Daniel Hansen, Unsplash

A new book on higher ed’s future should give university presidents pause.

For the entire existence of the James G. Martin Center, we have been arguing that, due to governmental policies, higher education has been badly oversold. That is, many students have been lured into college even though they have little interest in or aptitude for advanced academic studies. The notion that a college degree was a sure-fire investment that would pay off handsomely after graduation was erroneous, but great numbers of students and their families were taken in by that siren song. Moreover, a stigma somehow attached to students who didn’t go to college—if you had to “settle” for working after high school, that was a mark of shame.

The apotheosis of college reached its peak under President Obama, who declared early in 2009 that it must be our national goal to lead the world in the percentage of citizens who have graduated from college. Anyone who disagreed with his idea that college is a national elixir was scoffed at.

A large number of college graduates have ended up working in low-paying jobs that call for no advanced study.One writer who dared to raise doubts about college was Charles Murray. In his book Real Education, he argued that the bachelor’s degree was being forced to do things it was never meant for. He observed that a high percentage of the students enrolling in college weren’t seeking advanced learning; what they wanted and needed was hands-on training for the jobs they would later do. Four or more years of classes and papers and exams were mostly a waste of time and money for them.

Nevertheless, the education lobby has continued to declare that the college degree is the best way for almost everyone.In the years since Murray’s book was published, a lot of evidence has come to light that supports his point of view, especially the large number of college graduates who have ended up working in low-paying jobs that call for no advanced study. Nevertheless, the education lobby has continued to declare that the college degree is the best way for almost everyone.

It will be impossible to keep up the cheerleading that college is the key to the American Dream now that Kathleen deLaski’s book Who Needs College Anymore? is out. She has written a deeply thought-out and extensively researched book arguing that new methods for preparing young people for the working world, and, just as important, for helping employers identify those who best suit their needs, are rapidly developing. The days when a college degree was essential will soon be gone.

DeLaski states at the outset, “I believe we are on the cusp of a new era in which college as we know it could become an umbrella descriptor for several proud paths to adultification, skilling, or confidence building. In today’s fluid, do-it-yourself, just in time training culture, 62 percent of Americans are not earning a bachelor’s degree. They are finding alternatives and work-arounds, many hacking their way to sufficiency, a small number to lofty success.”

Echoing Murray, deLaski observes that large numbers of today’s college students never graduate, and, among those who do, many wind up struggling to pay their college loans, working in jobs they could have done without going to college. The good old college experience just isn’t centered on their needs. Fortunately, new technologies are changing that.

What makes this book all the more compelling is the author’s admission that, for many years, she was on the opposite side of the “college for all” debate. She worked for the Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae), which vigorously pushed the college agenda, since the more students took out loans, the more money it made. And she admits to having used the “but if you don’t go to college, you will end up flipping burgers” line on one of her children. But after years of carefully looking at the way college actually works for students, she came to the realization that few people really need to earn a degree.

The evidence for that conclusion is very persuasive, for example her conversations with lots of young people about their stories—such as the man who earned degrees at Yale and the Wharton School but said that all his studying left him feeling unemployable.

One of the developments now giving people alternatives to the college degree as a means of signaling their employability are bootcamps. They are immersions in skill acquisition that students can use to sell themselves in an expanding range of fields. Bootcamps aren’t brand new—they’ve been around for more than 10 years—so how are they working out? One of deLaski’s stories here is most enlightening.

DeLaski has spoken with employers and learned that they are looking for better ways of identifying talent.A young man who had gone to college and earned a degree in computer science was unable to “launch professionally” and spent several years after college working in retail sales. Then he came across an ad for a bootcamp named Climb Hire, which said it would train people for salesforce-administration jobs and that those who completed the program would owe the $7,200 tuition only if they landed a job paying at least $45,000. Since he was earning only $22,000, he thought he had nothing to lose. So he signed up, learned the material in convenient evening classes, and then found a job paying enough that he was obligated to repay the tuition. Money well spent.

College grads have no loyalty, so employers are starting to “fish upstream.”Bootcamps, deLaski observes, are good at “retrofitting” people who’ve gone to college but have not been able to find a route to success.

What about employers? DeLaski has also spoken with many of them and learned that they are looking for better ways of identifying talent than relying on the presence or absence of a college degree. One executive told her, “I’m not sure I want college graduates. I don’t want all their baggage coming with them. I’m just looking for workers I can train into my industry.”

One problem, he said, is that college grads have no loyalty, so he (and other employers) are starting to “fish upstream,” meaning they try to connect with prospective workers while they are still in high school. They do that by pointing interested students towards bootcamps, community-college classes, certificate programs, or anything else that will give them identifiable skills. With all the information that’s becoming available to employers about those skills, college is more and more an unnecessary middleman.

These kinds of training programs don’t yet exist for many industries, but they are proliferating quickly. So are apprenticeships, and deLaski relates another eye-opening story about a young woman who apprenticed with the insurance company Pinnacol. In high school, she had not figured out what, if anything, she wanted to study in college and was afraid of going into debt for it. When she heard about Pinnacol’s apprenticeship, she decided to give it a try. Now, at 21, she is an underwriter managing 2,000 worker’s-compensation accounts. College for her? Possibly, in the future.

So, where does that leave colleges?

The huge, artificial expansion of demand for college degrees that began with the government’s ill-considered intervention in higher education 70 years ago is going to decrease greatly as students avail themselves of better ways of getting into the world of work. Most schools will have a hard time finding ways to fit into the new reality. Only a rather small percentage of students really need college degrees these days, such as those who want to go into medicine or law, whose professional schools are open only to those with college degrees. (There is no reason for that restriction, and it’s something else that should change.)

DeLaski points to a few colleges that have adapted to the need to offer students what they want rather than the traditional degree, such as Western Governors University. Most colleges, however, will struggle as their market shrinks. They aren’t nimble (as Brian Rosenberg discussed in his book “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It”), and few faculty members have any expertise in teaching the kinds of things students will pay for.

How do you suppose the heads of companies that made vacuum tubes for televisions and radios felt when they first heard about a new technology called the transistor? They realized that it would force them out of business—unless they could somehow find a way to ride the wave of change. If college presidents read Kathleen deLaski’s book, they will have the same sense of foreboding.

George Leef is director of external relations at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.

For a couple of decades now, I have put out a list of the best and most obnoxious quotes of the year. The most obnoxious quotes always get much more attention for understandable reasons, but that’s just how it is these days, isn’t it? The most outrageous, blood pressure-raising, anger-producing events get all the eyeballs, and the real news, brilliant insights, and uplifting sentiments tend to get ignored.

Well today, we’re going to be giving those “best of” quotes the respect they deserve. What you are about to read is a little snapshot of history, the best quotes from 2014 – to the present. Enjoy!

20) “In the past, if a 21-year-old said they had ‘trauma’, or were on the receiving end of ‘violence,’ it usually meant they’d seen their mates get blown up in the trenches, or had been shot. Now it just means they saw a Tweet.” — Charlotte Gill

19) “Unfortunately, as I tell my white friends, we as black people, we’re never going to be successful, not because of you white people, but because of other black people. When you’re black, you have to deal with so much crap in your life from other black people. It’s a dirty, dark secret; I’m glad it’s coming out.

…One of the reasons we’re never going to be successful as a whole, is because of other black people. And for some reason, we are brainwashed to think, if you’re not a thug or an idiot, you’re not black enough. If you go to school, make good grades, speak intelligently, and don’t break the law, you’re not a good black person. And it’s a dirty, dark secret.

…There are a lot of black people who are unintelligent, who don’t have success. It’s best to knock a successful black person down because they’re intelligent, they speak well, they do well in school, and they’re successful… We’re the only ethnic group who say, ‘Hey, if you go to jail, it gives you street cred.’ It’s just typical BS that goes on when you’re black, man.” — Charles Barkley

18) “Conservatives say ‘you can be somebody.’ Liberals say ‘you should hate somebody.’” — Carl Jackson

17) “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do read it, you’re misinformed… In our society, now it’s just first — who cares, get it out there. We don’t care who it hurts. We don’t care who we destroy. We don’t care if it’s true.” — Denzel Washington

16) “If you want to know who actually has the power in our society and who is actually marginalized, ask which ideas get you sponsorships from Google and Pepsi and which get you fired.” — Kevin Williamson

15) “If progressives have a politics that says all white people are racist, all men are toxic, and all billionaires are evil it’s kinda hard to keep them on your side. If you’re chasing people out of the party, you can’t be mad when they leave.” — Van Jones

14) “What once helped to diminish ancient prejudices was the American creed that no one had a right to discriminate against fellow citizens on the basis of race, gender, class, or religion. And what fuels the return of American bias is the new idea that citizens can disparage or discriminate against other groups if they claim victim status and do so for purportedly noble purposes.” — Victor Davis Hanson

13) “Actually, the idea that governments can spend without any concern for financial return is the fundamental incorrect premise of our time.” — Balaji Srinivasan

12) “Government, we are sometimes told, is just another word for things we choose to do together. Like a lot of things politicians say, this sounds good. And, also like a lot of things politicians say, it isn’t the least bit true. Many of the things government does, we don’t choose. Many of the things we choose, government doesn’t do. And whatever gets done, we’re not the ones doing it. And those who are doing it often interpret their mandates selfishly.” — Glenn Reynolds

11) “Government’s job is not to get you stuff or to get somebody else’s stuff for you. It’s to preserve your liberty.” — Rand Paul

10) “If you want to know how dumb the West has become, people have been arguing about how many genders there are, and if it’s FAIR to allow males to compete against females in competitive sports… For 8 YEARS! No wonder no real progress is being made on anything important.” — Zuby

9) “To me, it’s a sign of intellectual weakness. If you can’t ask Ann Coulter in a polite way questions which expose the weakness of her arguments, if all you can do is boo, or shut her down, or prevent her from coming, what does that tell the world? What are you afraid of? Her ideas? Ask her the hard questions. Confront her intellectually. Booing people down, or intimidating people, or shutting down events, I don’t think that that works in any way.” — Bernie Sanders

8) “We are all descended from slaves. It is just a question of when. Was it more recent or less recent? That’s it.” — Elon Musk

7) “Disagreements become insults when politics becomes a statement about who you are.” — Jonah Goldberg

6) “We are not a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of citizens.” — Mark Levin

5) “The only true test of intelligence is if you get what you wanted out of life.” — Naval Ravikant

4) “You know what woke means, right? It means you’re a loser. Everything woke turns to sh*t.” — Donald Trump

3) “Modern journalism is all about deciding which facts the public shouldn’t know because they might reflect badly on Democrats.” — Jim Treacher

2) “What I see all over the place is people who care about looking good, while doing evil. F*** them.” — Elon Musk

1) “Fight! Fight! Fight!” — Donald Trump

John Hawkins, Culturecidal

“We are by long odds the most ill-mannered nation, civilized or savage, that exists on the planet today. Our president stands for us like a colossal monument.”–Mark Twain

I have often wondered at the condition of things which set aside morality in politics and make possible the election of men whose unfitness is apparent. We have never had a president before who was destitute of self-respect & of respect for his high office; we have had no president before who was not a gentleman; we have had no president before who was intended for a butcher, a dive keeper or a bully, and missed his mission by compulsion of circumstances over which he had no control.

We are by long odds the most ill-mannered nation, civilized or savage, that exists on the planet today, and our president stands for us like a colossal monument visible from all the ends of the earth. He is fearfully hard and coarse where another gentleman would exhibit kindliness and delicacy.

He became so expert in duplicity, and so admirably plausible that he couldn’t tell himself when he was lying and when he wasn’t. The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might.

He taught them that the only true freedom of thought is to think as the party thinks; that the only true freedom of speech is to speak as the party dictates; that the only righteous toleration is toleration of what the party approves; that patriotism, duty, citizenship, and devotion to country, loyalty to the flag, are all summed up in loyalty to party. Loyalty is a word which has worked vast harm; for it has been made to trick men into being “loyal” to a thousand iniquities.

It is interesting, wonderfully interesting — the miracles which party-politics can do with a man’s mental and moral make-up. In the interest of party expediency they give solemn pledges, they make solemn compact; in the interest of party expediency, they repudiate them without a blush. They would not dream of committing these strange crimes in private life.

It is an accepted law of public life that in it, a man may soil his honor in the interest of party expediency — must do it when the party requires it. Where the party leads, they will follow, whether for right and honor, or through blood and dirt and a mush of mutilated morals. Here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it & out of place — the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else’s keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan.

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

We will not hire a blacksmith who never lifted a sledge. We will not hire a school-teacher who does not know the alphabet. We will not have a man about us in our business life, in any walk of it, low or high, unless he has served an apprenticeship and can prove that he is capable of doing the work he offers to do. We even require a plumber to know something about his business, that he shall at least know which side of a pipe is the inside. But when a representative of ours learns, after long experience, how to conduct the affairs of his office, we discharge him and hire somebody that doesn’t know anything about it.

Those burglars that broke into my house recently are in jail, and if they keep on, they will go to Congress. When a person starts downhill, you could never tell where he’s going to stop.

People seem to think they are citizens of the Republican Party and that that is patriotism and sufficiently good patriotism. I prefer to be a citizen of the United States.

My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease and death.

In this country we have one great privilege which they don’t have in other countries. When a thing gets to be absolutely unbearable the people can rise up and throw it off. That’s the finest asset we’ve got — the ballot box.

In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. The citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth’s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor.

The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet.

Mark Twain edited by Shelley Fisher

EDITOR’S NOTE: The opinions of Mark Twain are not entirely in agreement with the Artful Dilettante.  Just sayin’.

As Americans file their taxes at the last minute this April 15, the federal debt – and Americans’ federal debt burden – continues to grow.

While the federal government reports a national debt nearing $37 trillion, one budget watchdog says the figure is actually much higher: $158.6 trillion, amounting to $974,000 for each federal taxpayer.

Truth in Accounting, a nonprofit budget accountability group that emphasizes a different approach to government accounting, released those figures, arguing that they more accurately represent the fiscal situation of the federal government.

TIA’s report includes $51.6 trillion for Medicare and $67.1 trillion for Social Security for benefits that have been promised to recipients down the road but are not considered in the ordinary national debt conversation.

“These numbers come from the Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports, which include calculations of the present value of projected benefits over the next 75 years, offset by the dedicated receipts expected over that period,” TIA Founder and CEO Sheila Weinberg told The Center Square. “Our calculations focus only on current participants – we do not include receipts or benefits from future participants.

“For Medicare specifically, in addition to the estimates based on current law, the actuaries also provide projections under the ‘Illustrative Alternative Scenario’… This scenario includes more realistic assumptions about future physician payment rates, and we use the IAS in our estimates.”

For instance, current government debt levels do not take into account the future payments for Social Mecurity and Medicare in the coming years, some of the nation’s biggest and most problematic financial obligations.

“The Treasury Department only included a fraction, $241 billion, of the Social Security and Medicare liabilities on the federal balance sheet because unknown to most people, according to government documents, recipients do not have the right to any benefits beyond the benefits to be paid next month, and laws to reduce or stop future benefits can be passed at any time,” reads TIA’s report, first obtained by The Center Square.

Budget experts have raised the alarm for years about the federal government’s runaway spending – under both political parties – and the threat it poses to the U.S.

“Our country’s financial condition continues to spiral out of control, and taxpayers are left holding the bag,” Weinberg said.

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TIA argues current federal accounting downplays the severity of the U.S. debt problem.

“Nontransparent, flawed budgeting and accounting techniques currently produce inaccurate amounts, making the federal government’s finances difficult, if not impossible, to manage,” the report said. “The first step in managing the nation’s finances should be presenting accurate and transparent figures through full accrual budgeting and accounting that includes the costs and growth in the liabilities related to the two programs our seniors rely on the most, Social Security and Medicare. This would enable Congress, the President, and the American people to make better-informed tax and spending decisions.”

Casey Harper

A/D NOTE:  Liberals are completely off their nut.  We are nearly $160 trillion in debt and these ignorant marxists are taking to the streets to protest Elon Musk’s sincere, dedicated effort to reduce federal spending by only $1 trillion.  That’s his stated goal.  Instead of working with the GOP to solve our nation’s fiscal problems, they must resort to violence.  They are setting ablaze up his car dealerships, keying Teslas, holding anti-Musk riots against a man who has nothing but the noblest intentions.  Violence is their last and only weapon to stop the Trump juggernaut.  And if they succeed, our Republic is doomed. 

President Trump’s job approval rating has surged to its highest number since he was inaugurated in January.

Currently, Trump’s job approval rating sits at 54 percent, with only 46 percent disapproving. This ties his all-time high this year (in this poll) and is a five-point boost in approval since late March.

This poll of 1,002 registered voters was taken between April 10-14, the days during the so-called stock market turmoil after the president instituted the tariff increases he ran on, which appear to have brought dozens of countries to the negotiating table.

“For all the events of the past ten days, we find the President’s approval rating unchanged and now at its joint highest ever,” pollster James Johnson told the Daily Mail.

“Among the noise and criticism, there does seem to be a simple truth,” Johnson added: “The more coverage there is of Trump’s changes, the more voters reward him for what they see as the pace and purpose that many of them voted for.”

The DailyMail.com/J.L. Partners poll also found that 64 percent of those aged 18 to 29 approve of the job Trump is doing. Those over 65 approve at 54 percent. The 30-49 and 50 to 64 age groups approve at 52 percent and 51 percent, respectively.

Hispanics approve of the Deporter-in-Chief with a margin of 46 percent to 43 percent.

Independents approve of Trump at 48 percent.

As with all polls, the trend is the thing to watch, and there’s no question that despite the entire legacy media colluding to batter Trump over tariffs, the stock market, the deportation of a terrorist, and that dumb SignalGate episode, Normal People have tuned it all out. Voters refuse to be manipulated by the discredited media any longer. At long last, the people see the regime media for what it is—a dishonest, left-wing propaganda outlet no one should pay any attention to.

In this same poll, in early March, Trump’s approve/disapprove number was upside-down by two points: 49 to 51 percent. Today he is up +8, 54 to 46 percent. The three most recent polls in the RealClearPolitics average have Trump above water despite all the massive corporate propaganda campaigns launched against him during the time of their respective polling.

Before Trump took office, more than two-thirds of the country said America was on the wrong track. People want change and they want leadership. Trump is offering both. Whining about “muh norms” and deporting illegal alien gang members…? Try again, CNN.

John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook. 

“Narcissism” is the scarlet letter label of our day. Unfortunately, narcissism gets bundled in with legitimate self-esteem and self-respect. The fact remains: Your life is an end in itself — to you; and it should be. Ditto for me. Ditto for everyone. Honoring the self is not narcissism. Narcissism is when you want to value yourself, and you want everyone else to orbit around you, too. Narcissists seek to grant themselves self-interest, denying it to everyone else.

A big double standard. The truth: It’s possible to be self-interested while respecting the fact that everyone else has the same prerogative. If you can’t handle this fact, you probably aren’t quite ready for the real, adult world.

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on X at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, @DrHurd on TruthSocial. Dr. Hurd is also now a Newsmax Insider!

Our friend Billy Bostickson (not his real name) has done something extraordinary. In a densely detailed 40,000-word report titled The Pangolin (Coronavirus) Papers, he’s pieced together the full story of COVID-19’s origins. For years, we’ve covered the fragments—Xi Jinping’s bizarre lockdowns and new biosafety laws, genomic anomalies, military ties, missing databases, and the cover-up by U.S. officials—but Bostickson, co-founder of origin-hunting group DRASTIC, has pulled all of it together into one sweeping, forensic narrative.

At the heart of the report is a clear argument: COVID-19 didn’t come from nature—it came from a lab. That’s not new, but Bostickson lays it out with unnerving precision. He walks the reader through how SARS-CoV-2 acquired its most suspicious trait: the furin cleavage site, a genetic insertion that turbocharged the virus’s ability to infect humans—and which has never been found in any related virus in nature. He shows how this feature was likely introduced in lab experiments, involving co-infections and serial passaging of viruses like RaTG13, GX_P2V, and pangolin coronaviruses in human cell lines or animal models.

All of these viruses were present at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)—and they were being handled under conditions that would never pass muster in high-containment labs in the West. These types of experiments, better known as gain-of-function, were so dangerous that President Obama imposed a moratorium on them in 2014. That’s when Anthony Fauci began outsourcing the work to Wuhan. Fauci-backed scientists, including the University of North Carolina’s Ralph Baric and EcoHealth Alliance’s Peter Daszak, deliberately chose Wuhan because of its lax biosafety standards. It was easier and cheaper to get the work done there. Baric even sent the WIV his advanced humanized mice, which mimic human lung tissue and are critical for stabilizing lab-made viruses. They were all playing with fire—and COVID was the result.

The so-called “pangolin theory,” once loudly promoted by the China, the media and Fauci-funded scientists as the virus’s origin story, takes a brutal beating. Bostickson shows the pangolin coronaviruses used as evidence were likely contaminated or outright manipulated. He traces how pangolins were trafficked and dissected in labs—not wet markets—and argues persuasively that their role in the outbreak was fabricated. They weren’t vectors. They were experimental tools.

What emerges is an unsettling picture: SARS-CoV-2 didn’t evolve in nature. It was engineered—pieced together from known viruses, adapted in labs for human infection. From the outset, it transmitted with eerie efficiency. It didn’t need time to evolve in humans—it arrived ready. That doesn’t happen in nature. It happens in labs.

But The Pangolin Papers isn’t just a virology deep-dive. It’s also a story of timing, deception, and systemic cover-up. Bostickson shows the outbreak didn’t begin in December 2019, as official narratives claim. It started earlier. The WIV began scrubbing databases and pulling research offline as early as September. Strange illnesses were reported around Wuhan in October. U.S. officials, like Consul General Russell Westergard, were sounding alarms as his reports would later show.

And then there’s the bombshell: Chinese military scientist Zhou Yusen—of the PLA’s State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity—filed a vaccine patent for COVID-19 before the first cases were publicly acknowledged. Months later, he mysteriously fell from the roof of the Wuhan lab and died.

As the virus spread, the Chinese government slammed the door on data access, silenced scientists, and pushed convenient lies—wet markets, pangolins, seafood stalls. They rewrote the timeline. The Huanan market, initially dismissed by Chinese investigators, was repackaged as the epicenter of a natural outbreak. And the global media ran with it.

But what is in many ways most damning in Bostickson’s account isn’t what happened in China. It’s what happened in the United States. Senior officials like Fauci and NIH head Francis Collins worked behind the scenes to steer public attention away from the lab-leak. Private emails revealed that many of the scientists publicly dismissing a lab origin were privately considering it as the most likely explanation.

Bostickson singles out the now-infamous “Proximal Origin” paper as a turning point in the disinformation campaign: a document that claimed, without evidence, that SARS-CoV-2 couldn’t have been engineered, and which was organized and chaperoned by Fauci himself.

And then came DEFUSE.

In 2018, EcoHealth Alliance, together with Baric and the WIV, submitted a proposal to DARPA—the Pentagon’s research arm—asking for funding to insert furin cleavage sites into novel coronaviruses. DARPA decided not to fund the proposal. But someone went ahead anyway. The virus that emerged bore the exact kind of genetic signature described in DEFUSE.

Bostickson also reveals the underreported role of China’s People’s Liberation Army. PLA scientists weren’t just watching—they were working inside the WIV. One virus in particular, GX_P2V, was made lethal to humanized mice in PLA-run experiments. The Chinese military wasn’t on the sidelines. It was actively involved.

Taken together, the evidence paints a devastating picture: a network of Chinese researchers—some civilian, some military—used advanced Western biotechnology to push dangerous experiments past the point of no return. When it all went wrong, they closed ranks. On the U.S. side, those who had funded, enabled, and shared the technology and blueprints—Fauci, along with Baric and Daszak, whom he directly supported—scrambled to suppress the truth.

This isn’t a theory. It’s a documented timeline. Genomics, scientific records, grant applications, internal emails, it’s all there.

The Pangolin Papers is the most complete account yet of how COVID-19 began. It’s detailed, forensic, and unflinching. Indeed, it is more than a reconstruction. It is a warning. This will happen again. And next time, it might not be a virus with a 0.2% fatality rate. Next time, it might be something much worse.

If you’re ready to dig into all the details—the full 40,000-word version awaits. Much of what it contains was already known or reported piecemeal over the years by people like us and a handful of others. What’s different now is that it’s all gathered, documented, and laid out in one place.

Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke, Truth Over News

A new survey finds more than half of left-wing respondents believe assassinating Donald Trump could be justified.

Political violence in America is not just a relic of the past. From the attempted assassinations of Donald Trump to the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, to the burning of Teslas in protest of Elon Musk, political violence is a present-day reality. More than 9,000 threats have been made against members of Congress this year—a “huge increase,” according to officials.

Are these events aberrations or do they reflect a national problem? Are they connected? And does the public support them?

A new report from our group, the Network Contagion Research Institute, provides answers. Our research, based on nationally representative surveys and analyses of online activity, demonstrates the existence of online subcultures that support the murder of public figures like Trump and Musk. This “assassination culture,” incubated on social media, has migrated from the margins of public life into the mainstream.

We found that nearly one-third of Americans surveyed—and around half of those identifying as left-of-center—believe that the murder of certain public figures is at least somewhat justified. The figures are startling: 38 percent of respondents, and 55 percent of those left of center, said assassinating President Trump would be at least somewhat justified; 31 percent of respondents, and 48 percent of those left of center, said the same about Musk. Forty percent of respondents, and 58 percent of those left of center, deem it at least somewhat acceptable to “destroy a Tesla dealership” in protest.

Our report also discovered an online “assassination culture,” found in predominantly left-leaning digital spaces, such as Bluesky and Reddit. This subculture justifies and glorifies political violence. Some of these networks’ users wield the name “Luigi” or use the Luigi video game character as coded endorsements of Brian Thompson’s alleged assassin, Luigi Mangione. These users cloak explicit calls for violence in stylized memes. Many believe that political murder and sabotage are acceptable forms of protest.

What motivates these attitudes? To answer that, we looked for statistical associations between respondents’ backing for political violence and other psychological and behavioral measures. We identified three key variables that predict support for violence: left-wing authoritarianism (characterized by a willingness to use coercion and punishment for progressive aims), external locus of control (the extent to which individuals feel powerless in their lives), and use of the left-wing social media platform Bluesky.

This finding is especially concerning, as it reveals that many progressives have adopted a coherent ideology that justifies political violence. While right-wing extremism certainly exists, its left-wing equivalent merits considerable attention. Unfortunately, it has been historically understudied and, according to corroborating reports, is on the rise.

The rise of this ideology is troubling for American democracy. Political assassinations often occur when perpetrators believe a critical share of the public will tolerate—or even justify—them. Given the growing number of Americans who now express support for political violence, and the surge in threats to political figures, we recommend heightened security precautions across all levels of government.

These attitudes reflect a deeper pathology in our political culture: social media has magnified feelings of powerlessness and redirected them toward violent extremism. Confronting this contagion requires moral clarity and a renewed commitment to America’s founding principles. Civil disagreement must replace online hostility, and political leaders must denounce violence—without qualification—as incompatible with a constitutional republic.

If we fail to hold that line, the future may echo the darkest chapters of our past.

Zack Dulberg, Max Horder, City Journal

The Supreme Court’s order on Monday granting the Trump administration’s emergency request to lift a lower court stay on deportations of certain Venezuelan nationals was unsigned, swift, and unmistakable in its signal—or signals.

For now, the executive branch retains its sovereign authority to enforce immigration law. And for President Trump, now in his second, non-consecutive term, the ruling marked an early victory in a week that would yield several more.

But if constitutionalists interpret this as a decisive turning point, they misread the terrain. The Left’s lawfare brigades remain dug in—launching salvo after salvo—with their campaign of sabotage unfolding in courtrooms and press releases alike, aimed less at justice than at jurisdictional chaos, narrative warfare, and no matter what, thwarting the duly-elected president of the United States.

Make no mistake: this is a war of attrition—not waged with ballots or legislation, but with briefs and bench rulings. It aims to nullify the last presidential election—and a statute nearly as old as the Constitution itself. Its arsenal: blunt injunctions and the sharpened blades of ideological jurisprudence.

This latest flashpoint emerged from a power grab cloaked in humanitarian concern. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of Washington, D.C., issued a temporary restraining order halting the deportation of alleged members of Tren de Aragua, Venezuela’s most violent criminal syndicate—now embedded within U.S. borders, a legacy of the Biden-era’s open-border indulgence.

The pretext? A thin, uncorroborated assertion that deportees might suffer mistreatment upon return—despite repeated designations of Tren de Aragua by U.S. and allied authorities as a transnational criminal and terrorist organization. That dubious claim, transformed by judicial alchemy, became a sweeping due process theory—crafted to trigger habeas-like relief without the inconvenience of habeas itself.

Yes, you read that paragraph right: the court was seriously entertaining the claim that confirmed members of a violent, terror-affiliated syndicate faced undue risk if returned to El Salvador—or to Venezuela, the failed narco-state that birthed them.

It is not merely misguided but absurd to suggest that the United States must offer asylum and sanctuary to such actors under the pretense of civil liberty.

This isn’t law—it’s the resistance in judicial vestments, cloaked in authority but animated by politics.

The dissents came from Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson—and Justice Barrett, who partially dissented on procedural grounds. Her equivocation underscores a sobering reality: even on bedrock questions of executive power, the Court’s center-right bloc now hedges where once it would have roared.

Reasonable minds can debate whether ACB is center-right—or simply wears a stripe all her own. The spirit of David Souter lives on.

The ruling was handed down through what critics deride as the “shadow docket”—a phrase invented not to inform but to impugn decisions that obstruct progressive priorities.

Pro tip: If you see those words in coverage, the odds are that the Left lost.

But there was nothing shadowy here. Boasberg’s order purported to affect individuals beyond his jurisdiction—many of whom were held in Texas, already deported or in international airspace when the order was issued.

Boasberg’s reach wasn’t legal—it was imperial. His ruling crossed state lines and national borders, arrogating to a D.C. courtroom powers the Constitution never envisioned. It was judicial maximalism masquerading as executive oversight.

Even more telling, the plaintiffs initially filed their case as a habeas petition—the one legal pathway the Supreme Court recognizes under the Alien Enemies Act. Then they dropped it. Why? Because habeas requires jurisdiction in the district of confinement—Texas, not Washington.

By dismissing their habeas claims and seeking class-wide declaratory and injunctive relief instead, the plaintiffs and their legal counsel effectively admitted what the Court later confirmed: their filing was forum-shopping disguised as civil rights litigation.

Boasberg took the bait and granted provisional class certification for “[a]ll noncitizens in U.S. custody who are subject to” Presidential Proclamation No. 10903—transforming a handful of cases into a nationwide blockade of immigration enforcement.

This is imperial lawfare by battering ram—assaulting the presidency and dismembering well-settled law, all under the pretense of equitable relief.

The Supreme Court made that plain, vacating his order and reminding the bench that under Ludecke and Heikkila, judicial review under the Alien Enemies Act is strictly limited—and venue lies solely in the district of confinement.

For these detainees, that means Texas, not Washington. Boasberg had no business taking the case, much less freezing national deportation policy from chambers well beyond the reach of his jurisdiction.

Justice Sotomayor’s dissent claimed the Alien Enemies Act cannot be invoked because the U.S. is not formally at war with Venezuela. That argument may find favor in Ivy League faculty lounges, but it collapses under textual and historical scrutiny.

The AEA explicitly applies in cases of invasion. Given the cartel-fueled incursion at our southern border—overseen and excused by the previous administration—the threshold has been met. Congress hasn’t issued a formal declaration of war since 1942. Are judges now the arbiters of armed conflict and foreign threats?

Justice Jackson’s dissent was even more revealing. She faulted her “fly-by-night” colleagues in the majority for failing to demonstrate urgency—a strange threshold for a case involving terrorism-linked deportations and foreign affairs. But what, precisely, is more urgent than a federal judge overriding national security deportation protocol?

Notwithstanding the dissents, the AEA remains a binding precedent. It is not some dusty relic but a cornerstone of wartime executive authority in times of incursion and national peril. If the Left wishes to repeal it, let them try through legislation.

Until then, it governs, and judges who disregard it are not interpreting the law but trespassing into the realm of the two political branches.

Yet this case was never truly about Venezuelan gang members. It was about jurisdiction and venue shopping, media manipulation, and the sabotage of immigration law through procedural sleight.

The Left’s strategy is tired but effective: file in friendly jurisdictions—D.C., San Francisco, Manhattan—seek emergency relief, spin the narrative, and dare the executive to fight back.

While limited in scope, the Supreme Court’s ruling delivers a necessary check on the wholesale venue shopping that has increasingly defined the Left’s legal strategy.

The Lords Temporal of the Legal Left are evolving their playbook, refining old tactics with fresh legal cosmetics and deeper entrenchment. The ACLU has already begun seeking class-action certification in at least one case.

It would function as a nationwide injunction in all but name if granted. But federal law—specifically, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1)—forbids lower courts from enjoining immigration enforcement on a class-wide basis. Only the Supreme Court has that power.

President Trump understands the institutional battlefield. Every legal victory is met with fresh filings and new injunctions. For the activist bench, defeat is never a setback—it’s merely the fault of a “far-right” Supreme Court stacked with flag-waving Republican appointees.

Never mind that it falls to the high court to correct the constitutional overreach of the courts below. The left-wing legal cabal will file again—somewhere, anywhere—until the judiciary finally says no.

And when it does, the same crowd that preaches reverence for “our sacred institutions” will savage them without hesitation or shame.

This ruling was a necessary and overdue correction. But if the conservative majority hopes to repel the judicial coup against executive power, one ruling won’t suffice. They must hold the line—ruling after ruling, challenge after challenge.

For now, this is a win. But make no mistake: the war is far from over. It has only just begun. Stay tuned—the next battle is already on the docket.

Charlton Allen is an attorney, former chief executive officer, and chief judicial officer of the North Carolina Industrial Commission. He is the founder of the Madison Center for Law & Liberty, Inc., editor of The American Salient, and the host of the Modern Federalist podcast. X: @CharltonAllenNC

Image: Free image, Pixabay license.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Days after she was unexpectedly caught meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer reportedly sneaked back into the White House on Monday in far less conspicuous attire.

According to White House insiders, Governor Whitmer returned to the Oval Office for a follow-up meeting with the president, but planned ahead this time, arriving in a full burqa to simultaneously conceal her identity and honor her large number of devout Muslim constituents.

“It was definitely her — I would recognize that shrill voice anywhere,” said one administration source who asked to remain anonymous. “She wasn’t happy about being caught on camera the other day, so when she showed up for today’s meeting, she made sure nobody could see her face. To be honest, we’re all pretty grateful. Have you seen her? Oof. Like the Joker, but crazier and more terrifying.”

When asked about Whitmer’s return this morning, President Trump did not confirm his guest’s identity. “We had a great conversation, whoever she was,” he told reporters. “My people told me I had a meeting, and in comes this person wearing a set of curtains. Like a black ghost. That’s what she looked like. But she wasn’t scary, she was actually very nice. A nice black ghost, whoever she was.”

The burqa-clad visitor left the White House without speaking to reporters.

At publishing time, rumors circulated that Whitmer was planning to have herself enclosed in a wooden crate and shipped via air freight to the White House for her next meeting with President Trump.

Babylon Bee