Warren Buffett Advice: 5 Daily Habits That Will Improve the Quality Of Your Life

Posted on May 16, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Perhaps the most counterintuitive of Buffett’s habits is his commitment to keeping his schedule mostly empty. While most successful people treat a packed calendar as a badge of productivity, Buffett treats white space as a competitive advantage.

He has maintained this habit throughout his career, insisting that unscheduled time is where his clearest thinking happens. Busyness, in his view, is often just a substitute for judgment.

“You’ve got to keep control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.” — Warren Buffett.

The daily habit is to reclaim at least one unscheduled block in your day. Use it for reading, reflection, or simply letting your mind work without an agenda imposed by someone else.

A high-quality life is not one where every hour is accounted for. It is one in which you decide how your hours are spent, rather than simply reacting to others’ demands.

Conclusion

Warren Buffett’s advice on improving the quality of your life has nothing to do with hacks, shortcuts, or routines borrowed from someone else’s morning. It is about compounding good habits: protecting your health, mastering your emotions, anchoring your behavior to your own values, choosing your company wisely, and owning your time.

Most advice about improving your life comes packaged as a system—a morning routine, a productivity framework, an app that tracks your habits down to the minute. Warren Buffett’s philosophy runs in the opposite direction.

His actual guidance, drawn from decades of shareholder letters, university lectures, and annual Berkshire Q&A sessions, is built on a single idea: compounding. Small, consistent choices made in the areas of knowledge, character, and health produce results that no shortcut can replicate.

Here are five of his most practical daily habits for improving the quality of your life.

Guard Your Body and Mind Like Your Life Depends on It

Buffett uses a striking metaphor to explain why daily self-care is not optional. He compares your body and mind to a single car you receive at sixteen years old, one that has to last you the rest of your life.

“Let’s say that I offer to buy you the car of your dreams. You can pick out any car that you want, and when you get out of class this afternoon, that car will be waiting for you at home. There’s just one catch… It’s the only car you’re ever going to get in your entire life.”

“Now, knowing that, how are you going to treat that car? You’re probably going to read the owner’s manual four times before you drive it; you’re going to keep it in the garage, protect it at all times, change the oil twice as often as necessary. If there’s the least little bit of rust, you’re going to get that fixed immediately so it doesn’t spread — because you know it has to last you as long as you live.”

Practice the 24-Hour Rule Before Responding in Anger

One of Buffett’s most practical lessons on emotional control came from his friend and longtime business partner, Tom Murphy. The lesson is deceptively simple: you can always say something harsh tomorrow, but you can’t unsay it today.

Responding in anger almost always costs you more than the situation was worth. A lost relationship, a damaged reputation, or a deal that collapses because of words spoken in the heat of the moment are all avoidable costs.

“You can always tell someone to go to h*ll tomorrow.” — Warren Buffett

The daily habit is to pause. When someone insults you, when a deal goes sideways, or when frustration peaks, commit to waiting twenty-four hours before responding.

You lose nothing by waiting. You gain clarity, composure, and the ability to respond from reason rather than emotion, which Buffett considers the most important trait in long-term decision-making.

Follow Your Inner Scorecard

Buffett draws a sharp distinction between two ways of moving through the world. An outer scorecard means you measure your worth by what others think of you. An inner scorecard means you measure your worth by your own standards of integrity and behavior.

Most people spend enormous energy chasing the outer scorecard—the titles, the praise, the appearance of success. Buffett argues that this is the slower, far more exhausting path to a life you can be proud of.

“The big question about how people behave is whether they follow an inner scorecard or an outer scorecard. If I do something that others don’t like but I feel good about, I’m happy.” — Warren Buffett.

Audit Your Inner Circle

Buffett has spoken extensively about the underrated role that your social environment plays in shaping who you become. The people you spend the most time with are not neutral forces in your life. They pull your habits, your thinking, and your ambitions in a direction.

The question is whether that direction is where you actually want to go. Most people never stop to ask it. “You will move in the direction of the people that you associate with. So it’s important to associate with people who are better than yourself.” — Warren Buffett.

The daily habit is to audit your inner circle honestly. Are the people closest to you modeling the character, discipline, and perspective you want to develop?

This is not about abandoning loyalty or cutting off old friends. It is about being intentional with the hours you invest in relationships, since those relationships are quietly shaping who you are becoming.

Protect Open Space in Your Calendar

He has maintained this habit throughout his career, insisting that unscheduled time is where his clearest thinking happens. Busyness, in his view, is often just a substitute for judgment.

“You’ve got to keep control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.” — Warren Buffett.

The daily habit is to reclaim at least one unscheduled block in your day. Use it for reading, reflection, or simply letting your mind work without an agenda imposed by someone else.

A high-quality life is not one where every hour is accounted for. It is one in which you decide how your hours are spent, rather than simply reacting to others’ demands.

Conclusion

Liberal \’Historian\’ Claims Republicans Accuse Other People of What They Are Doing, Just Like the Nazis

Posted on May 16, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Heather Cox Richardson is a historian and academic who teaches at Boston College. In a recent video made for her subscribers, she claimed that Republicans use a ‘propaganda technique’ of accusing other people of what they themselves are doing.

There are MOUNTAINS of evidence that show this is actually, exactly what the left does, but it gets even worse. She goes on to suggest that this makes Republicans just like the Nazis because that’s where she claims this tactic comes from.

Now before you dismiss this woman as the idiot she clearly is, you should know that she holds a tremendous amount of influence on the left. Her Substack site has hundreds of thousands of subscribers and she is reported to earn almost a million dollars a year from that alone.

It’s just amazing that she can say these stupid and untruthful things with a straight face:

“The Republicans have perfected a technique for a long time now which really became obvious in the 2000 presidential election, but it’s an old propaganda technique in which you accuse your opponent of what you yourself are doing.

And we tend to identify that in modern politics with Karl Rove, who’s a Republican operative, but in fact, it’s an old propaganda technique that is often identified with Nazi Germany.

And the idea behind it is that if you accuse your opponent of what you are doing, it’s very difficult then for people to understand when the opponent comes back and says, well wait a minute, you’re doing it too.

And what that does is create confusion so that people tend to throw out both sides of the equation and say, well they’re both corrupt.”

Fake asylum claims go ‘poof’ as illegals skip their asylum hearings in droves

Posted on May 16, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Suddenly, they aren’t so terrified of returning to their home countries anymore. And they are skipping their bogus asylum hearing cases left and right.

Monica Showalter | May 15, 2026

The most infuriating thing about the border surge is not simply the breach of the unguarded border, but the string of lies that premised it — the fake claims of asylum of the illegal migrants, claiming to be persecuted and terrified of returning to their home countries, which as anyone with a lick of sense could surmise had no merit whatsoever.

It was obvious enough in the absence of crises around the world, in the country-shopping of the migrants for the best benefit packages which real refugees seeking any port in a storm would never do, in the payments to cartels, and in the fact that most asylum seekers came from full-blown democracies where they had the right to vote their governments out if there was a problem.

But none of that speaks quite like the behavior of migrants, responding to incentives handed to them from the Joe Biden side of the equation, where everyone who broke into the country was allowed to apply for asylum and offered a full-ride benefit package, including transport, hotels, work permits, free education, free medical care, free food, free Obamaphones, and free housing. All, that, plus ‘coaching’ by federally funded legal service NGOs, including Catholic Charities, for illegals, on how to successfully game the system in order to win their phony asylum cases, as some did.

We can see how fake it all was now in the second year of the Trump administration: The illegal border crossers are now skipping their asylum hearings. Asylum hearing skippings went from 4,000 a month in 2025 to 8,000 a month this year, according to the Center of Immigration Studies, which found it fairly easy to find that data based on the numbers ordered removed in absentia.

The Center for Immigration Studies writes:

As that [asylum court] process continues and Biden’s border removal cases are nearing final adjudications, no-show asylum applicant removal orders are quickly increasing.

In FY 2025, immigration judges ordered more than 50,000 respondents who had filed I-589s but then failed to appear in court removed in absentia — one in six of all no-show orders issued last fiscal year (306,500-plus), and an average of nearly 4,200 orders per month.

That trend is only increasing. Through the end of March (the midway point of FY 2026), immigration judges issued in absentia removal orders to more than 48,000 respondents who had come to court in the past, filed asylum applications, but then ultimately failed to appear.

That’s an average of more than 8,000 no-show orders per month for respondents with pending I-589s, and lest you think this figure simply reflects the increase in the overall backlog, here are the facts: The total number of pending cases in immigration court has risen nearly 257 percent since FY 2019, but the monthly average of in absentia orders for aliens with pending asylum applications has ballooned by more than 900 percent over that same period — 3.5 times quicker than the overall backlog rate.

It also corresponds with a report last year that illegal immigrants self-deported at a record rate, preserving their right to reapply to come to the U.S. legally.

CIS continued:

Throughout the Biden administration, DHS and most in the media portrayed the illegal migrants pouring into this country as bedraggled innocents fleeing from persecution, war, famine, gripping poverty, and/or “climate change”, cast into a bewildering and complex legal system they needed government-paid lawyers to navigate.

Respectfully, those migrants’ ability to contract with criminal smuggling organizations and evade authorities on the journey to the United States should have called such characterizations into question from the beginning, but if you really want to understand how savvy many of those illegal entrants really were, just look at the EOIR stats.

Here’s the cold reality: Millions of aliens came illegally under Biden, were released by DHS under the ruse of being “asylum seekers”, and were placed into removal proceedings to seek protection; tens to hundreds of thousands of them realized they could get work permits if they simply applied for asylum; and now — in increasing numbers — they aren’t coming to court because they never wanted asylum — they wanted to work.

There is no reason for an alien with a legit claim to skip court, because an asylum grant unlocks countless government benefits, places the beneficiary on a path to a green card and citizenship, and allows aliens to bring their immediate family to the United States.

The fact that they aren’t showing up in court and abandoning their applications underscores what their real intentions were all along.

If the American people didn’t feel like suckers before, when they were paying billions per month to care for tens of thousands of so-called “asylum seekers” arriving monthly, they should now. We all got played by migrants who claimed to seek protection but really wanted work permits, and the worst part is that the Biden administration likely realized what was happening in real time — and simply didn’t care.

And that’s what it’s really about — cheating the American voters into providing full rides for the world’s persecuted when in fact they weren’t persecuted at all/ They just wanted a full-ride whole-life foreign aid package including the promise of a U.S. passport and U.S. voting rights instead of living their lives in their home countries. We can also see the fakery exposed in the record numbers of self-deportations of the migrants, which was reported a couple weeks ago. If one is so scared of returning to one’s home country, why would it be a good idea to go back to it in order to preserve one’s right to apply to come to the U.S. legally?

It’s all coming out in the wash — and the press, the pols, and the NGOs which promoted this phony narrative about a global upsurge in persecution have a lot of explaining to do.

Image: Screenshot, VOA video, via YouTube.

Related Topics: Illegal Immigration

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Mamdani slammed for ‘corrupting history’ about the creation of Israel in social media post marking ‘Nakba Day’

Posted on May 16, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Carl Campanile and Anna Young

Mayor Zohran Mamdani was blasted for “corrupting history” about the creation of Israel in a vile social media post paying tribute to Palestinians – sent out just before Jewish New Yorkers observed Shabbat.

Mamdani, a staunch critic of Israel, honored “Nakba Day” – marking what Palestinians call the “catastrophe” of the Jewish State’s declaration of independence on May 14, 1948 – in a Friday night post, that included a polished video interview with “Nakba survivor” and city resident Inea Bushnaq.

“Today marks Nakba Day, an annual remembrance to commemorate the expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 during the creation of the State of Israel and the year that followed,” Hizzoner wrote in an X post on his official mayoral account.

“Inea is a New Yorker and a Nakba survivor. She shared her story with us – one of home, tradition and memory over generations.”

In the video, Bushnaq details fleeing her home at age nine because “the Zionists were coming into Jerusalem.”

The shocking video goes on to claim that the displacement of Palestinians “continues to this day.”

“Mamdani is dangerous, he’s evil, he is stirring the pot of hate,” Americans Against Antisemitism founder Dov Hikind told The Post, stressing how Jewish communities are being targeted in attacks.

“He is corrupting history. He doesn’t know his f—king history,” he blasted, adding that the United Nations voted to create the State of Israel and a Palestinian state, with Jews accepting the plan while five Arab nations – Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq – “rejected it and went to war with Israel.”

Israel ultimately won the war, and the Arab nations later created a day to commemorate the loss.

Mamdani’s outrageous post quickly triggered a firestorm online, with critics slamming him for firing off “political propaganda masquerading as compassion” and accusing him of erasing history.

“He ignores that roughly 850,000 Jews were expelled or forced to flee Arab countries in the years that followed,” one digital naysayer raged on X.

Israel ultimately won the war, and the Arab nations later created a day to commemorate the loss.

Mamdani’s outrageous post quickly triggered a firestorm online, with critics slamming him for firing off “political propaganda masquerading as compassion” and accusing him of erasing history.

“He ignores that roughly 850,000 Jews were expelled or forced to flee Arab countries in the years that followed,” one digital naysayer raged on X.

“He presents ‘Nakba Day’ as though it is about grief, when in reality it is a movement that rejects Israel’s existence (and along with it millions of Jews). In a city where Jews are already facing rampant harassment and violence, this kind of one-sided historical revisionism fuels hostility toward Jews.”

As anti-Israel protests continue across the Big Apple, including outside synagogues, Mamdani has not condemned the rowdy demonstrations and has instead doubled down on his support for them.

“This video provokes and justifies acts of revenge and hate on Jews and Jewish Synagogues across NYC,” one commenter raged, as another blasted him for “leaving out some key historical facts.”

Ok!! I’m done being nice… You are putting Jews everywhere at risk by not providing historical context for this,” United Jewish Teachers President Moshe Spern fumed on X.

“You are putting Jews in harms way!! Enough is enough!!”

Mamdani has had a strained relationship with Jewish leaders since he ran for office last year, as he was criticized for controversial comments and stances including outspoken criticisms of Israel.

Critics have also expressed concern over the mayor’s refusal to condemn the “globalize the intifada” rallying cry for violence against Jewish people.

First Lady Rama Duwaji has also come under fire for social media posts praising Palestinian terrorists, bashing Israel, and reportedly once liking posts celebrating the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist massacre in Israel.

Mamdani defended his wife, and she apologized in April for the “hurt” caused by alarming social media posts – though did not directly express regret for the Israel-bashing content.

Rep Tom McClintock Exposes Deadly Sanctuary Policies in Explosive Hearing

Posted on May 16, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

California remains the largest offender of DHS sanctuary jurisdictions violations

House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement Chairman Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) chaired a high-stakes hearing Thursday exposing the deadly consequences of so-called sanctuary policies, using Fairfax County, Virginia, as a case study in how local officials prioritize illegal aliens over public safety.

In his opening statement and pointed questioning, McClintock dismantled the “nullification” doctrine embraced by sanctuary jurisdictions, likening it to John C. Calhoun’s failed states’ rights theory that once threatened the Republic. “These nullification or sanctuary jurisdictions now extend to 11 states–coincidentally the same number as the old Confederacy,” he stated.

One third of the country live in sanctuary jurisdictions.

Sanctuary policies put Americans at risk and must end. https://t.co/zIjRYAk5fX

— Tom McClintock (@RepMcClintock) May 14, 2026

McClintock zeroed in on Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano and Sheriff Stacey Kincaid, both of whom have openly limited cooperation with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and are registered Democrats. Descano has boasted that his office makes “charging and plea decisions that limit or avoid immigration consequences,” arguing that deportation as a consequence of crime is a “perversion of justice.” McClintock called this a true perversion of equal justice under the law, noting it has triggered a Department of Justice Civil Rights Division investigation.

The hearing featured the tragic case of Stephanie Minter, a 41-year-old woman stabbed to death while waiting for a bus on February 23, 2026. Her accused killer, Abdul Jalloh, an illegal immigrant with a lengthy criminal record including trespass, drug possession, theft, larceny, and multiple malicious wounding arrests, had been in Fairfax custody at least 18 times between January 2023 and February 2026. Descano dismissed nearly all charges, and Sheriff Kincaid released him despite an ICE detainer. Fairfax County Police had warned Descano that Jalloh had “stabbed multiple people, sexually assaulted at least one woman,” and that it was “not a question of if, but rather when he will maliciously wound (or worse) again.” McClintock noted that three of Fairfax County’s seven homicides last year were committed by illegal aliens who could have been deported.

In a heated exchange captured on video and shared by the House Judiciary GOP, McClintock grilled Descano on another case involving an illegal immigrant who attempted to rape a 4-year-old girl. “I understand he was later taken into custody by ICE and deported. I’m just curious, did you notify ICE of that release?” McClintock asked. Descano admitted, “We did not call ICE.” McClintock replied pointedly: “The 4-year-old’s mother had to call to get him out of your community.”

McClintock also dismantled the officials’ excuse that they require a federal judicial warrant to honor ICE detainers. Turning to former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, McClintock confirmed that such warrants are legally impossible for civil immigration matters. “So they’re basically lying to the public,” McClintock stated. “They’re counting on the public not understanding that what they’re asking for is legally impossible.”

“These policies seem reckless, dangerous, crazy, wanton and cruel,” McClintock declared. “A long list of violent crimes perpetrated by criminal illegal aliens these officials had in their custody and refused to prosecute and refused to remove from their communities answers that question with poignancy.”

McClintock highlighted how similar sanctuary policies plague his home state, where sanctuary laws forbid local cooperation with ICE. Santa Clara County stands out with the worst ICE detainer compliance record in the nation. Public records obtained by America First Legal reveal that, from January 1, 2025, through January 2026, the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office received 529 ICE detainer requests and honored none of them, releasing all 529 criminal aliens that ICE sought to detain back into the community.

Santa Clara County Sheriff Robert “Bob” Jonsen, a registered Democrat elected in 2022 with strong support from Democratic leaders and organizations. During his 2022 campaign, his team explicitly stated he was “the only Democrat and only pro-choice candidate on the ballot.” He received the endorsement of Planned Parenthood and has been vocal in defending the county’s non-cooperation. Jonsen has repeatedly stated that his office does not enforce civil immigration detainers or notify ICE of upcoming releases, in accordance with California’s sanctuary law (SB 54) and county policy. “We do NOT enforce civil immigration actions or detainers,” the Sheriff’s Office has emphasized under his leadership. Jonsen has also publicly refused to support ICE operations, including during major events like the Super Bowl, declaring his department “will not be working or supporting ICE Immigration Enforcement.”

This complete non-compliance stems directly from California’s sanctuary state law, the California Values Act (SB 54), which severely restricts local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities on civil detainers.

These policies have drawn legal challenges, such as El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells’ lawsuit against Attorney General Rob Bonta over SB 54’s restrictions on local police assisting federal ICE officers. McClintock himself has long warned of the dangers, famously stating that sanctuary policies amount to “No Borders, No Country.”

California remains the largest offender of DHS sanctuary jurisdictions violations, with over 100 counties and cities — including 48 of 58 counties — listed by the Department of Homeland Security for undermining federal immigration enforcement. As of early 2026, an additional 33,179 criminal illegal aliens with active ICE detainers remained in California jails, facing charges that included 399 homicides and 3,313 assaults. The Department of Homeland Security has urgently called on Governor Gavin Newsom to halt their release into communities without notifying ICE.

The hearing comes as McClintock continues pushing the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act, legislation aimed at withholding federal funds from jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with ICE on criminal illegal aliens. With violent crimes linked to released offenders mounting nationwide, McClintock made clear that the era of unaccountable sanctuary nullification must end.

Patriots, Politics, and the Pulpit

Posted on May 16, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

And we’re back again for another week and for another Fourth of July on the podcast. I think it’s the fourth time an episode has landed square on the holiday — at least our fourth. So happy Independence Day for those of you here in the States. If the inbox is any indicator, questions over politics, patriotism, and the pulpit are perennial concerns. When better to broach the topic than on a day like today?

Jamison, a pastor in Virginia, writes in to ask this: “Pastor John, hello and thank you for this podcast! I admire your approach to politics and patriotism. You seem to be very careful here. Even when the heat is turned up in election times, and pastors feel social pressure to endorse specific candidates, you notoriously refrain from participating. As you have watched this impulse in American Christian life for many decades, this impulse among Christian leaders to periodically endorse candidates and to get involved in politics, what observations have you drawn from your decades of refraining?”

Maybe the most important or helpful thing that I can do in response to this question is to point to passages of Scripture that capture the emphasis I think is needed, not just in the American church, but in the global church, the church around the world. Because the tendency to confuse and combine Christian identity and its earthly expression, the church, with political identity, ethnic identity, national identity, or any other earthly identity — that conflating tendency is so strong, and I think so destructive to the radical call of the gospel, that it needs steadfast resistance generation after generation.

Christian Identity in a Politicized World

So my burden is to join forces with the Bible (as I understand it), and millions of faithful Christians, to encourage and nurture a faithful Christian identity that will survive and thrive with faith and hope and joy and love and purity, whether America survives, or Brazil survives, or Britain survives, or China survives, or Russia survives, or India survives — or not.

So let me point to six kinds of passages that shaped my passions in that direction.

1. Not of This World

Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (John 18:36). From which I infer that we’d better be very, very careful before we undertake any processes that involve force or coercion to put the kingdom of Christ in place. Any identity that we can put in place by force or weapon or law is not the kingdom of Christ. In this age, King Jesus is creating a people a very different way. That’s number one.

2. Hidden with Christ

Paul said in Colossians 1:13, “[God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” And again,

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1–4)

“Our most fundamental and defining identity and location is the kingdom of Christ, not any kingdom on earth.”

So our most fundamental and defining identity and location is the kingdom of Christ, not any kingdom on earth. It is the right hand of God, not the right hand of any earthly power. Our most essential life is Christ, and only when he comes will we be openly known for who we really are.

3. Citizens of Heaven

Philippians 3:20–21:

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

So no earthly citizenship, whether American or Russian or Chinese, has any ultimate allegiance over those who are in Christ Jesus. Our political allegiances are to Jesus. No party, no nation, no ethnicity, no ideology has any ultimate claim on us. Our decisive constitution is the word of God, and no human document.

4. Chosen Race, Holy Nation

Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” These are ethnically and politically shattering words. Born-again Christians, real Christians, are a chosen race (genos eklekton), a holy nation (ethnos hagion). The kind of human we are and the kind of nation we belong to is not any longer our essential identity. We are a new kind, a new nation. None of the existing human realities, ethnic or national, is God’s chosen and holy people. Christians are a new thing, a new reality, a new people, a new nation, a new ethnicity and race. And we should bear witness to it.

5. Resident Aliens on Earth

Therefore, Peter says in 1 Peter 2:11, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” Christians are not first Americans, or Canadians, or British, or Russians, or Nigerians. In every nation, we are exiles. Let that sink in. I want to scream that from the top of the buildings to every nationalistic tendency. In every nation, we are exiles.

Jesus said, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19). If you are going to run for office, be sure to inform your constituency that you are a resident alien. Your primary citizenship and allegiance are the kingdom of Christ.

6. Servants of God

Peter said in 1 Peter 2:13–16,

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

In other words, realize as Christians that you are free — free from emperors, free from governors, free from presidents, free from worldly powers and parties. We belong to God. We are slaves of God, not any man. We are his servants. He owns us. We do his bidding. And when the human state tells us to pay our taxes and keep the speed limit and shovel the snow off of our sidewalks, we do it, not because the state is our authority, but because God is. We submit for his sake and in his limits.

7. People from All Nations

Jesus said in Matthew 28:19–20,

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Now that does not mean, “Go and turn pagan cultures into whitewashed tombs with the paint of so-called ‘Christian’ externals.” We know that. We know it doesn’t mean that, because Jesus defines “discipling nations” — which is the neuter plural Greek word ethne, “nations” — by “baptizing and teaching them,” and the “them” is masculine plural. That’s crucial. You don’t disciple political entities. You don’t disciple ethnic corporate realities. You disciple “them” — autous, plural in Greek — people that you can baptize.

“We belong to God. We are slaves of God, not any man. We are his servants. He owns us. We do his bidding.”

In other words, our job is to so magnify Jesus and his saving work, among all the peoples of the world, that individual human beings are brought from death to life and formed into the image of Christ. In every race, ethnicity, nation, this new people, this chosen race, this holy nation among all the nations are to let our light so shine before others that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12).

You Don’t Need to Know It All

Now I have no illusions, Tony, that until Jesus comes, Christians will ever agree on precisely what it looks like in professional life, and political life, and cultural life for the church to be the kingdom of Christ — a kingdom, Jesus says, that’s not of this world.

But my encouragement to pastors is that you don’t need to figure that out. You don’t need to figure that out for all of your amazingly diverse people invested in a thousand ways, in all kinds of cultural and professional and political endeavors. You don’t need to be the expert to figure all that out. We’re not smart enough. Speak these biblical truths and others that you see as relevant from Scripture. Call your people to radical allegiance to King Jesus. Set them on a quest of lifelong learning, and trust the Spirit of God in their lives.John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy. Read more about John.

After the Ayatollah

Posted on May 15, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

With Iran militarily decimated and economically squeezed, Trump holds all the cards. But is a deal possible or worthwhile with a fragmented regime?

Something has changed in the Iran nuclear negotiation that many analysts are not fully accounting for. The military balance between the United States and Iran has shifted more dramatically than at any point since the Islamic Republic acquired its first centrifuges. Iran’s air defense shield, the infrastructure that for years effectively concealed and protected its nuclear program, has been destroyed. Its proxies are severely degraded. Its economy is under sanctions and naval blockade pressure that is genuinely unprecedented. Its nuclear sites have been damaged. Trump built leverage that no American president has come close to matching, and he is bringing it to the table.

The question is not whether Trump will press for his terms. He has made clear he will, and those terms—principally the physical removal of enriched uranium from Iranian soil and a permanent prohibition on nuclear weapons—are the deal the United States and the broader Middle East need. The question is whether Iran will accept them. And beneath that sits a harder one: Will the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has its own theory of deterrence and its own institutional equities in the nuclear program, allow any agreement to hold?

Both questions matter. Neither has a clean answer.

The strategic landscape today bears almost no resemblance to 2015, when the last deal was struck. When the Obama administration concluded the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran’s regional power was intact. Hezbollah was the most formidable non-state military force in the Middle East. The Houthis were an insurgency, not a force capable of threatening Red Sea shipping lanes. Hamas governed Gaza with operational freedom. Iran’s air defenses, built over decades with Russian and Chinese assistance, provided real protection for nuclear infrastructure deep inside Iranian territory. The pressure on Tehran was economic—real, but not existential.

None of that is true today.

Iran’s air defense network has been dismantled. The S-300 batteries and radar infrastructure that once raised the cost of strikes on Iranian territory are gone. Its navy has been largely destroyed. Its air force is severely degraded. Command and control infrastructure, Revolutionary Guard facilities, and intelligence networks have all been struck. What remains of Iran’s conventional military capacity is a fraction of what existed before the conflict began. That is a fundamental change in the military equation.

The proxy network has taken severe damage. Hezbollah suffered shattering losses in the 2024 campaign, its command structure broken, its missile stockpiles depleted, its grip on southern Lebanon fractured. It regrouped and that matters. Hamas still exists and has proven difficult to dislodge, but it no longer governs Gaza or projects power as it did before Oct. 7. The Houthis retain the capacity to do real damage and should not be underestimated. What has changed is that the entire architecture Iran built over decades to extend its deterrence outward, at enormous cost, is under simultaneous pressure. That window will not stay open on its own. It is one more reason why a deal, or a decisive continuation of military pressure, has to happen now rather than later. Yet the Strait of Hormuz remains what it has always been: the choke point through which a third of the world’s oil passes, and a potential Iranian pressure valve that Trump’s blockade is curtailing but has not yet fully neutralized. Any deal must not end with Iranian interdiction capacity in the strait intact.

The economic damage may be the most severe Iran has faced since the revolution. Sanctions, oil export restrictions, and blockade enforcement have driven the rial past 1 million to the dollar. Even by Tehran’s own count, airstrikes hit more than 23,000 factories and firms, costing over 1 million jobs directly, according to Iran’s Deputy Work and Social Security Minister. The Iranian publication Etemad Online has estimated another million pushed out of work by the spillover. Unemployment insurance applications have run at roughly three times last year’s pace. For a population already living with inflation above 40% and a currency that has lost nearly all its value, the consequences reach into every household in the country.

The Obama-era deal accepted Iranian enrichment on Iranian soil, imposed limits on enrichment levels and centrifuge counts, relied on an inspection regime that Iran learned quickly how to limit and evade, and included a sunset provision that would have permitted Iran to pursue a full nuclear weapons capability after roughly 15 years. It left the underlying infrastructure intact. That is why Iran was able to surge toward weapons-grade enrichment so quickly after the agreement collapsed. Trump is seeking something categorically different: physical removal of enriched uranium stockpiles, a genuine rollback of centrifuge capacity, verification with real teeth, and a permanent prohibition on nuclear weapons, no sunsets, no phaseouts. That is the right framework. The leverage to demand it has never been stronger.

The question is whether Iran will accept those terms. Its negotiators will continue to probe, offer tactical concessions, and try to run out the clock, attempting to relieve enough pressure to survive without surrendering the program. That is the playbook from every previous round. Iran’s most recent offer was, by Trump’s own public assessment recently, garbage.

But coercive leverage is useful only if there is someone on the other side capable of accepting its terms and making them stick.

On the Iranian side, the question of who can deliver on a commitment is emphatically open.

When was the last time you actually saw Mojtaba Khamenei? Not a statement attributed to him. Not a still photograph. Not him moving or speaking on camera. No video of him has been seen since his appointment. That question opens onto a larger one about who is running Iran.

Start with how he got there.

Ali Khamenei was killed on Feb. 28. Within a week, the Assembly of Experts formally named his son Mojtaba as successor, under what Iran International reported as direct IRGC pressure on individual clerics, including in-person visits and phone calls that sources described as psychological and political. At least eight Assembly members boycotted the final session in protest. The objections were not only about hereditary rule, which Ali Khamenei himself had condemned in 2017 as monarchical restoration. They were also about Mojtaba’s clerical rank: He is a mid-level cleric, three ranks short of the grand ayatollah status the Iranian constitution requires of a supreme leader. Ali Khamenei had reportedly opposed his son’s elevation during his lifetime. Within days of his father’s death, the IRGC pushed it through anyway.

Since then: no public appearances. Reuters, citing three sources close to his circle, has reported severe facial and leg injuries from the strike that killed his father. Iranian state media has used the word Janbaaz, the honorific for an injured war veteran, in references to him. Statements appear in his name. Surrogates speak on his behalf.

The honest counterargument deserves its weight. A wartime leader staying hidden after his father was killed in a strike may be practicing disciplined survival rather than signaling incapacity. Israeli and American intelligence are presumably hunting for targeting opportunities. Staying out of view during an active conflict is what a competent regime would do. Iranian officials say his injuries are limited. The Iranian president reportedly claims to have met him. That reading is available, and it should not be dismissed. But survival and authority are different things. A leader in hiding is not a leader in command.

What exists now in Tehran is a set of overlapping factions: Mojtaba at the apex on paper, the IRGC running operations, the Supreme National Security Council coordinating, the Foreign Ministry providing the diplomatic interface. The wartime succession has made the fragmentation deeper and not legible from the outside, or from within Iran itself. There is also a possibility worth naming directly: Mojtaba was elevated precisely because he could preserve continuity while remaining beholden to, possibly controlled by, possibly entirely subservient to, the security establishment that installed him. There is a harder possibility still that cannot be ruled out: Whether he is alive and functioning at all remains genuinely uncertain.

When Iran’s foreign minister signs an agreement, the question is not only whether he intends or has the power to honor it. It is also whether that signature binds the IRGC commander who controls the nuclear facilities. Whether it binds the Quds Force officer managing proxy networks. Whether it binds the engineers at the enrichment sites who may answer to a chain of command that runs through the Guards, not through the Foreign Ministry. The JCPOA, negotiated when Iran had a functioning and consolidated supreme leader, was still contested inside the IRGC from day one. The hard-liners who opposed it moved to dismantle its constraints the moment political cover appeared. That was the counterparty problem with a strong leader in place. The counterparty problem now is structurally more severe.

Trump did not inherit this negotiating position. He built it through sustained military and economic pressure that degraded Iranian capabilities to a degree no previous administration achieved. Israel’s military operations were indispensable to that result. He arrives at the table with more leverage than any American president has held on this issue since the revolution.

The problem is that leverage is only as durable as the pressure sustaining it, and a deal is only as durable as the authority of the party committing to it. Whether Iran currently has a supreme leader who can make the system honor a commitment, or whether what exists is a set of competing factions that could fracture the moment pressure lifts or internal power dynamics shift, is genuinely unclear.

That is not a reason to walk away from negotiations. It is a reason to build any agreement on the assumption that the counterparty may not hold. Verification cannot depend on good faith. Enforcement cannot require a trip to the U.N. Security Council, where some have historically shielded Tehran from consequences. Europe cannot be a decision-maker here. Its track record on Iran enforcement is a history of deference dressed as diplomacy, and it has spent two decades prioritizing engagement over accountability. Consequences for breach need to be automatic, pre-agreed, and executable by the United States. If Iran breaks a deal, the response cannot hinge on whether those with a Security Council vote are having a cooperative month.

The best hand in a generation is worth playing. But you need a table and cards and players across from you who can cover their bets. Right now, at least one of those conditions remains genuinely in doubt.

Jason D. Greenblatt was the White House Middle East envoy in the first Trump administration.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump Admin Intercepts $60 Million In Student Loan Fraud

Posted on May 15, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

The Trump administration has blocked $60 million in fraudulent student loan applications since launching a new risk assessment tool last month, the Daily Caller has learned exclusively.

The Department of Education launched a new risk assessment tool on April 26 to screen federal student aid applicants for fraud. Since the tool launched two weeks ago, the administration has found about 300,000 fraudulent applications that amounted to $60 million in student loans, officials told the Caller.

“We’re using best in class technology, and we’ve been able to stop a lot of those fraudulent activities that are there,” a senior administration official told the Caller.

The department will also now be instructing colleges across the country to also screen applications for fraud, the official shared with the Caller.

“We kind of started this entire process around identity verification. We provided institutions flexibility on how they verify identities that they can do online, through Zoom, or in person,” the official shared.

“We continue to work with institutions to provide as much flexibility as they identify identities,” the official added.

Tackling fraud has become a focus of the Trump administration. The White House recently launched an Anti-Fraud Task Force, led by Vice President J.D. Vance. The Department of Justice also added an assistant attorney general dedicated to rooting out fraud across the country.

The effort has been largely inspired by YouTube Nick Shirley, who exposed nearly a dozen Somali-run daycare centers in Minnesota that were not actually providing services.

The vice president and his task force are investigating Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar for alleged immigration fraud. “So we actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America,” the vice president told conservative personality Benny Johnson in an interview. “And I talked to [White House deputy chief of staff] Stephen Miller about this, actually, recently. We’re trying to look at what the remedies are.”

“That’s the thing that we’re trying to figure out is what are the legal remedies now that we know that she’s committed immigration fraud? How do you go after her? How do you investigate her? How do you actually do the thing? How do you build the case necessary to get some justice for the American people?” he added. “There’s a related issue, Benny, which is she has been at the center of a lot of the worst fraudsters in the Somali community.”

They get Crazier with Every Word

Posted on May 15, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

The Democrats can’t let go of the tired and played race card, so my optimism about November is at an all-time high.

Silvio Canto, Jr. | May 15, 2026

Here is a prediction. The GOP holds the House in November, wins Michigan’s Senate seat, and the balance of power doesn’t change much. Don’t bet your house on my prediction, but I feel pretty good about it.

Why do I feel good about it? Because the Democrats are getting crazier by the minute. Let me explain by sharing this from Jamelle Bouie, who I believe used to frequently appear on MSNBC panels, before they changed the name to whatever it is now. Here is Jamelle’s take:

The immediate consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais is that Republican-led states in the South can destroy their majority-minority districts and, in turn, deprive their Black residents of federal representation by politicians of their choosing…

Shad White, the Mississippi state auditor, also posted on X: ‘We’re fighting so that Bennie Thompson’ — who represents the state’s 2nd District — ‘and Hakeem Jeffries are not in charge. We’re fighting for a country that is safe, where our taxes don’t go up, where our border is secure.’

To watch this whole spectacle is to put the lie to the idea — seen in the court’s opinion as well as among the court’s apologists — that the South has changed so much since 1965 that a strong Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary.

There you have it. We are still living in 1965, or something like that. I guess that Jamelle sees everything through the race lens. It’s always about black and white rather than character, as someone said in a famous 1963 speech. In the meantime, a white Democrat defeated a black Republican in Virginia. And two black Republicans may defeat white Democrats for governor in Michigan and Florida. And we have Wes Hunt in Texas, a black man representing a majority white district. In other words, a lot of white voters are voting for black candidates, confirming that positions on issues are more important than skin color. The late Dr. King would be proud of that, and confirm that this ain’t 1965.

So why is it always about race for Jamelle’s side? I don’t know, but maybe it’s because they have nothing else to offer except telling black voters that only a black Democrat is capable of representing them. And worse than that, they want The Supreme Court to guarantee that a black Democrat is going to have a seat in Congress.

Memo to Jamelle: You are out of touch with reality. I guess that’s why I feel optimistic about the November elections, because Jamelle is not the only one saying these weird things on the other side.

Cuba Falling: There’s a Lot Going on Right Now. This Could be the Breaking Point.

Posted on May 15, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Sarah Anderson

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AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

The situation in Cuba may be at or near a breaking point. Many experts — real ones whom I trust and learn from regularly, not just whoever the MSM could dig up — are calling today the “beginning of the end” of the regime that has been in power for 67 years.

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No Oil, No Reserves

On Thursday, the country’s energy minister, Vicente de la O Levy, said on state media, “We have absolutely no fuel and absolutely no diesel. We have no reserves.”

Of course, he went on to blame the U.S. “blockade,” which prevents other countries from sending oil to Cuba via secondary tariffs, but we all know that’s not the real problem.

Even when the regime was receiving super cheap oil from Venezuela or Mexico, it was selling most of it to foreign countries and using what was left to keep its own interests up and running. The Cuban people were still dealing with blackouts. And the lack of oil wasn’t the only issue. The infrastructure there is crumbling, and the regime refuses to fix or maintain it.

Major Protests Break Out as Regime Cuts Communication Lines

Blackouts in many neighborhoods are now reaching 22 hours a day, which has set off a new wave of protests this week. People are losing their fear of the regime — they can no longer live like this — and they’re begging the United States to end it. There have been some photos and videos posted on social media, and advocates for a free Cuba, like Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), are asking people who can to spread the word about the protests. Why? The regime has now reportedly cut off all lines of communication in the country, including phone and internet service. They do not want the outside world to see what’s really going on.

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With that in mind, I’ll share a few videos from Wednesday night. Most of the captions are in Spanish, but they all basically say the same thing, explaining that people are in the streets protesting.

Record High Political Prisoner Numbers

While people are losing their fear and taking to the streets, they’re still not safe from the regime. The human rights organization Prison Defenders released its monthly report on the number of political prisoners in Cuba, and in April 2026, it hit a record high of 1,260 detained.

To make matters worse, 14 are minors, 142 are women, 449 have serious medical conditions, and 51 have untreated severe mental health issues.

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Rubio’s Most Recent Statements

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is currently on travel with President Donald Trump to China, but he sat down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on the way there, and one topic they discussed is what’s going on in Cuba. He didn’t say anything particularly new. He’s been saying all along that Cuba has no economy and the current people in charge aren’t competent enough to fix that.

“There is no economy in Cuba,” he said. “To the extent there’s any wealth in Cuba… forget about it doesn’t go to the people. It doesn’t even go to the government. The wealth is controlled by a private company owned by military generals. They take all the money. They’re sitting on billions of dollars, okay? This is a country where people are literally now eating garbage from the streets, but they have a company that controls all of the moneymaking there that’s sitting on $15-16 billion.”

Of course, he’s talking about GAESA, which he sanctioned heavily last week.

Then he spoke about Cuba’s potential:

The one thing Cuba would enjoy is an enormous expatriate community, Cuban Americans that would go back and invest. But I think there would be interest globally. Look, they have significant mineral deposits in Cuba — some of the rare earth minerals, some of the best in the world. They have, obviously, an incredible opportunity with tourism, with agriculture – very rich farmland. So Cuba should not be a poor country. Its people should not be starving. Its people should be prosperous. And what’s most interesting is you see Cubans everywhere in the world – in the United States, but you see them in Europe, you see them in Panama. Cubans leave Cuba, they go to other countries, and they become successful. The only place in the world where Cubans can’t seem to prosper and succeed is in Cuba.

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What’s All This About $100 Million in Aid?

While in Italy last week, Rubio spoke about how the United States has tried to give the Cuban people $100 million in aid, but the regime wouldn’t allow it. Of course, it wouldn’t go directly to the regime — the Cuban people would never see it if it did — but it would be handled through Catholic charities as we’ve done previously with smaller amounts.

Rubio also talked about that on Hannity:

On Wednesday, the State Department released the following statement about it:

The United States continues to seek meaningful reforms to Cuba’s communist system, which has only served to enrich the elites and condemn the Cuban people to poverty. As U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said, the United States has also made numerous private offers to the Cuban regime to provide generous assistance to the Cuban people, including support for free and fast satellite internet and $100 million in direct humanitarian assistance. The regime refuses to allow the United States to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance due to the failures of Cuba’s corrupt regime.

Today, the Department of State is publicly restating the United States’ generous offer to provide an additional $100 million in direct humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people that would be distributed in coordination with the Catholic Church and other reliable independent humanitarian organizations. The decision rests with the Cuban regime to accept our offer of assistance or deny critical living-saving aid and ultimately be accountable to the Cuban people for standing in the way of critical assistance.

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Initially, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba’s foreign minister and long-time Rubio foe, denied this, saying the U.S. never offered any such thing and calling it a “fable” and a “lie,” but when the State Department put it in writing, he changed his tune a bit.

He posted the following on X on Thursday morning. Of course, he couldn’t help getting a couple of digs in about the “blockade.” This is translated from Spanish:

It remains unclear whether it will be cash or material aid, and whether it will be allocated to the most urgent needs of the moment for the people, such as fuels, food, and medicines.

In any case, even taking into account the incongruity of the apparent generosity from the party that subjects the Cuban people to collective punishment through economic warfare, the Cuban government does not have a practice of rejecting foreign aid that is offered in good faith and with genuine aims of cooperation, whether bilateral or multilateral.

Nor does it have any objections to working with the Catholic Church, with which it has a long and positive experience of joint work through its cooperative efforts.

We are willing to hear the details of the offer and the manner in which it would be implemented.

We hope it is free of political maneuvers and attempts to exploit the shortages and suffering of a people under siege.

The best aid that the U.S. government could provide to the noble Cuban people at this or any time is to de-escalate the measures of the energy, economic, commercial, and financial blockade, intensified as never before in recent months, which severely affects all sectors of the Cuban economy and society.

John Ratcliffe Goes to Havana

Here’s something I didn’t have on my bingo card for today: CIA Director John Ratcliffe hopped on a plane to Havana on Thursday to meet with senior officials, including Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the elder Castro’s grandson, and Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas. This is huge.

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According to CIA officials, Ratcliffe was on a personal mission from Trump to deliver a message: The U.S. is prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes. The idea that Cuba can no longer be a haven for our adversaries (Iran, China, Russia, etc.) was a major point on the agenda.

Oh, and get this: Ratcliffe also reportedly reminded them of what happened in Venezuela on January 3 and that it can happen again if something doesn’t change swiftly.

The regime also confirmed the visit, claiming the U.S. requested it and “the Leadership of the Revolution approved the carrying out of this visit.”

Indicting Raúl Castro?

As I’m writing all of this on Thursday evening, CBS is reporting that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken steps to indict Raúl Castro for the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shooting. At that time, Castro reportedly ordered the military to shoot down two civilian planes in international waters, killing four people, three of whom were U.S. citizens and one a permanent resident.

Earlier this year, several members of Congress wrote a letter to the Trump administration requesting exactly this. I won’t rehash it all, as I wrote a lot about it in February, which you can read here: Could Trump Go After Castro?

Apparently, all it needs is a grand jury approval. With that, the 94-year-old Castro would be a U.S. fugitive from justice, and the Castro family would see an end to its decades of perceived impunity, even if it just turns out to be a symbolic move.

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Keep in mind, this is an “anonymous sources” story with no confirmation from the DOJ, but because of the nature of the issue, I wouldn’t expect the DOJ to comment on it anyway until it’s a done deal.

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I know that’s a lot, but it proves that the regime is in its most desperate position yet, and the Trump administration is ramping up a lot of pressure all at once — pressure that was already near its maximum. The coming days and weeks will be interesting to watch, and I will keep you posted every step of the way.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.

Help us continue to report on the administration’s peace through strength foreign policy and its successes. Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.

Sarah Anderson is a Georgia-based freelance writer and journalist, specializing in foreign policy, with a passion for Latin America and the Caribbean.

When she’s not writing, you can find her chasing animals on her small hobby farm, swimming every chance she gets, traveling, gardening, reading, or yelling at a Georgia Bulldogs or Atlanta Falcons football game like any good Southerner.

You might also catch her watching State Department briefings to unwind.

Email Sarah at SarahAndersonatPJMedia@gmail.com.