There’s some truth to that. Schools did reflect the needs of the time, including workforce preparation and social order. But that doesn’t mean education wasn’t the goal—it means it served multiple purposes at once. ⚙️

So was it about control, or about opportunity? The answer is: both factors played a role. Public schools were designed to educate, but also to shape citizens, reduce inequality, and respond to economic demands. Over time, the system evolved into what we recognize today. 📈

In this video, we break down the real history behind public education in America, separating facts from viral claims and exploring why schools were created in the first place.

Between the 10th and 13th centuries, the monks at the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, Greece, sporadically broke down a 6th century manuscript and reused its pages as binding material and flyleaves for other texts. In time, Codex H effectively disappeared. These new volumes were spread across Europe and it was only through the enterprise of a sharp-eyed 18th century French monk that researchers today have been able to locate the lost folios among libraries in Italy, Greece, Russia, Ukraine, and France.

All the same, while the general content of Codex H, which contains a copy of the Letters of St. Paul, was generally known, its layout and precise wording seemed irretrievable. Not so. A team of researchers from the University of Glasgow has now successfully recovered 42 previously lost pages from the important early New Testament manuscript. The tool that has made 1,500-year-old Greek scripture suddenly visible is multispectral imaging, which allowed researchers to identify traces of ink that are virtually invisible to the naked eye.

The breakthrough arrived when the team, led by the divinity and biblical criticism professor Garrick Allen, realized that at one point in time the manuscript had been re-inked. This meant that chemicals in the reapplied ink had been transferred onto neighboring leaves. These left what researchers called “ghost impressions” that created a mirror image of the original text.

“In partnership with the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library (EMEL), researchers used multispectral imaging to process images of the extant pages, in order to recover ‘ghost’ text that no longer physically exists, effectively retrieving multiple pages of information from every single physical page,” researchers wrote in a statement. “To ensure historical accuracy, the team also collaborated with experts in Paris to perform radiocarbon dating, confirming the parchment’s 6th-century origin.”

Although the text of the Letters of St. Paul itself is already known, the version revealed through multispectral imaging is organized differently from modern counterparts. It features the earliest known use of the Euthalian apparatus, a complex system of prologues, chapter lists, and quotation markers that allowed the reader to find their way before the advent of page numbers or indexes. Furthermore, the inclusion of corrections and annotations shows how monks at the Great Lavra Monastery interacted with manuscripts, modifying them over time, rather than simply copying them down.

Though only fragments of Codex H are salvageable today, the scholars believe the original manuscript may once have contained hundreds of pages, many of which were reused and repurposed as they fell into disrepair. While 19th century collectors in Europe bemoaned this practice, seeing it as barbaric, it has inadvertently led to the survival of texts such as Codex H.

“Codex H is such an important witness to our understanding of Christian scripture,” Allen said in a statement. “To have discovered any new evidence, let alone this quantity, of what it originally looked like is nothing short of monumental.”

U.S. and Iranian forces are both interdicting ships as the two countries grapple with control of the flow of maritime traffic through the region, leaving the shipping industry ‘paralyzed,’ experts say.

In the past week, the U.S. interdicted three ships – two in the Indian Ocean and one in the Strait of Hormuz – while Iran went after three ships, seizing two. There are reports that the third ship was able to continue its journey.

The U.S. and Iran also continue to trade barbs, over social media, about the effectiveness of their efforts to wrestle control of the Strait of Hormuz as the two countries weigh resuming negotiations during the now indefinite ceasefire. For this shipping industry, it means watching, and waiting and more confusion, Lloyd’s List editor Richard Meade said during a Thursday webinar.

“As Washington and Tehran trade claims and counterclaims, shipping is left remaining largely unchanged, paralyzed in the [Persian] Gulf,” Meade said. “…The consequences [amplify], the disruption ripples through the global supply chains, and this is where we are.”

The Pentagon announced Thursday that U.S. forces, launching from an expeditionary sea base, interdicted sanctioned vessel MT Majestic X (IMO: 9198317) overnight Wednesday in the Indian Ocean. Majestic X is the second vessel this week that U.S. forces interdicted in the Indo-Pacific region due to their sanctions for Iranian ties.

The U.S. conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding of MT Tifani (IMO: 9273337) late Monday, according to a Pentagon post on X. Tifani sails a Botswana flag, while Majestic X sails a false Guyanan flag. The International Maritime Organization considers both ships to be stateless.

On Tuesday, following the Monday interdiction of Tifani, Iran said it fired upon and seized two ships – MV Epaminondas (IMO: 9153862) and MV MSC Francesca (IMO: 9401116). MV Euphoria (IMO: 9235828) was also damaged on Wednesday near Iran, although it is unclear whether Iran also targeted the ship for seizure.

The U.S. has right-to-visit stateless ships under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, although the U.S. has not signed the majority of the document, meaning it is not a party to it.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine told reporters Friday that U.S. military and law enforcement forces were part of securing Tifani, arriving via rotary wing platforms. A U.S. Navy control team took over the ship once it was secured.

Securing Majestic X was similar, Caine said.

“Both ships – Tifani [and] Majestic X – and their crews remain in U.S. custody. We will continue to conduct similar maritime interdiction actions and activities in the Pacific and Indian oceans against Iranian ships and vessels of the dark fleet,” Caine told reporters.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said on X that her office provided warrants for Majestic X and Tifani.

The Iranians are attempting to match the U.S. seizure for seizure, Chris Newton, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, told USNI News on Thursday. Iran has not yet responded to the U.S. seizure of Majestic X.

This is the first time that Iran has seized a ship in the strait in the current conflict, opting earlier to assert their power by making ships transit through a passageway nicknamed the “Tehran Tollbooth,” Newton said. Now, they have used the fast attack craft to seize ships as the U.S. takes ships in the Indian Ocean.

Men with guns on these small boats can do a lot of damage, Newton said, referring to the effectiveness of the Somalian pirates and some of the Houthi attacks.

Using the fast craft, which have not been seen in the conflict until now, indicates that Iran is escalating to match the U.S. seizures, Emma Salisbury, a senior fellow at Foreign Policy Research Institute, told USNI News on Thursday. The presence on the IGCN fast attack adds another layer of danger for commercial ships, on top of the potential of mines and projectiles.

Because the Strait of Hormuz is one of the sticking points for negotiations, the recent actions by both countries could be an effort to make their positions stronger, Salisbury said.

“Essentially, it all looks to me like each side is trying to bolster its position so that they’re in a strong position when they go into the negotiation side of this,” she said.

The tensions between Iran and the U.S. are likely to continue into next week. Newton told USNI News that he will be watching to see if the U.S. continues to interdict ships with an emphasis on where those interactions take place.

What kind of ship is targeted will also be of interest given the U.S. has now seized two tankers but started with a containership, he said.

According to Salisbury, her eyes will be on how many ships pass through the blockade, adding that it could encourage others to attempt a run.

It is hard to predict what will happen with the strait, Salisbury said. If the U.S. blockade fails, it is possible that the Trump administration will turn back to airstrikes, she said.

Both President Donald Trump and Hegseth have said they will strike the fast attack craft with Hegseth saying Friday they will treat them like the alleged drug boats in U.S. Southern Command.

At the middle of the Strait of Hormuz crisis are seafarers. There are still about 20,000 mariners stranded because of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, Newton said, and there have been approximately a dozen seafarers and port workers killed, Meade said.

“And I think we must keep that front and center when we are having these discussions of ships being seized and [trade] being interrupted,” Meade said. “There is a human cost behind these things as well.”

The 34 ships, oil rigs and tugs that have been damaged are:

• Sanctioned ship Skylight, near Kumzar, Oman
• MT MKD VYOM, near Muscat, Oman
• MT Hercules Star, near Mina Saqr, UAE
• MV Ocean Electra, near Sharjah, UAE
• MT Stena Imperative, in port in Bahrain
• MV Gold Oak, near Fujairah, UAE
• MT Libra Trader, near Fujairah
• MV Pelagia, in the Gulf of Oman
• MV Safeen Prestige, near Oman while transiting the strait
• MT MSC Grace, near Dubai, UAE
• MT Sonangol Namibe, near Mubarak Al Kabeer, Kuwait
• Tug Mussafah 2, assisting Safeen Prestige, near Oman
• Oil rig Arabia III near Al Jubayl, Saudi Arabia
• MV GH Kahlo, near Abu Dhabi
• MV Mayuree Naaree, in the strait, north of Oman
• MV ONE Majesty, near Ra’s al Khaymah, UAE
• MV Star Gwyenth, northwest of Dubai
• MT Zefyros, off the coast of Al Basrah, Iraq
• MT Safesea Vishnu, off the coast of Al Basrah
• MV Source Blessing, north of Jebel Ali, UAE
• MT Gas Al Ahmadiah, off the coast of Fujairah
• Offshore tug Halul 50, off the coast of Ras Laffran, UAE
• MV Ocean Pretty, in the Strait of Hormuz
• MV Sunny 77, off of Duqm, Oman
• MV Express Rome, off the coast of Ras Laffan
• MT Al Salmi, off of the coast of UAE
• MT Aqua 1, off the coast of Ras Laffan
• MV Qingdao Star, off the coast of Kish Island
• MT Sanmar Herald, off the coast of Kumzar, Oman
• MV CMA CGM Everglade, off the coast of Kumzar, Oman
• MT Touska, off the coast of Chabahar, Iran
• MV Epaminondas, off the coast of Oman
• MV Euphoria, off the coast of Iran
• MV MSC Francesca, in the Strait of Hormuz

About 20 percent of the world’s oil flows through strait. Brent crude oil price is at $113.25 a barrel as of April 23, according to the Energy Information Administration. The Brent crude oil price was $71.32 on Feb. 27, the day before the U.S.-Israel offensive in Iran.

Days before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, Kimmel said during a late-night monologue that the first lady had “a glow like an expectant widow.”

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are taking aim at late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel over a joke he made about the first lady looking like an “expectant widow,” days before the shooting incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday.

In a fiery statement Monday on social media, President Trump criticized Kimmel’s joke and called on Disney — which owns ABC and airs the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” show — to fire the host.

“He showed a fake video of the First Lady, Melania, and our son, Barron, like they were actually sitting in his studio, listening to him speak, which they weren’t, and never would be. He then stated, ‘Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,'” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “A day later a lunatic tried entering the ballroom of the White House Correspondents Dinner, loaded up with a shotgun, handgun, and many knives. He was there for a very obvious and sinister reason.”

Earlier in the day, First Lady Melania Trump called Kimmel “a coward,” and also urged ABC to “take a stand” against the comedian.

“Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country,” Trump said. “His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America. People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate. A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him. Enough is enough.”

Kimmel made the joke two days before a gunman attempted to breach the ballroom where President Trump and the first lady were joined by more than 2,400 other guests to celebrate the First Amendment and the White House press. The suspect was charged Monday with attempted assassination.

However, It’s not the first time Kimmel and ABC have faced criticism from high-ranking political figures. Last year, President Trump repeatedly blasted Kimmel over controversial remarks he made following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The comedian was then briefly suspended from hosting his show in September but returned a week later.

Trump has also taken aim at other late-night comedians over jokes he doesn’t approve of. Earlier this year, he threatened to sue “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah over a joke he made referencing Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The president and the first lady have repeatedly sought to distance themselves from Epstein. Both have also denied having ever visiting the disgraced financier’s island, where prosecutors say he trafficked and sexually abused underage girls.

Continued failed diplomacy is only a deferral of catastrophe.

Cognitive dissonance is in the air once again. Failed former Obama and Biden national security and foreign policy apparatchiks, Democrats in Congress, assorted globalists in Europe, pro-CCP influence peddlers, the European descendants of Neville Chamberlain, and the legion of legacy media talking heads have been doing their damnedest to undermine the long-delayed rescue operation of the Iranian people, who have been held hostage by a theocracy-driven autocracy since 1979.

And that is exactly what Operation Epic Fury is: the rescue of the downtrodden and long-oppressed Iranian people from a tyrannical regime. Epic Fury is setting the conditions for true regime change if the Iranian people have the collective will to act. This simple fact is ignored by all of the aforementioned naysayers in their fevered efforts to “get Trump.”

The rationale for initiating Epic Fury in 2026 is quite clear and is laid out below.

Regarding American Deaths Being “Far Away”

First of all, Iranian-linked American deaths since 1979 have been trivialized in order to remove this rationale for the campaign by suggesting geography diminishes responsibility. This misreads both law and strategy. The 1983 Beirut barracks bombing killed 241 American servicemembers—a sovereign military operation. The Khobar Towers bombing in 1996 killed 19 US Air Force personnel. Iranian-supplied EFP (explosively formed penetrator) IEDs were responsible for hundreds of American deaths in Iraq after 2003, with the Pentagon explicitly attributing these weapons to Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) supply chains.

The IRGC Quds Force directed these operations. These were not incidental—they were deliberate acts of war against American military personnel by a state actor. The “neighbor’s yard” analogy collapses entirely when the neighbor is actively manufacturing the weapons, directing the shooter, and publicly celebrating the outcome.

Iran’s Nuclear and Ballistic Missile Threat

The convergence of two existential timelines is ignored by the naysayers. Iran has significantly advanced uranium enrichment toward weapons-grade levels, with IAEA inspectors repeatedly denied access. Simultaneously, Iran’s Shahab and Khorramshahr missile programs—despite years of official denials—have demonstrated ranges approaching and potentially exceeding 4,000 km. This brings Western European capitals within range. Iran’s partnership with Venezuela, which has permitted Iranian military and intelligence infrastructure on South American soil, extends the threat vector toward the continental United States.

The combination of a near-nuclear state with demonstrated long-range delivery capability and established Western Hemisphere footholds is not theoretical; it is an operational threat matrix that cannot be addressed through diplomacy that Iran has repeatedly abandoned.

,Iran as the World’s Leading State Sponsor of Terrorism

The US State Department has designated Iran the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism continuously since 1984. This is not mere ideological labeling. Instead, it reflects documented material support for Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Houthi forces in Yemen, Kata’ib Hezbollah, and other Iraqi militias and networks operating across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. The financial figures are staggering: hundreds of millions of dollars are provided annually to Hezbollah alone.

Suggestions from the Obama and Biden people who gave us the ridiculous pallets of cash and the smoke screen of the JCPOA that “better policies could defeat Iran financially and politically” ignore four decades under presidents from both political parties during which sanctions, diplomacy, and political pressure failed to alter the regime’s fundamental behavior or its terror financing.

“Death to America” as Operational Policy, Not Rhetoric

In their relentless efforts to attack Israel, some even characterize Iranian hostility to the US and Israel as rhetorical grievance about “Baal worship”—a fringe conspiratorial interpretation wholly unsupported by Iranian state documents, IRGC operational planning, or the regime’s own stated theology.

Since 1979, “Death to America” has been institutionalized state policy firmly built into the Islamic Republic’s constitutional framework, which explicitly designates the United States as the primary enemy of the Islamic revolution. For many years, Supreme Leader Khamenei repeatedly reaffirmed this in formal fatwas and state addresses, not as metaphors but as religious-political directives. His successor(s), whoever they are, show no signs of moderating these commands. Over a thousand Americans killed at Iranian or Iranian-proxy hands across 45 years is not simply some sort of rhetorical trick. It is a high body count.

Iran’s Wartime Actions Against the United States

At least four past Iranian actions constitute acts of war under conventional international law:

1) The 1979 hostage crisis, which involved the seizure of a sovereign US embassy and the 444-day captivity of 52 American diplomats—a clear violation of the Vienna Convention and an act of state aggression.

2) The 1983 Beirut barracks bombing—a state-directed mass casualty attack on US military forces.

3) Tanker warfare (1987–88)—Iran mined international shipping lanes and attacked US-flagged vessels, prompting Operation Praying Mantis.

4) The IED/EFP campaign in Iraq (2003–11)—state-directed lethal operations against US armed forces, killing and maiming hundreds. According to Pentagon assessments, Iranian-supplied munitions to Iranian-backed militias caused at least 603 American deaths and hundreds of wounds (including 861 from EFPs alone) primarily in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom—with far fewer documented cases in Afghanistan during Enduring Freedom and none during Desert Storm. This figure represents roughly one in six US combat deaths in Iraq and stems from explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) and other improvised explosive devices (IEDs), as well as rockets, mortars, and related attacks by groups like Kata’ib Hezbollah.

5) The 2024 direct ballistic missile and drone attacks on Israel—while not targeting Americans directly, these constituted Iran’s first open declaration of conventional warfare against a close US treaty partner, requiring direct US military interception.

Any single one of these actions, committed by a European state, would have triggered Article 5 NATO responses. Iran has committed all five.

On the Strait of Hormuz

Some naysayers (especially fellow travelers of the Chinese communists) claim that the petrodollar is a corrupt construct not worth defending. But the problem posed by the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz is not about dollar hegemony. Rather, it is about the physical movement of approximately 20 percent of the world’s total oil supply and roughly 25 percent of global LNG.

Prior to Epic Fury, Iran repeatedly threatened and rehearsed closure operations, including naval exercises simulating the mining of the strait and mock attacks on tanker traffic. The IRGC is now putting that practice into work as Iran has declared the Strait to be “closed” except for those vessels willing to pay the required toll for passage through it.

A sustained closure of even 30 days would trigger energy price shocks affecting every industrialized and developing nation on earth, collapsing supply chains, destabilizing emerging market currencies, and producing humanitarian crises entirely unrelated to geopolitics.

Epic Fry is not, contrary to what the Left and even some on the dissident Right contend, American imperialism; it is the elementary defense of global economic infrastructure on which billions of people depend.

Nuclear Deterrence and the 12th Imam Doctrine

Various opponents of Epic Fury assume that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, standard MAD (mutually assured destruction) deterrence logic will contain them—the same logic that stabilized US–Soviet relations. This assumption is dangerously inapplicable. The Islamic Republic’s founding theological framework explicitly incorporates apocalyptic eschatology: the belief that sufficient chaos and conflict can hasten the return of the Hidden 12th Imam, an event the regime regards as its supreme political and religious objective.

This is not a fringe theological posture within the IRI. It informed Khamenei’s public statements and shaped IRGC strategic doctrine (which they still apparently cling to despite losing most of their leadership). A regime that depicts martyrdom—including of its own senior leadership—as a pathway to divine fulfillment cannot be reliably deterred by the threat of national annihilation. Deterrence requires a counterpart that values regime survival above ideological objectives. The IRI’s own doctrine explicitly subordinates survival to a purportedly divinely appointed eschatological mission.

Regime change via Operation Epic Fury is therefore not simply an aggressive option. It is the only strategically coherent long-term solution.

Iranian Operations on US Soil

Epic Fury opponents also downplay this dimension, but it is among the most compelling justifications for action. The FBI and DOJ have documented and prosecuted multiple Iranian intelligence operations on American territory, including:

A 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador on US soil using a Mexican cartel intermediary, directly authorized by the IRGC Quds Force. A 2022 plot to assassinate former National Security Advisor John Bolton and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Ongoing cyberespionage campaigns targeting US critical infrastructure, defense contractors, and federal agencies, attributed directly to IRGC-affiliated units. Active attempts to smuggle intelligence assets across the southern border, documented in FBI counterintelligence reporting. FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before Congress in 2021 that Iranian-linked networks inside the United States represent one of the most active foreign threat environments currently monitored. These are ongoing hostile intelligence operations on sovereign American soil, not hypothetical threats.

The Iranian People as a Strategic Asset and the Question of Timing

Perhaps the most significant analytical failure is the naysayers’ assumption that military action means “blowing them sky high” and foreign boots on the ground with no internal counterpart. This analysis misreads the strategic landscape entirely. Iran is not a cohesive, unified adversary. Persians constitute less than half the population in a nation of seven major ethnic groups—namely, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baloch, Turkmen, and Lurs—many with deep grievances against the Persian theocratic center.

The 2009 Green Movement, the 2019 fuel protest crackdown that killed hundreds, and the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests that spread to every major Iranian city demonstrate that the regime’s internal legitimacy has been severely eroded. Iran’s youth population, among the most educated and Western-oriented in the Middle East, has shown a consistent willingness to challenge the regime at personal risk.

Economic mismanagement, hyperinflation, water scarcity, and energy poverty have compounded political repression into a comprehensive legitimacy crisis. Targeted air power that destroys the IRGC’s coercive infrastructure—the instruments by which the mullahs suppress internal dissent—creates the precise conditions under which the Iranian people themselves can be the decisive force.

The timing of Epic Fury is therefore not arbitrary: it reflects the convergence of an imminent nuclear threshold, a weakened regime, and an internally mobilized population. This window will not remain open indefinitely.

The Futility of Negotiating with Iran: The Witkoff Disclosures

The 2025–26 Trump administration negotiations with Iran produced perhaps the most damning firsthand account ever delivered by an American envoy of an adversary’s bad faith. In doing so, they validated decades of skepticism about whether Iran was ever a genuine negotiating partner.

The broader history of negotiating with the IRI confirms what the Witkoff disclosures made clear. Every major negotiating framework—the 1994 Agreed Framework’s regional analog, the 2015 JCPOA, and the 2025 talks—followed the same pattern: Iran accepts talks under economic duress, extracts sanctions relief or diplomatic breathing room, refuses structural disarmament, and resumes or accelerates its program when pressure eases. The Iranians have used negotiations as a strategic cover for continuing their development of nuclear weapons. Senior Trump administration officials have stated that the Iranians never offered to significantly compromise and that their proposals would have allowed Iran to continue pursuing a nuclear bomb.

Witkoff stated this in plain terms: “We went in there and tried to make a fair deal with them. It was very, very clear that it was going to be impossible, probably by the end of the second meeting, but we then went back for the third meeting just to give it the last college try.”

The Trump Administration’s Strategic Framing

Trump administration officials and associated media reporting have framed Operation Epic Fury within a coherent strategic doctrine: that the Iranian nuclear program has crossed irreversible red lines; that prior administrations’ reliance on JCPOA-style diplomacy enabled rather than restrained Iranian weapons development; that the Abraham Accords created a regional coalition architecture capable of sustaining post-action stability; and that the cost of inaction—a nuclear-armed Iran with intercontinental reach and active terror networks on five continents—vastly exceeds the costs and risks of decisive military action now.

The preferred alternative expressed by many Trump opponents and those afflicted by Trump Derangement Syndrome of “financial, political, and religious” pressure has been the operative US strategy, in various forms, for 45 years. It has not prevented a single Iranian proxy attack, has not halted uranium enrichment, and has not moderated the regime’s fundamental hostility toward the United States. Continuing that approach while Iran crosses the nuclear threshold is not a coherent or sound strategy. It is, at best, a deferral of catastrophe.

Concluding Thoughts

President Trump was right to act now. In fact, it was his duty as president to do so when he recognized the imminent threat that the IRI posed. Their continued intentions to obtain a nuclear weapons capability that could threaten the world (and the US directly) were made apparent during the Witkoff negotiations in Paris.

President Trump is interested in solving generational threats, not kicking cans down the road for future presidents to deal with, and the theocracy in Tehran, which has chanted “Death to America” for decades now, is a festering boil that should have been excised long ago. Trump deserves our continued support.

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American Greatness

On this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said impeaching President Donald Trump will not be the Democrats’ priority if they win the majority in the House in November.

Host Shannon Bream said, “I love to talk with you more about these redistricting fights. That Virginia referendum goes to its state supreme court tomorrow, and many others. But obviously, Democrats are feeling bullish on flipping the House. And this week, Axios reported that there’s a push for day-one impeachment — Democrats pushing their colleagues to begin building the case against President Trump. Now, in anticipation and anticipation of a day one impeachment vote if they retake the House. If you become speaker, is that your top priority?

Jeffries said, “Of course not. And I’ve made clear from the very beginning that our top priority is going to be to drive down the high cost of living. We believe in this country. You work hard, you play by the rules. You should be able to live an affordable life, a comfortable life, in fact, to live the good life. And that means a good paying job and good housing. Good health care, good education for your children. And when it’s all said and done, a good retirement. That’s been the American dream for decades. But for far too many people, that American dream has slipped out of reach, and we should be focused on actually doing the type of things necessary to ensure that people in this country cannot simply survive but they can thrive. And that, of course, will be at the heart of all of these midterm campaigns.”

Follow Pam Key on X @pamkeyNEN

“Democrats, fearful of a repeat of President Donald Trump’s upset victory in 2016, are reportedly losing sleep over their candidate, Joe Biden, potentially seeing his lead in the polls evaporate and ultimately losing the election.
On Friday, the Los Angeles Times noted that Democrats are nervous about Biden falling behind in the final stretch of the presidential race when it matters most.” [Breitbart]

Normally, I would say “good”. But we already know what leftists do when they panic: place us under house arrest; set cities on fire; defund the police; and use social media to censor us. So brace yourself, regardless of the election outcome. The Democratic Party is both morally and mentally unhinged. If they win, they will enslave us under Communism and fascism; if they lose, they will enslave us under anarchy.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Donald and Melania Trump entered the hall at 8:16 to cheers and applause. “Hail to the Chief” was followed by presentation of the colors and the National Anthem.  We had a brief introduction from Weijia Jiang, this year’s president of the White House Correspondents Association, followed by dinner.

Two questions hovered in the background. One, how would President Trump treat the press? And two, would he, as had many presidents in the past at this event, treat the audience to a little self-deprecating humor? “Donald Trump” and  “self-deprecation” are not words you often hear together, but who knows?  The President is also a master communicator who reads his audience well.  

We never found out. At about 8:35, four loud noises were heard from the back of the room. They were shots.

What I heard inside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

The Secret Service rushed on to stage. “Get down, stay down!” The President and First Lady, and rest of the head table, were evacuated. Cabinet secretaries and other dignitaries were hustled out of the room. It emerged that a couple of protesters had made their way to the red carpet upstairs where they waved signs calling for Pete Hegseth to be arrested. There is still much about the incident that we do not yet know. We do know that the shooter, a 31-year-old Californian man, is in custody. What will the anti-Trump press say about this incident? How about Chuck Schumer? Will there be any remorse, any self-reflection on the consequences of their industrial-strength hatred for Donald Trump? I am not counting on it.

Meanwhile, the President seems to be taking the event in stride. “Quite an evening in D.C.,” he posted shortly after the shooting. “Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job. They acted quickly and bravely. The shooter has been apprehended, and I have recommended that we ‘LET THE SHOW GO ON’ but, will entirely be guided by Law Enforcement. They will make a decision shortly. Regardless of that decision, the evening will be much different than planned, and we’ll just, plain, have to do it again.” Sang, meet froid.

The President then added this addendum: “Law Enforcement has requested that we leave the premises, consistent with protocol, which we will do, immediately. I will be giving a press conference in 30 minutes from the White House Press Briefing Room. The First Lady, plus the Vice President, and all Cabinet members, are in perfect condition. We will be speaking to you in a half an hour. I have spoken with all the representatives in charge of the event, and we will be rescheduling within 30 days.”

The Hilton was the site, in 1981, of John Hinckley Jr.’s attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. The venue is still used, but the security is much tighter… Watching this year, I wonder whether so much self-satisfaction was ever crowded into a single room? The judges are still out on that question. This 105th iteration of the media’s celebration of itself, in which some 2600 souls are stuffed into the Hilton’s ballroom, might give us an answer. Beforehand, among many other celebrities, much of the president’s Cabinet milled around the red carpet and White House Correspondent Association’s step-and-repeat upstairs while the cameras flashed, the microphones bristled, and the video rolled. RFK Jr. was there, as was Lee Zeldin, Doug Bergum, Tulsi Gabbard, Scott Bessent, Marco Rubio, Kari Lake, Pete Hegseth, and others.

“The First Amendment,” “Free Speech,” “A Free Media” are different ways of enunciating what the dinner is supposed to be all about. Not much mention, if any, will be given to the clamp down on free speech under the Biden administration or the liberating revolution sparked by Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and his campaign to restore speech to the platform and hence to the wider media environment.

Donald Trump has probably given the media more access to his thoughts than any president in history. At least part of many of his Cabinet meetings are open to the media and he seldom boards or exits a plane without stopping to answer questions. If he thinks a question is stupid or ill-informed, he will say so. Fake news he treats as fake news. The media hates that, of course, but has anyone ever treated them more like adults?

As you likely know the Southern Poverty Law Council was indicted this week for Wire Fraud, False Statements, and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering.

A grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment charging the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to the Justice Department (DOJ). Between 2014 and 2023, according to the DOJ, the SPLC “secretly funneled” more than $3 million in donations to at least eight individuals associated with violent extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America, the Nationalist Socialist Movement, Unite the Right, Aryan Nations affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, and more.

The bottom line is that the SPLC was acting in a Munchausen-by-proxy kind of manner. They were making the patient sick so they could bring the cure.

The disease was hate and their condemnation was the cure, not to mention their scoring bog donations from it.

Among their targets were the Turning Point USA, the Family Research Council, Moms for Liberty and Wildman’s Civil War Surplus and Herb Shop in Kennesaw GA.

They chose to instigate hatred because hate as a commodity was running low, and that was something they shared in common with the Democrat party.

Hate.

In that regard the Democrat party and the SPLC share a common MO- hate fills the coffers.

For years I have repeated something frequently- the most poisonous phrase over the last several decades to plague this nation was “celebrate diversity.” It’s a total shitshow.

That phrase has caused more pain and hatred than anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. Its fatal flaw is its intrinsic focus on what makes us different from one another. It is the antithesis of the greater American family. It is the antithesis of the American melting pot. It is the opposite of assimilation.

We all have friends who share our values- that’s what binds us. Of course, we have our differences, but we do not dwell on them. Emphasis on our differences lead to suspicion and doubt. Enough of that can lead to hatred.

And that’s what Democrats live for.

Barack Obama set race relations back 50 years. A Bill Ayers protege and Alinskyite, he was all about division. He wanted people to be and stay angry. He wielded racial power like Tiger Woods’ ex-wife wielded a nine iron.

When is the last time you saw Al Sharpton come to a racially charged event and try to calm it down?

Democrats used to oppose illegal immigration but now you’re the hateful one if you oppose it.

The Democrat party is now overflowing with politicians who compete with one another in a “who can hate Trump the most” competition.