Lesley Stahl has seen a lot of horrible things over the course of her career at 60 Minutes, but none of it can compare to the horror she experienced watching her fellow journalists lose their jobs for being obnoxious.

“Oh God, this was awful,” Stahl told Puck when asked about the half dozen veteran producers and personalities who were fired along with Scott Pelley, the veteran newsreader and combat survivor dismissed for insubordination. “This was by far the worst experience I’ve been involved in, or even witnessed.”

The worst experience she’s ever even witnessed. By far. The Puck reporter observed that Stahl’s voice “trailed off, as if she was still having trouble processing what had happened during the past week or so.”

Stahl is 84—even older than Joe Biden. She lived through 9/11 and the Jimmy Carter administration. She witnessed the self-inflicted debasement of her former colleague Dan Rather after he reported on forged documents purporting to cast doubt on President George W. Bush’s service in the National Guard. That was pretty bad.

What else might the iconic journalist have experienced in her career that was almost, but not quite, as traumatizing as corporate restructuring in a dying industry?

Well, Stahl’s first story as a 60 Minutes correspondent was about child trafficking in Romania after the fall of Nicolae Ceaușescu. She visited a family that wanted to sell their four-year-old son for $500 to buy a camcorder. The following year, Stahl interviewed survivors of Josef Mengele’s twisted human experiments at Auschwitz. In 2020, she was forced to endure interviews with Rick Wilson and Steve Schmidt, cofounders of the much-maligned Lincoln Project super PAC.

It’s entirely plausible that Stahl was more disturbed upon learning that a handful of journalists had been fired by CBS. After all, she is a journalist, and many journalists have described Pelley’s termination alone as one the greatest tragedies to befall mankind.

Michael Tomasky, editor of the New Republic—a once-respected journalistic institution, much like 60 Minutes—said it would “reverberate in American journalism history as a symbolic execution of the single most groundbreaking and successful news program in the annals of U.S. broadcast television.” Pelley himself compared getting fired for insubordination to “your spouse being murdered.”

It’s also possible that Stahl has mild to moderate dementia. Perhaps she can’t remember watching parents negotiate to sell their children for color TVs. Her more recent output, on the other hand, is composed almost entirely of what industry insiders might call “vacuous fluffery.”

Over the last few years, Stahl has examined the benefits of “gender affirming care,” documented former congresswoman Liz Cheney’s abiding hatred for Donald Trump, and extolled the (alleged) comedy of former Daily Show host Trevor Noah. Despite her reluctance to “become part of the story,” Stahl performed a 60 Minutes monologue about her personal battle with COVID-19—a potentially harrowing ordeal given her advanced age, but less so given her exorbitant net worth.

Stahl encountered more traumatic experiences in 2025 while interviewing Yarden Bibas, an Israeli taken hostage by Hamas whose wife and two sons were killed in captivity. It’s not entirely clear if Stahl viewed the hostages as victims, given her egregious attempts to empathize with the Hamas terrorists.

When another former hostage, Keith Siegel, described how his captors were “beating” and “starving” him, Stahl wondered if the terrorists had deprived him of food because they were also starving. “No, I think they starved me, and they would often eat in front of me and not offer me food,” Siegel explained.

Please keep Stahl and her fellow journalists in your thoughts and prayers as they navigate this dark chapter of world-historic tragedy under the weight of  sorrow so profound that future generations will scarcely comprehend its magnitude.

Bless their hearts, the poor things.

Washington Free Beacon

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard on Friday declassified evidence showing that the United States government has funded more than 120 dangerous biolabs in over 30 countries, including 40 “especially dangerous” labs in war-torn Ukraine.

In a press release, the outgoing DNI stated that biolabs researching dangerous pathogens in Ukraine have been “at risk of compromise” due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

Gabbard stressed that risky Gain-of-Function research is continuing in some overseas biolabs despite President Trump banning the practice.

Gain-of-function research is a scientific process that genetically alters an organism to give it a new property or enhance an existing one, typically to increase a virus’s transmissibility, virulence, or host range.

Leading up to the COVID pandemic, former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci and the NIH funded research involving bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, which many believe led to the release of SARS-CoV-2.

On May 25, 2025, Trump signed Executive Order 14292 to end federal funding of Gain-of-Function research around the world.

The EO states: “Dangerous gain-of-function research on biological agents and pathogens has the potential to significantly endanger the lives of American citizens. If left unrestricted, its effects can include widespread mortality, an impaired public health system, disrupted American livelihoods, and diminished economic and national security.”

Despite this, many of the taxpayer funded biolabs have continued to conduct research “using hazardous and highly contagious pathogens, in some cases to include dangerous Gain-of-Function research, with very little visibility or oversight,” according to the DNI.

A newly declassified document alleges that over 40 biolabs in Ukraine have conducted research on “Especially Dangerous Pathogens (EDP),” including Anthrax, tuberculosis, Swine Fever, MERS, SARS, Marburg, Ebola, and the Plague.

Until now, evidence regarding the full existence and funding of these laboratories had been knowingly withheld from the American people. The information surrounding the existence, history, locations and funding of these US funded biolabs has been intentionally covered up by powerful people falsely, claiming that they do not exist and accusing anyone who says otherwise to be foreign assets and traitors to America,” Gabbard stated.

The DNI added that she has issued new guidance to the Intelligence Community directing increased oversight and collection on overseas labs, and has already learned that new clinical trials are currently being conducted at some of these facilities, “raising significant ethical, financial, and security concerns regarding these supposed public health initiatives and U.S. national security.”

“Despite the obvious potential for catastrophic global impact research on dangerous pathogens in biolabs can have, politicians, so-called health professionals like Dr. Fauci, and entities within the Biden administration’s national security team lied to the American people about the existence of US-funded and supported biolabs, and threatened those who attempted to expose the truth,” she stated, stressing that ODNI will continue working with the US Intelligence Community “to identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain to end dangerous Gain-of-Function research that threatens the health and wellbeing of the American people and people around the world.”

American Greatness

Israelis across the political spectrum have said the agreement appears to leave fundamental security threats posed by Iran unaddressed.

The main headline of Sunday’s Yediot Aharonot, a popular Hebrew daily, summed up in two words the prevailing sentiment in Israel over President Trump’s emerging cease-fire agreement with Iran: “Bad Deal.”

Israel waged two wars against Iran in the past year, the most recent one the campaign launched in late February with U.S. forces. Now Israel, which had not been a party to the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran, is being left out of the potential peace.

Even before the announcement came on Sunday that a cease-fire agreement had been reached, the details that had surfaced in news media reports prompted a flood of criticism and expressions of discontent from Israelis spanning the country’s political spectrum.

American and Iranian officials have said that under an initial “memorandum of understanding,” Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping route for the global economy, and the United States would lift its blockade on Iranian ports. The cease-fire that the two sides agreed to in April would be extended for 60 days. During that period, both sides would commit to holding detailed negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, and over the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

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That would fall far short of the goals that Israel set at the start of the two wars.

At the outset, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the objective was “to remove the existential threats” to Israel. That meant destroying any nuclear threat from Iran and its ballistic missile program, he said, as well as “creating the conditions” for the Iranian people to topple the government.

The Israelis have also demanded an end to Tehran’s support of its proxy forces hostile to Israel, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as support for Hamas in Gaza.

Israeli experts were alarmed that elements key to Israel appear not to have been mentioned at all.

“No matter what will happen, President Trump will declare victory, a total win,” said Jacob Nagel, a former acting national security adviser to Mr. Netanyahu.

“It’s very easy to say what topics” will be up for future negotiations, Mr. Nagel told reporters on Sunday in a video briefing. But, he said, Iran’s ballistic missiles and its support for proxy groups in the region do not even appear as topics in the publicly circulating details.

Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents, commenting before the announcement of the cease-fire, were less charitable.

“A catastrophe from Israel’s perspective,” Avigdor Liberman, a former Israeli defense minister and a right-wing politician, wrote in a social media post on Sunday. Once an ally of Mr. Netanyahu, he is now a bitter critic.

Yair Lapid, the centrist leader of Israel’s parliamentary opposition and a former top government minister, said he hoped the reports about the agreement with Iran were not true. “But if they are,” he said in a statement, “this is one of the most shocking failures of Israel’s foreign and security policy.”

Current Israeli government officials have said little, apparently for fear of upsetting Mr. Trump.

Mr. Netanyahu issued a statement on Friday saying: “As long as I am the prime minister of Israel, Iran will not have nuclear weapons. President Trump and I are in full agreement on this issue.” His statement neglected to mention ballistic missiles or proxy forces.

An Israeli who had been briefed on the deal with Iran, and who requested anonymity to discuss diplomacy, listed Israel’s main problems with the proposal:

• There are no clear answers regarding the treatment of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, and not enough curbs on Iran’s nuclear program, with the deal appearing to rely on Iranian good will.
• Instead of creating the conditions for the collapse of the Iranian government, the deal would allow funds to start flowing back into its coffers.
• The deal lays out no clear mechanism for forcing Iran to halt its support for its proxy forces. But it would mean the suspension of Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah, the militant group it is fighting in Lebanon.

The latest round of fighting in Lebanon erupted after Hezbollah fired at Israel days after the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began in late February. Iran has insisted that any broader peace agreement extend to the conflict in Lebanon.

Israel has sought to prevent any direct link between a deal with Iran and its military campaign against Hezbollah, noting that the militants are on its doorstep, but its influence appears to have been limited.

With Israeli national elections expected to take place by late October, Mr. Netanyahu is under intense pressure from within his governing coalition and from critics outside the government not to accede to dictates from Mr. Trump. He has been reluctant to oppose Mr. Trump publicly, not least because he has championed their close relationship as one of his main political credentials.

Isabel Kershner, a senior correspondent for The Times in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990.

Wishing President Trump Happy Birthday!

From Iran to Space X to the World Cup, it’s been a good week. 

Clarice Feldman | June 14, 2026

On June 21, 2025, the U.S. bombed three facilities in Iran dedicated to nuclear enrichment, which enrichment would have allowed Iran to move in a short time to making nine nuclear bombs.  This was a terrific mission that took more than 35 hours of flight time, and Iran’s three facilities deep in the mountains were decimated.  Despite the success of the bombing in destroying these sites, satellite photos “showed trucks leaving Iran’s Fordow site just before U.S. airstrikes” said to be carrying enriched uranium.  “Now, over 400kg of highly enriched uranium is unaccounted for. … [The] U.S. calls the strikes a success — but where is the uranium?”

Subsequently, Pres. Trump initiated Operation Epic Fury in March 2026.  At that point in time, he announced that the air strikes against Iran had four purposes:

1. To destroy Iran’s missile capabilities.
2. To destroy Iran’s navy.
3. To ensure that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon.
4. To ensure that the Iranian regime “cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.”

The same website that lists President Trump’s objectives for these attacks also lists statements by a variety of military leaders as well as by our secretary of War and secretary of State.

This writer was particularly gripped by the statement of purpose for our attack made by Admiral Brad Cooper: “Our military in the Middle East is undertaking an unprecedented operation to eliminate Iran’s ability to threaten Americans, as they’ve been doing for nearly half a century.”

This statement carries a broader vision of the military venture in Iran that needs to be received by the public.  Admiral Cooper understands clearly that the threatening and killing of Americans that Iran has done for decades is the right and sufficient justification for our aggressive stance.  He understands that Iran’s portrayal of the USA as the Great Satan to stir up the animus of the Muslim world (and particularly the Shi’ite believers within that political and religious culture) is in service to a bloodthirsty ideology of belligerence, hatred, and violent disrespect of Western mores and beliefs.

“Threaten Americans.”  Think about this.  The present ayatollah government wants to threaten us with suffering and death because we believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  The leadership of Iran, under the acronym IRGC, hates us because we live under phrases like “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights” and “all men are created equal.”  They are obsessed that so many of us live claiming to be Protestant or Catholic Christians.  Their envy of our economic successes drives them into a murderous rage, as even their own oil productivity and production depends upon the engineering knowledge and exploratory gifts of the West.

When this writer briefly taught high school at a private school in Iran two years before the present fanatical scoundrels took control of that country, U.S. engineers laughed discreetly at the Iranians who were on their teams who were building missile manufacturing and launching facilities for the Iranian army.  At a party in my apartment at the time, an American engineer said that if there was a testing protocol in place at a missile manufacturing site and parts were not available for the test to be properly completed, the Iranians would go ahead anyway.  The engineer said this would be like having three people lay a pipe.  The first would dig the trench, the second would put in the pipe, and the third would fill up the trench and cover the pipe.  However, he mockingly said of the Iranians that if the second man was not there to put in the pipe, Iranian three would reflexively fill in the trench without the pipe.

After the 1979 revolution that brought the ayatollahs to power, all the books in the library at the school where I had taught were burned in the courtyard of the school.  The American principal of the school who had lived and worked in Iran for decades left the country in 1980, and the school today is exclusively for boys.

The only aspect of Admiral Cooper’s above statement that needs to be qualified is that our operation in Iran is an “unprecedented operation.”  The vast scope and advanced weaponry involved are certainly unprecedented, but in the early years of our republic, we faced an extremely violent threat from the Barbary pirates of the Islamic world for thirty years, from 1785 until 1815.

Those pirates captured two of our ships as early as 1785, and each one had 25 sailors.  Thomas Jefferson, who was serving as our ambassador to France at the time, tried to negotiate, but the reader will not be surprised that the negotiations got nowhere.  Then the U.S. government changed from the Articles of Confederation to our present Constitution, and George Washington became our president.  Nevertheless, headway in recovering the kidnapped sailors went nowhere.  In fact, about two fifths of the American sailors captured died of disease and horrible conditions in captivity.

The U.S. kept on negotiating and negotiating, but the piracy and capture of our sailors did not abate.  Only after we defeated the British soundly in the War of 1812 did the Islamic enemies in Algiers retreat from their piratical ways, because that victory showed our growing strength and also smashed the British-Algiers alliance that was in effect at the beginning of the War of 1812.

It’s now confirmed that the raid was to capture documentary evidence that the Russiagate claims were false. They had been manufactured to defeat Trump and Obama believed that evidence was hidden in Trump’s residence.

She also revealed that, despite their repeated denials, the Obama Administration, including Dr. Fauci, had 120 gain-of-function biolabs in 30 countries, including Ukraine. Russia had claimed they did. Russian claims proved to have been true

GOING VIRAL☙ Saturday, June 13, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS

Jeff Childers

The viral 2022 map that got a man branded a “fringe QAnon extremist” just got confirmed by the DNI — and Trump…

“After months of searching through intelligence community holdings and files,” she said, “today I’m releasing new evidence of long-standing US government funding of more than 120 biolabs in over 30 countries.” Before you ask — yes, all 30 countries have lax regulations, legacies of official corruption, and long histories of dependency on USAID.

It’s not just routine bio-research. “Many of these U.S. government-funded biolabs are currently or have previously engaged in research using hazardous and highly contagious pathogens, in some cases to include dangerous Gain-of-Function research, with very little visibility or oversight.”

“Politicians and so-called health professionals like Dr. Fauci” — I love how she modified health professionals with so-called — “and entities within the Biden administration’s national security team lied to the American people about the existence of U.S.-funded and supported biolabs, and threatened those who attempted to expose the truth.”

Lies and threats. That’s the sitting ODNI accusing top government officials of malfeasance. It made history. The only comparable incident I could find was Tulsi’s own July 2025 release that accused Obama’s national security team of manufacturing the Russia-collusion intelligence narrative.

Tulsi is systematically dismantling the 2016-2024 intelligence establishment narrative. Which is probably why the corporate media quietly nudged the whole story behind the break room fridge with its Birkenstocked foot.

Grand juries in Florida are still sifting through evidence and listening to witnesses. CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirms that his predecessor John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are likely to be indicted in connection with their roles in this scandal.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find indictments respecting the 2020 presidential election corruption as well.

Remigration marches and rallies have expanded beyond Northern Ireland and Great Britain to France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Poland. I don’t know how much longer the European Union, which keeps demanding more third-world migration to Europe, will continue to hold together.

Speaking of Europe, X viewers have been charmed by the accounts of various Europeans who have toured the South and other less-traveled spots in the U.S. while here for the World Cup. A young German, “Freddy,” among others, was taken with local foods like Texas Barbecue, enormous stores full of wares like rifles and even shooting ranges, and fast food, ice for drinks, free drink refills, open roads, and the enormous geographic and demographic diversity of a country mostly familiar to them in movies painting dystopian pictures of America. Rod Dreher was inspired:

Rod Dreher (@roddreher) on X

“Proposal: resurrect USAID, and dedicate all its funding to sending Europeans on field trips to Buc-ee’s, Costco, and Bass Pro Shop.”

In my experience, few Europeans appreciate the sheer size and variety of the USA. They look with astonishment at the offerings in big box stores, not understanding that many people have refrigerators and freezers the size of many European flats or the sheer distance most of us travel to shop in cars, rather than on bikes or public transportation. European bien pensants have always worked to diminish the new world. In the 18th century, prominent French intellectuals believed North American animals were smaller and inferior to those in Europe. Thomas Jefferson, then our Minister to France, was, as you may recall, very tall (more than six feet), and he found the claim preposterous. He took time to compile comparative charts of mammals. After he was challenged on the matter at one dinner party in France, he responded by bringing at his own cost a massive bull moose, which he had paid to be hunted, stuffed, and shipped to Paris. In another, perhaps apocryphal account, he had guests line up by height, which he marked on the wall behind them to prove the Americans were taller.

American Thinker

From Iran to Space X to the World Cup, it’s been a good week. 

Clarice Feldman | June 14, 2026

Every day, the negotiations with Iran remind me more and more of that wonderful movie Dog Day Afternoon, in which a couple of crazy guys pull a botched bank robbery, hold hostages, demand preposterous concessions to surrender the hostages, and finally, while under the impression they are being escorted to a plane that will carry them to freedom, one gets shot and the other arrested. In the matter of Iran, the hostages are the millions of Iranians being held by nutters who think that if they blow up the world, the 12th Imam, who is hiding in a well (Bi’r al-Ghayba) will return to eradicate evil and create world peace.

President Trump has been economically and strategically squeezing the loony leaders and their proxies, while destroying as much as we (and Israel) can without harming the hostage population and without keeping them destitute for decades. Some critics assert that those leaders’ promises cannot be trusted, and, at best, they are just playing for time. (Hint: Trump knows this and will not agree to anything that does not assure compliance with the agreed-upon terms. Others say he must free the hostage population. Do you imagine landing troops on the Iranian mainland is more or less likely to save them than economic pressure and a negotiated end to the mullahs’ nuclear ambitions and piratical stranglehold on the Gulf of Hormuz? When you deal with irrational people, negotiations necessarily take longer than when you have rational negotiating partners.)

In any event, the President distinguished the deal from the one President Obama had with Iran and said on Saturday that the agreement will be signed today.

My Agreement with Iran is the exact opposite, A WALL TO NO NUCLEAR WEAPON! In fact, they no longer want a Nuclear Weapon, nor will they have one, either through purchase, development, or any other form of procurement. The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL. Our relationship with Iran is a much different and better one than previous Administrations have had. Unlike Obama’s Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in payments to them, including 1.7 billion Dollars in green, cold cash, no money will exchange hands. At the appropriate time, when all is calm, we will go in and get the Nuclear Dust, buried deep under the powerful sunken granite mountains, thanks to our beautiful B-2 Bombers and their brilliant pilots, and downblend and destroy it, whether in Iran, or the United States. We look forward to working with Iran, and the entire Middle East, long into the future. Hopefully, this process will all work out quickly, easily, and smoothly. If it doesn’t, we have the ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again!

The other big news this week was the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Elon Musk’s Space X, which gave the company a $2.1 trillion market cap and (on paper) made Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

Naturally, leftists like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who never made a payroll or ran a business, are outraged that, as yet, they cannot strip this wealth to be distributed to their cronies or for the ongoing Democratic party graft. (He’s the only person I ever heard of who was thrown out of a commune for being lazy. And she, you may recall, lied about being an American Indian to get a slot at Harvard Law.) Musk, on the other hand, is a creator of things, things that benefit millions. He spent years being broke, trying things that went bust, and has now proved widely successful in many endeavors. He did not forget those who helped make SpaceX the world leader in its field. All employees of the company were offered the choice of stock or cash bonuses, and those who shared the risk with him are reaping the rewards.

REPORTS: 4,400+ current & former SpaceX employees (welders, cafeteria staff, techs) have become millionaires. Massive wealth spread!

Tulsi Gabbard will be leaving her post as the Director of National Intelligence within days, and on her way out, she’s declassifying a lot, with hints that there will be more to come. She links Obama to the origins of a conspiracy that set in motion events which eventually led to the raid on Mar-a-Lago, and confirms that those who ordered the raid believed evidence was hidden in Trump’s residence. Russia did not sway the 2016 election, although the Deep State and its media lapdogs bamboozled people with lies to believe otherwise.

It’s now confirmed that the raid was to capture documentary evidence that the Russiagate claims were false. They had been manufactured to defeat Trump and Obama believed that evidence was hidden in Trump’s residence.

She also revealed that, despite their repeated denials, the Obama Administration, including Dr. Fauci, had 120 gain-of-function biolabs in 30 countries, including Ukraine. Russia had claimed they did. Russian claims proved to have been true

GOING VIRAL☙ Saturday, June 13, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS

Jeff Childers

The viral 2022 map that got a man branded a “fringe QAnon extremist” just got confirmed by the DNI — and Trump…

“After months of searching through intelligence community holdings and files,” she said, “today I’m releasing new evidence of long-standing US government funding of more than 120 biolabs in over 30 countries.” Before you ask — yes, all 30 countries have lax regulations, legacies of official corruption, and long histories of dependency on USAID.

It’s not just routine bio-research. “Many of these U.S. government-funded biolabs are currently or have previously engaged in research using hazardous and highly contagious pathogens, in some cases to include dangerous Gain-of-Function research, with very little visibility or oversight.”

“Politicians and so-called health professionals like Dr. Fauci” — I love how she modified health professionals with so-called — “and entities within the Biden administration’s national security team lied to the American people about the existence of U.S.-funded and supported biolabs, and threatened those who attempted to expose the truth.”

Lies and threats. That’s the sitting ODNI accusing top government officials of malfeasance. It made history. The only comparable incident I could find was Tulsi’s own July 2025 release that accused Obama’s national security team of manufacturing the Russia-collusion intelligence narrative.

Tulsi is systematically dismantling the 2016-2024 intelligence establishment narrative. Which is probably why the corporate media quietly nudged the whole story behind the break room fridge with its Birkenstocked foot.

Grand juries in Florida are still sifting through evidence and listening to witnesses. CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirms that his predecessor John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are likely to be indicted in connection with their roles in this scandal.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find indictments respecting the 2020 presidential election corruption as well.

Remigration marches and rallies have expanded beyond Northern Ireland and Great Britain to France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Poland. I don’t know how much longer the European Union, which keeps demanding more third-world migration to Europe, will continue to hold together.

Speaking of Europe, X viewers have been charmed by the accounts of various Europeans who have toured the South and other less-traveled spots in the U.S. while here for the World Cup. A young German, “Freddy,” among others, was taken with local foods like Texas Barbecue, enormous stores full of wares like rifles and even shooting ranges, and fast food, ice for drinks, free drink refills, open roads, and the enormous geographic and demographic diversity of a country mostly familiar to them in movies painting dystopian pictures of America. Rod Dreher was inspired:

Rod Dreher (@roddreher) on X

“Proposal: resurrect USAID, and dedicate all its funding to sending Europeans on field trips to Buc-ee’s, Costco, and Bass Pro Shop.”

In my experience, few Europeans appreciate the sheer size and variety of the USA. They look with astonishment at the offerings in big box stores, not understanding that many people have refrigerators and freezers the size of many European flats or the sheer distance most of us travel to shop in cars, rather than on bikes or public transportation. European bien pensants have always worked to diminish the new world. In the 18th century, prominent French intellectuals believed North American animals were smaller and inferior to those in Europe. Thomas Jefferson, then our Minister to France, was, as you may recall, very tall (more than six feet), and he found the claim preposterous. He took time to compile comparative charts of mammals. After he was challenged on the matter at one dinner party in France, he responded by bringing at his own cost a massive bull moose, which he had paid to be hunted, stuffed, and shipped to Paris. In another, perhaps apocryphal account, he had guests line up by height, which he marked on the wall behind them to prove the Americans were taller.

American Thinker

Voltaire’s purported remark about “common sense” not being so “common” has no greater application than modern Democrats and their philosophies.

Marc E. Zimmerman | June 13, 2026

18th-century French philosopher Voltaire is to have once remarked, “Common sense is not so common” when assessing the lack of logic and basic reasoning prevalent in France during the Age of Enlightenment. He certainly had a knack for distilling his views of humanity in that era. The dominant questions confronting society in that time were markedly different than those which the U.S. currently faces, but his stark observation can still be applied to a distinct segment of American society today.

The particular U.S. factions who support the “woke” and similar philosophies may hold that their beliefs are well-grounded in solid reasoning. But  many policies based on good intentions, which fit neatly onto bumper-stickers, have resulted in disaster as they were not fully examined for negative ramifications. Recent developments are illustrative.

Now, various appeals in support of benevolent sounding policies abound: who amongst you would not extend a helping hand to those escaping a foreign government’s oppression? Shouldn’t we as a society offer second chances to those who, for good reasons, violate our border, criminal theft, and voting laws? How can Americans be so heartless to restrict people’s actions when feeling estranged from their biological genders? And who can argue that a truly just society is not based on kindness?

When policy advocates concocted such grievances, ladled out ill-conceived public programs, and dumped them on a trusting society, they rained great misfortune on  U.S. culture and taxpayers. The outcomes of what were sold as well-meaning policies mutated into a mishmash of madnesses and pure folly.

One of the most recent egregious examples cited, according to the General Accounting Office, occurred in FY 2025. Rampant fraud discovered in the Medicaid and Medicare programs in Minnesota, Ohio, California, and Maine has resulted in $186 billion (thus far) spent on “improper payments stolen from taxpayers.” In Minnesota, more than 90% of those indicted for massive swindles in the “Feeding Our Future” food program, housing stabilization, and specialized Medicaid programs were centered in the Somali community. Testimony revealed that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison were put on notice of fraud in 2020, but funds kept flowing as their oversight responsibilities were ignored. In another instance, in Van Nuys, California, investigators found that a three-story dilapidated building, which was supposed to house 50 hospices and 97 home health companies, did not; the building even lacked a constructed wheel chair ramp for incoming patients. Even more proof of fraud was uncovered in a government report finding that six million ineligible people were  enrolled in “Obamacare” in 2026; these illegal subsidies cost taxpayers upwards of $25 billion.

In all of these cases, elected officials were unwilling to enforce laws which prohibited “paying someone who was ineligible for federal assistance.” To be clear, these amounts were not minor rounding errors but the result of governing authorities who ignored established laws, their responsibilities and, in many instances, gained political support from recipients for their largesse. Treasury Secretary Bessent estimated that if  all 50 states are audited for these brazen thefts and such schemes are eliminated, the U.S. could balance its budget. In 2025, the federal deficit added up to $1.8 trillion in overspending.

Another issue tearing at the fabric of the U.S. culture is the policy that boys, if they identify as female, should not only be allowed to participate in girls’ sports but have access to women’s locker rooms. This is seen as insanity by the vast majority of America. The adoption of this policy by the Fairfax County (VA) School Board was that youngsters can identify as another gender despite not having reached the Age of Reason. Thus, their choices must be respected. The Board completely ignored the rights to privacy for girls/females under Virginia Code § 18.2-386.1 “prohibiting…observing another person without consent for sexual gratification or to arouse or satisfy sexual desires when the person is in a place where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy (e.g., locker rooms, bathrooms, changing rooms)”. In Fairfax County, rapes and assaults have been the result of governing entities closing their eyes to established laws and the XX/XY chromosome differences.

In 2025, a California proposal penalized parents who did not affirm a child’s trans identity. But state law maintains until age 18, a child is not capable of understanding the effect of their reasoning and conduct. So, for lawmakers and parents to subject a child to either life-altering surgery or ruinous psychological damage because of their youngster’s immature feelings is despicable and malfeasance. A natural outgrowth of that theory would be if a second grader came home from school to announce she was now a giraffe, California law and parents would be forced to send that child off to the Serengeti for fear of prosecution.

More warped governing sensibilities have emerged in the form of lax treatment for indicted felons. Cashless bail is now granted in some metropolitan areas for those arrested for certain felonies…felonies! And the accused are then deposited back on the streets where they often repeat the same crime, sometimes in the same day. This is ludicrous. Illinois became the first state to entirely abolish cash bail under the so-called Pretrial Fairness Act. Defendants charged with particular felonies are released on cashless bail with specific, harsh conditions to include “checking-in.” Also, in 30 states, theft below $1,000 is now prosecuted as a misdemeanor; thieves often receive community service as “punishment.” Looters everywhere have rejoiced. Retail merchants, not so much. Mores are evaporating right in front of our eyes.

And of course one cannot overlook the travesty of not requiring a government-issued ID to vote in U.S. elections. On a secular basis, is there anything more sacred than guaranteeing the integrity of the American electoral process? There is no plausible reason to ignore adjudicated cases of non-citizen voting in recent elections. Oddly enough, the no ID requirement occurs almost uniformly in Democrat-run states. In light of the facts that two government-issued IDs were required to shovel snow in New York City last winter, and one was even necessary to enter the 2024 Democrat National Convention, it strikes many as rank hypocrisy to turn a blind eye to  something so vital to this country. Everyone is aware of ID requirements to open bank accounts, receive welfare, buy alcohol, and receive driver’s licenses, but there is no necessity to ensure the integrity of elections?

The motives in this particular instance are quite clear. The borders were flung wide open under President Biden, illegals flooded the country, and in many states and municipalities authorities gave illegals with no citizenship verifications permission to enter our voting booths. This was a blatant effort to cement political power for those who facilitated unlawful access to the country. Senator Rand Paul summed up: “Democrats have once again shown they do not want elections to remain free, fair, and decided by Americans.”

Odious, narcissistic politicians routinely divert attention from all of these disastrous outcomes and attempt to refocus arguments only on perceived injustices. Recall that Obama’s Rahm Emanuel, who is weighing a presidential bid in 2028,  infamously said “Never let a crisis go to waste.”

If officials who continue to promote these philosophies have their way, America will no longer be a nation of laws but a country where political expediency is the rule. If we do not stop the assault on and corrosion of our principles, we will no longer have a durable republic. Maybe we should rename AI “Voltaire,” and task it to do the job that contemptuous, woke politicians will not.

Marc E. Zimmerman was a Legislative Assistant to a Member of the U.S. Congress

American Thinker

A Russian MP has demanded that Vladimir Putin deliver a plan to end the war in Ukraine as he berated the Kremlin’s “ineffective leadership”.

In a lengthy tirade, Vyacheslav Markhayev listed corruption scandals, oligarchy, losses of the “most active and reproductively capable segment of the population” and Ukrainian drone strikes among the ills plaguing wartime Russia.

“The time of illusions is over. The country is on the brink of a social explosion, and the blame for this will fall squarely on the entrenched ruling power,” said Mr Markhayev, a deputy of the State Duma from the Communist Party.

“If the situation persists, social unrest and chaos will become more likely. The West will inevitably exploit this to destroy the remnants of Russian statehood.”

The deputy joins a growing list of public figures who have broken from the official line to voice criticism of the authorities.

Late last month, Renat Suleymanov, a State Duma deputy from the same party, called for the “earliest possible end” to the war, saying the economy could not “withstand” its continuation.

In March, Ilya Remeslo, formerly a staunch Kremlin loyalist, turned against Putin, branding the Russian president “a war criminal and a thief”, and calling for him to be put on trial.

Discontent with the authorities has simmered in the past few months, linked to sweeping internet outages, sluggish progress on the battlefield and long-range Ukrainian strikes that have penetrated the heart of Russia’s two biggest cities.

This week, it was reported that the state-controlled Russian Public Opinion Research Centre would stop publishing Putin’s “open” trust rating as it plummeted to the lowest level since the start of the invasion.

Only 29.5 per cent of Russians named their president as one of the politicians they trusted in early April, before the survey was mysteriously discontinued.

Concerns about the resilience of the economy have also spurred a backlash. Growth has slowed to a crawl, inflation remains elevated and Ukrainian attacks on refineries and terminals have bitten a chunk out of Moscow’s oil-driven budget, sending crude processing to a 16-year low.

Meanwhile, high defence expenditure, which has reached post-Cold War heights, has triggered increasing alarm in Russia’s finance ministry.

Military spending increased by more than 30 per cent in early 2026 compared with the year before, reaching 46 per cent of total budget spending, according to Dr Janis Kluge, an economist and senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

This means almost every second rouble spent from the federal budget was allocated to the military.

“The pace of military spending looks even more impressive – and, from the Kremlin’s perspective, concerning – when compared with budget revenues… military spending was equivalent to two-thirds of Russian budget revenues in January to March 2026,” said Dr Kluge.

The flagship international economic forum in St Petersburg last week, which was the scene of two mass Ukrainian drone strikes on its opening and closing days, was meant to showcase Russia’s economic resilience.

Instead, it has only deepened concerns. One topic of discussion was the absence of Elvira Nabiullina, the governor of the central bank, usually a fixture at the event.

The Kremlin claimed she was on sick leave, but rumours have swirled about the protracted absence of Putin’s top economist.

This week, she and her deputies also skipped an interest rates meeting with the Russian president and his senior ministers.

Russian independent channels, citing sources close to the government, have claimed that Ms Nabiullina has handed Putin an ultimatum that she will only serve out her term on the condition that he does not escalate the war with border closures and martial law.

Another source told the Mozhem Obyasnit channel that she was planning to leave the central bank imminently, which would amount to a significant upset.

The governor, who is highly regarded as a policymaker and has worked with Putin for almost two decades, is believed to have long harboured private reservations about the invasion, and is said to have attempted to resign at its outset. 

At that time, she was ordered to remain in her post, according to sources close to the Kremlin.

Putin has not wavered from his course despite growing domestic unrest. On Friday, he signed an executive decree to expand the official staffing size of the Russian army by almost 10,000 staff, the second time within four months that he has been forced to enlarge the pool.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has demanded an extra $20bn (£14.9bn) from allies to consolidate its sudden battlefield advantage over Moscow’s forces, according to a report in Politico on Thursday.

“Everyone sees that Russia is burning, and we want it to burn even more, but we need financing to do it,” an unnamed official told the outlet, adding that the request would be made on June 18 at a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group.

Tennessee families are being squeezed from every direction. Grocery bills are up. Fuel costs more. And when something breaks, whether it’s a car, an appliance, or a piece of farm equipment, getting it fixed has become its own financial ordeal. Some of that is inflation. But some of it is federal policy, and that part is fixable.

Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was originally written to protect intellectual property. Few could have anticipated that manufacturers of refrigerators, smartphones, and farm equipment would later use it for an entirely different purpose: embedding proprietary encryption and software locks in their products, then invoking federal copyright law to ensure that only their authorized dealers can touch them.

The practical effect is that even when a repair is entirely lawful, accessing the diagnostic software to perform it may not be. Independent repair shops and small, community-based businesses fully trained and equipped for the work are legally shut out. Consumers who want to take their vehicle, appliance, or tractor to a local shop are denied that choice. They can pay whatever the manufacturer’s authorized network charges or buy something new. That is not a free market. It is a rigged one.

The economic damage is real and widespread. Auto repair shops across Tennessee are losing out on critical revenue because manufacturers restrict access to repair data. Farmers lose time and money waiting on manufacturer-dispatched technicians while equipment sits idle during planting season. These barriers extend far beyond cars and tractors. From refrigerators and power tools to bicycles and consumer electronics, any digitally enabled product is a potential target. The more technology advances, the wider the manufacturer’s grip becomes.

Reforming Section 1201 would not touch copyright protections for artists or innovators, the original objective of the law. It would simply stop manufacturers from using copyright law as a shield against competition in the repair marketplace. Consumers could choose where their products get fixed, whether at a local shop, a national chain, or their own garage. Independent businesses could compete for that work on an equal footing. That is how markets are supposed to function, and it is how this one would function if Congress updated a statute that has been exploited by large corporations.

This is not a partisan question. It is a question of whether federal law should prop up large manufacturers at the expense of working families and small businesses. Policymakers on both sides of the aisle have talked for years about supporting competition and keeping costs down. DMCA reform is a concrete opportunity to deliver on these goals. Representatives Harshbarger and Rose have already led on legislation targeting these restrictions in the automotive sector, and other members of Tennessee’s delegation have engaged the issue in agriculture – a significant part of Tennessee’s ecoonomy. The moment is right to bring these efforts together behind a broader fix.

For Latino families in Tennessee that take pride in self-reliance, work hard to balance their budgets, and build their livelihoods from the ground up, the freedom to repair what you own is not an abstract idea. It is an everyday reality. Our elected leaders should treat it like one.

Tommy Vallejos, The Tennessee Star

There is a way to turn things around in California…just not right now, and not as fast as I would like.

Arthur Schaper | June 12, 2026

In a previous article, I analyzed the big winners and losers of the California primary. I didn’t mention my preferred candidate, Sheriff Chad Bianco, because to me he’s still a winner, even if the rest of the state (and Trump) rejected him.

California needed saving, and I believed that the sheriff was just the man to get the job done.

I thought Trump’s endorsement wouldn’t matter.

I went through 5 minutes of grief after I saw Bianco getting a distant fourth place in the gubernatorial race. I went through the stages of grief fairly quickly, arriving at the place of acceptance. When I could look at the assumptions I operated under and see where I went wrong, it gave me hope — and I hope it gives hope to others — that there is a way to turn things around in California. But just not right now, and not as fast as I would like.

My calculations were way off for this race. I had such hopes. Not only did Bianco lose, but Republicans running in my state assembly and state senate districts got locked out of the general election, too!

Reality TV actor Spencer Pratt, as an outspoken common-sense independent candidate for mayor, lost his chance to challenge Karen Bass for Mayor of Los Angeles in November.

Where did I go wrong? What did I learn?

1. I thought that Californians really had suffered enough, and they were ready to go in a new direction. Look at all the homes that went up in flames in Pacific Palisades! Across the states, homes have gone up in flames due to poor forestry and water practices from the Democrat-run government. The election results indicate that Californians have not suffered enough. They haven’t learned that voting Democrat means more destruction.
2. I thought the DEI dominance of the Democrat party would frustrate their candidates and allow two Republicans into the Top Two for governor and other races. Every identity and interest group in the state of California gravitates towards their preferred candidate. Former state controller Betty Yee would get the Asian vote. The California state superintendent of schools, Tony Thurmond, would get the black vote. Former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villagosa and former Congressmember Xavier Becerra would compete for the Hispanics. Tom Steyer, with billions to burn, played Bernie Bro, embracing the most aggressive left-wing policies. Katie “Karen” Porter would get the single white female vote. However, Democrats, even though they are determined to articulate intersectionality as much as possible (no straight white males, please!) their drive for power remained number one, and they figured out how to winnow the field (force out Swalwell, sideline Mahan), and ensure at least one Dem made it through to the Top Two.
3. I assumed that the hardcore progressive Berniecrats and Democratic Socialists of America would harm the Democrats with their own infighting and help Republicans. Tom Steyer blanketed the state with mailers, including high-propensity Republican voters like me. California State legislators and statewide officials split behind Steyer or the more Establishment Democrat (Porter, Becerra, Swalwell). Ultimately, Big Business and Big Labor still call the shots in California Democrat politics. Their paid politicians will pay lip service to progressive platforms, like advancing single-payer health care, enacting a ban on gas-powered everything, and eviscerating the Second Amendment. In the end, however, just like in prior elections, California Democrat power brokers muted support for the most progressive policy positions and sidelined the Berniecrats. The Democrat party of California is performative, not progressive, and they promoted Becerra to advance into the general election.
4. The California Republican Party faces some serious soul-searching. They face an electorate that is two to one liberal against them. The Democrat dominance is not just concentrated in the big cities, but is spreading to the suburbs. Orange County, California, was a bastion of conservatism from FDR. While the state went blue in presidential elections from 1992 onward, Orange County stayed red. Those days are gone now. For so long, I hoped that Republicans in California could change their brand, reshape their outreach, and augment a more common-sense policy platform to appeal to disaffected Democrats and independents. Sadly, Trump Derangement Syndrome has proven too malign for liberal voters to overcome. Democrats will not vote for more reasonable people unless the candidates are registered independents, like the current Los Angeles County District Attorney, or are Democrats unafraid to buck their party and the system, like Los Angeles City Councilwoman Tracy Park.
5. Trump is the boss, even when I don’t like his endorsements or choices. The boss may make mistakes, but the boss still makes the final call. The Republican Party is now Trump’s party, even in California. He has been good for the national party, since he has adopted working-class populism to win the Rust Belt. That political coalition does not resonate in blue coastal states like California. Trump expanded the electoral map and the demographics of the GOP. Those gains have not helped California. The Golden State has become an amalgam of aggressive public sector unions, festering hot beds of indoctrination in universities and public schools, plus an overwhelming population of illegals and recent arrivals committed to getting rich off the government. With interests like those, sound constitutional conservative policy cannot break through. I don’t blame Trump; I blame the liberal majority in California. And this disappointing reality reverts back to my first lesson: California voters want their abject liberalism, even if those policies cause nothing but suffering.

Trump will move on. Perhaps the California Republican Party can rebuild and have a future? Will there be any hope of the Republican Party brand resurgence when Trump retires? A successor can build on Trump’s current policy successes, learn from his messes, restore GOP suburban outreach, and bring in disaffected upper-middle-class moms and dads. Republicans in California have to find a way to bridge that gap, including tech elites and factory workers. There are signs that such a shift can happen.

Hispanic voters, especially in California, are moving to the right, but there is a need for real economic freedom and change. The decline of public schools and the rise of homeschooling suggest that the younger generation will be more independent and certainly more open to constitutional conservative thinking. With those kinds of changes, they will open up to the Republican Party.

If we want constitutional rule restored for certain in California, it will take a religious revival, which can happen. Argentina was a socialist basket case for 100 years. Only as Christian revival surged throughout the country, a new generation of voters began to reject the bland, played-out legacy of socialism. Then, outspoken charismatic libertarian economist Javier Milei announced his bid for president, with a new party, and then took the Argentine political class by storm as their new president.

Californians can wake up, and they can vote themselves out of political bondage. Of course, not just a change of minds in younger voters, but the welcome intervention of election integrity measures from the federal government will go a long way to ensuring a viable political system in California where the constitutional rights and the everyday needs of Californians can be respected and relieved.

American Thinker