I might be in the minority of car owners, but I actually enjoy changing my oil. My local big box store has bargain prices for jugs of long-lasting full-synthetic oil and carries OEM filters, so I can usually get out the door for less than $40 in materials for a DIY full-synthetic oil change. Saving money is definitely nice, but so is peace of mind. I’m forever scarred by the time my wife took her SUV to a rapid oil change place that didn’t fully tighten the drain plug. Fortunately, we caught the growing oil slick in our driveway before serious engine damage was done.

However, one of the more challenging aspects of the home oil change is removing said drain plug. First, you’ll need to remember what size wrench or socket to grab from the toolbox. Then, there’s the juggling act of maintaining inward pressure on the plug with your fingers while unscrewing to prevent oil from dribbling out. And finally, you pull the liberated drain plug away at lightning speed while still somehow getting hot oil on your hands and the floor.

It was for these reasons that the quick drain oil plug was invented. Quick drain oil plugs allow you to empty the contents of your engine’s oil pan by merely twisting a small valve. Many of these gadgets also have a fitting to attach a flexible hose to more precisely direct the outflow. The concept almost seems too good to be true, so why aren’t all vehicles equipped with this engineering marvel?

It’s more vulnerable than a regular drain plug

It’s been speculated that the reasons auto manufacturers don’t use drain valves as original equipment is because of their higher cost, and though that may be true, there are other considerations. A quick browse of some automotive message boards shows that drivers are concerned that the quick drain oil valves are considerably taller than a conventional low-profile drain plug. The logic is that it might be damaged or accidentally opened from striking an object, like an SUV-defeating rock.

That’s particularly concerning to owners of four-wheel drive vehicles who frequently travel off-road and are exposed to obstacles. Certain products have backup mechanisms like a steel cap to prevent spills in case the valve accidentally gets bumped open. Still, there’s no denying that an oil drain valve hangs down lower than a regular thread-in drain plug.

Another concern over quick drain oil plugs is that the drain opening is smaller than a conventional plug. That means that it’s going to take longer for all of your used oil to drain from the pan. In fact, some users level the accusation that the oil never drains 100% completely because the tip of the quick drain plug remains protruded into the oil pan while a regular screw-in plug opens the drain hole completely. 

But there’s plenty of positives, too

Like with so many products, there’s going to be pros and cons to buying a quick drain oil plug. So far, we’ve been pretty pessimistic, but now it’s time for the positives, and that’s in addition to the basic premise of making oil changes neater and easier. Consider that you won’t be repeatedly screwing and unscrewing a threaded drain plug into the oil pan, which can lead to repairing stripped threads if done improperly. And let’s be honest, how many shadetree mechanics really use a torque wrench on their drain plugs? That drain plug could regularly be under or over-tightened whereas the quick drain valve is one and done.

Similarly, the rubber gaskets or metal crush washers that seal a traditional oil drain plug need to be replaced periodically. Opinions vary on how many oil changes can be performed in between replacing a drain plug’s seal, but the seal that’s built into the quick drain plug won’t need to be replaced because the valve remains permanently installed.

The grandfather of the oil drain valve is the Japanese company Fumoto, which invented the device in 1976 and began shipping it to the United States in 1984. Since then, others have mimicked the design or developed what they consider to be improved versions. Clearly, there are many fans of the quick drain oil plug concept, while other gearheads don’t trust it to stay closed or drain every drop of old oil. Which camp do you fall into?

Richard Sachekmay

It’s just too much winning to handle. Trump’s been so effective already, it’s made our heads spin.

In his first hundred days, Trump has racked up an impressive list of accomplishments. The White House has given The Babylon Bee exclusive access to Trump’s official to-do list for the next 100 days.

Here’s what to expect:

• Survive 3rd impeachment: Charges pending.
• Replace the entire cabinet with Marco Rubio: He’s a jack of all trades.
• Order the National Science Foundation to determine if 100 men can really defeat a gorilla: The nation deserves to know.
• Delay Epstein list again: It should be released sometime around Trump’s third term.
• Direct Elon to build a migrant detention facility on Mars: Quickly, before a judge overturns it.
• Attend Joe Biden’s funeral: Should be any day now.
• Find out what the giant red button in the Oval Office supply closet does: Probably nothing good.
• Build a wall on the Canadian border: It’s time we kept all those dirty Canucks out of our country.
• Launch an inquiry to find out what the heck Congress has been doing this whole time: Do they do anything?
• Put Lindsay Graham in charge of Pride Month: There’s no one in the nation more qualified.
• Sell New Jersey to Mexico: It will potentially reduce the deficit by dozens of dollars.
• Authorize the creation of a grand Clone Army of the Republic: Rumor has it that the soldiers will be clones of Elon Musk.
• Marry wife number 5: Rumor has it he’s talking with Sydney Sweeney.
• 300% Tariff on German Shepherds: It’s time to support American shepherds.
• End democracy: The Dems have been saying he’s going to do it for so long now that it’s a boy-who-cried-wolf situation, and he can really do it now, and no one will believe it.

It should be an eventful few months. Who knows what else Trump’s got up his sleeve?

The Babylon Bee

Nobody should trust Joe Scarborough when it comes to measuring someone’s ideology. He called Liz Cheney a “real conservative” when she endorsed Kamala for President. 

Actual Trump supporters he called “MAGA freaks,” and he even claimed: “These people are, if I can quote Aristotle, here, crazy as a sh–house rat.”

This same Scarborough announced on today’s Morning Joe that far-left Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez represents “meritocracy,” and yes, she’s “more progressive,” but she’s fabulous: 

• “One of the most articulate, exciting people in the Democratic field.” 
• “Democrats don’t need people past retirement age being their voice. They need somebody young like AOC.” 
• “She can carry the message forward for a Democratic Party that really needs to reach out to younger Americans . . . What a great message to have.” 
• “Democrats need her more than she needs the Democrats.”

Just record a campaign advertisement and be done with it! 

Scarborough claimed socialist firebrand AOC “can carry the message forward for a Democratic party . . . What a great message to have.”

And just what is Ocasio-Cortez’s message? Turning to the Issues page on her campaign website, we find that AOC, among other radical positions, wants to:

• Abolish ICE.
• Consider illegal immigrants “full members” of the US, entitled to all major welfare benefits.
• End cash bail. 
• Ban law enforcement’s use of tear gas and rubber bullets.

Interestingly, Mika Brzezinski was considerably less keen on Ocasio-Cortez. While acknowledging that AOC is very talented, Mika said that there’s room to look at “a lot of other people,” and that young people, AOC’s base, are not the most dependable voters. When Scarborough continued to express his AOC excitement, Mika’s facial expressions made her doubts about AOC unmistakably clear. See the last part of the video clip.

Many observers feel that the Trump campaign’s ad exposing Kamala Harris support for taxpayer-funded sex change operations for inmates, including illegal immigrants, was devastating to her campaign. AOC gave an impassioned speech on the House floor proclaiming that “trans girls are girls.” And she criticized the Biden administration for suggesting that there could be any limitations on the right of biological males to participate in women’s sports.

That Scarborough apparently thinks those are winning messages for the Democrats reveals just how much he has transitioned from his days as a conservative Republican congressman from the Florida Panhandle.

PS: Self-described simple country lawyer Scarborough once again exposed what Freud—whose birthday is today—might have diagnosed as Ivy-envy, repeatedly railing against the “Ivy League boys” in the Trump administration.

Here’s the transcript.

MSNBC
Morning Joe
5/6/25
6:12 am EDT

Everyone from Trump to Europeans themselves know that the precursor to the EU was created with the so-called “ideal” of unifying the European people after two horribly devastating world wars. The saying goes that we wanted to keep the Russians out, the US in, and the Germans down but cooperating.

It more or less worked as a mechanism for limited economic cooperation until it got greedy and took on zealous imperial political ambitions. Donald Trump has now called their bluff and said the quiet part out loud, “The EU was in fact created to screw the US.”

No more.

Mass migration, youth unemployment, job precariousness, globalist bureaucracy, military failure and ineptitude, and a rise in extreme poverty have shown that the EU project is completely failing. Nothing has lower poll ratings than the European Union. It is hated by everyone inside and outside the Bloc, except for the bureaucrats and cronies that run it to their own benefit.

After the Brexit referendum in the UK and the election of populist governments voicing increasing opposition to EU policies in Hungary, Poland, Austria, and Italy, as well as growing nationalist movements in Germany, France, and now Spain and elsewhere, it’s quite clear there is deep and widespread discontent across the entire EU today. Its time is up.

EU parliamentary election results show nothing less.

Europe is fragmented and in utter turmoil. With weak leadership and a powerful Trump to face down, the EU has few cards to play.

The monetary portion of the union was created to coordinate the money supply and interest rates through a central bank in Europe.  

It put the cart before the horse.

It was sanctioned by the nonsensical Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and later established through the creation of the Euro currency adopted by only 19 of the 28 member-state countries. It is a fake currency, even the former chief economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, no right winger, admitted such in his book on the subject.

The European Central Bank (ECB) was in turn created to coordinate interest rates – a ‘one size fits all’ approach to vastly differing economies and differing fiscal needs.

Italy, Greece and Eastern Europe suffered most, failing to meet the unrealistic economic directives and demands imposed by the centralized authorities, often at the behest of wealthier, northern member states, Germany in particular.

Germany – whose economic strength is largely predicated on a mercantilist trade surplus with the US – truly dominates the EU. It calls the shots. They forced their failed Defense Minister, Ursula van der Leyen, into the top position. No one wanted her.

German banks invested heavily in southern European countries with interest rates they were unable to pay back.

Consequently, then Chancellor Merkel demanded the countries implement austerity policies with disastrous consequences.

German government figures show the country made billions from Greece’s debt crisis. German has manipulated everything in the EU to its advantage. It is a Third Reich without the uniforms.

Economic stagnation – and worse – followed…. but who really cares now? 

A monetary union without a fiscal union meant that richer countries were unwilling to provide for countries facing hardship.

And so, the rich became richer, and the poor became poorer. The whole system was exposed.

Imagine for a second if the U.S. government provided loans to its poorer states, demanding a return with a high interest rate, all the while cutting spending and increasing taxes if they were unable to pay back on those loans.

In other words, imagine a central government practicing usury on its own citizens, profiting from them getting poorer.

This is what we now know is the Eurozone.

But then the EU was also created to unify countries with historically distinct national identities. No one speaks the made-up language, Esperanto but that is what the EU is or desires.

Each European country has its own language, traditions, and way of life – with regions within said countries exhibiting drastic differences, beyond.

Syrian and Iraqi refugees reach the coastal waters of Lesbos in Greece, after having crossed from the middle east/Turkey.

Asking distinct nations to give up part or all their identity for a larger, common, fictitious “Pan-European identity” might have worked if a European identity had been established during the advent of Union itself. It was not.

Fundamental questions, such as: “What does it mean to be European?” were left completely unanswered.

So much for describing the “liberal values of diversity.”

Instead of celebrating the diversity of the many sovereign nations and regions within Europe, the EU sought to create a new kind of diversity by celebrating identities from outside of Europe and demonizing those inside.

National patriotism was made into hate speech.

In Europe, this genuine pluralism is manifested in the distinctive individuality of the states it comprises, resulting in an authentic collection of cultures.

Italian culture cannot be reduced to a generic “European” culture, nor can French, German or Polish culture, religion or mores.

Attempts to so homogenize European norms and regulations so that all member states look, and act exactly alike does violence to the rich history and individuality of each people and culture—and they deprive Europe and the world of the creativity that lies within these dynamic traditions.

It seems evident to me that the recent growth of populist movements throughout Europe is a direct result of an instinctive understanding that the fundamental principle of subsidiarity is no longer duly respected or appreciated in Europe. That is a shame.

A top-down approach to governance, where the smaller is subsumed into or supplanted by the greater, is in fact oppressive and ultimately unsustainable.

With the migrant and refugee crisis, Merkel and Juncker allowed millions of people from outside of Europe to enter indiscriminately. Look what has transpired. Now there is a strong reaction with political consequences.

No distinction was made between migrants and refugees at the border. (Does this sound vaguely familiar in our country?)  

The failure to establish vetting procedures hurt actual refugees the most, as their genuine claims for asylum were not prioritized over migrants without any justification to enter.

Criminals and terrorists took full advantage.

This open-border policy resulted in a rise in Islamist terrorism in Europe, alongside ethnic and religious tensions between both the new arrivals and the people receiving them.

Consequently, and not surprisingly, anti-mass immigration movements began to rise in Western Europe. Today they are rampant.

Lega in Italy, the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, the Rassemblement National in France, and Vox in Spain, have all surged. Meloni is now the Prime Minister and rising star and Orban rules Hungary.

These parties, which previously barely received five per cent of the national vote, are now an integral part of parliaments across the continent. AfD just collected over twenty per cent of the electorate in the recent German elections.

The voting bases of these parties are constituted of working and middle-class people, many of whom previously voted for more left wing, socialist parties.

Rassemblement National’s, Marine Le Pen came close to wiping emperor Macron’s ass. He defeated himself, now there is weak government in France and extreme polarization.

Most of these people switched allegiance in large part because of immigration; when they saw their governments take care of foreign needs before their own, and when they were facing unfair competition with cheap labor from abroad.

The left-wing parties that previously represented working-class needs focused instead on advancing the interests of a new proletariat of foreigners and an abstract globalist ideology out of touch with reality.

On the issue of immigration, the EU continues to actively neglect the needs of Europeans.

It is now a supra-national body, which means it takes away the sovereignty of individual nations to make decisions for nations as a whole.

This overly complicated and convoluted system doesn’t allow European citizens to choose or hold accountable the people drafting their laws, directives, and regulations.

They have little to no control over their money, borders, trade or laws. They can’t even cut trade deals with Trump that would build their own economies.

The European Commission is weak, and its legislative process is unresponsive to people’s needs. It is a joke.

Moreover, their President has little experience and few qualifications in being the head of the legislature of 28 European countries and 513 million people.

These so-called “leaders” are not even democratically elected.

The leadership evolves through insidious insider backroom bargaining.

So, is it unsurprising that the EU’s greatest proponents are polling at record lows, while nationalist sovereigntists like Trump, Modi, Orban, Meloni-Salvini, and Le Pen are confounding their critics with high approval numbers—in Europe and everywhere. Trump sees this and is taking advantage. He should insist on dealing with the EU countries bilaterally.

The European Union and its leftist, globalist ideology are in tatters. Trump has called them out and his tariff plan will completely shock their economies.

In a recent poll most Europeans said the EU wouldn’t even exist in fifteen years.

Why wait so long?

(Views expressed by guest commentators may not reflect the views of OAN or its affiliates.)

THEODORE ROOSEVELT MALLOCH, scholar-diplomat-strategist, was a professor at Yale and Oxford. He was to be Trump’s ambassador to the EU but was made Persona Non Grata by that body. The only American with that credit. His memoir, Davos Aspen & Yale is a best s

Small Reforms to Improve the US Medical System

The American system of medical-care delivery has no name. It is neither single payer nor based on private enterprise. It is a patchwork of cockamamie carrots and sticks, agencies and incentives, exceptions and accounting tricks, cajoles and punishments, cobbled together over some 50-100 years of legislation that itself was a product of pressure-group pushes, graft, loopholes, mandates, and subsidies. 

It’s not even a clean public-private partnership. It’s a public-private-nonprofit-grifter-payola regulatory cacophony of confusion and chaos over which pharmaceutical companies and professional lobbyists exercise the dominant influence. 

Still it quasi-functions. It hobbles along year after year with ever more expense and administrators, with ever worse results. Absolutely no one would design such a thing from the ground up. No one is particularly happy with it but neither is there much push to change it fundamentally. 

The Covid years devastated trust or, perhaps, just pulled back the veil. Every poll confirms it, e.g. a Harvard/Northwestern poll showed that trust fell from 71.5% in April 2020 to 40.1% by January 2024 across all groups. The reality is likely far worse. Everyone is asking how to restore trust. 

The last time centralized reform was attempted was 15 years ago. The debates about Obamacare minted a healthcare expert daily and generated think-tank blueprints reflecting every ideological bias. The final product of a thousand pages, in which no one group got its way, was shoved through with great huzzahs on one side and boos on the other. It resulted in more coverage, yes, but also cost increases anywhere between 50 and 500 percent depending on how one chooses to measure it.

No one can produce evidence that it has made America more healthy. A statistical tour through chronic disease data, or a casual walk through a mall or airport, proves that. 

The debate over the Affordable Care Act pretty well exhausted the appetite for far-reaching reform. And maybe that is a good thing because the drive today is not for one system for everyone but a realization that the needs are so diverse and diffuse that it would likely have more success with a series of parallel systems that emerge from the ground up. 

Thus has most of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda focused on matters that individuals and families can do themselves. They include being more scrupulous about diet, exercise, sleep, sunshine, and caution about prescription medications, whether for mental or physical maladies. The movement against mandates is at the core simply because it now (versus a few years ago) pertains to children and relates directly to the grave concern about ill-health and the rise of autism.

1. Liberalize generic therapeutics from prescription control and make them over the counter. People are not idiots, though the US’s prescription system presumes they are. Fourteen states are working toward making Ivermectin and other common medicines like Hydroxychloroquine more available, thus liberating people from dependency on medical services. With the ubiquity of AI and quality medical information everywhere at our fingertips – no longer monopolized by the lab coats – we are better positioned to care for ourselves in our own interest. Probably hundreds of generics that people take routinely could be so regarded.
2. In many countries, pharmacies have nurses and doctors available for diagnostics, which seems like a much better system than ours. It is far easier to get routine medical care in Mexico than it is in the US. This should not be the case, but regulatory barriers limit pharmacists’ roles in diagnostics or prescribing. Liberalizing the system and breaking down professional barriers and regulated buckets could better serve the healthcare consumer.
3. Allow employers to offer employees an opt-out of mandated health insurance. The mandates are hugely expensive for employers. Every employer with more than 50 employees must comply. We don’t even have to change the mandate but simply permit options for the workers. Allowing their workers an extra $5-10 thousand or so in salary and wages would be accepted by many and give the direct primary care industry a boost. This would lower costs and boost job options.
4. Permit anyone to make contributions toward a Health Savings Account, not just people with high-deductible health plans (as it stands today). The HSA is a bit of an annoyance – its troubling how government uses the tax system to direct spending choices – but it at least allows some tax-free choice that can otherwise earn money in financial markets. It makes no sense why these should not be open to anyone, even and especially people who elect against expensive coverage. It would serve as a substitute for insurance and add to the country’s store of savings and capital.
5. Permit insurers to offer catastrophic-only plans to people of all ages. For that matter, health insurers need to be free from the shackles of predefined plans that are inclusive of services that most people do not want or need. A catastrophic-only plan would be selected by many. This might be the worst aspect of Obamacare, and it needs to go. We should be able to buy health insurance the way we buy any other good or service, which is to say, according to our own perceived needs, risk aversion, and willingness to pay.
   Put actuaries to work not just on large groups of people but on individuals, and allow premiums to adjust based on actual individualized health risks. This would strongly incentivize better living. For example, there could be discounts for people who join and use gyms, follow a keto diet, don’t abuse substances, and so on. Reward them and many more will join in better practices. It’s possible that this could happen even without repealing the non-discrimination for pre-existing conditions. Simply reward people with lower premiums for being less likely to use medical services.
   Eliminate legal indemnifications from pharmaceutical harm. The rest would take care of itself.
   Permit non-allopathic services providers such as naturopaths and homeopaths to enlist to be paid with insurance money. This would save insurance companies millions if not billions of dollars. Such doctors rely on supplements and alternatives, not drugs, that cost far less. And they help people fix their lifestyle choices. This fits where the market is going in any case, as people are seeking out a greater range of opinion.
   None of these eight reforms rub hard on ideological wounds. All are about respecting individual choice, which is the essence of health. They can all be pursued without touching existing entitlement systems and legacy welfare provision. They would amount to the first major steps toward creating parallel systems of experimentation, all within the framework of the existing system. It seems like they should earn bipartisan support.
6. Put actuaries to work not just on large groups of people but on individuals, and allow premiums to adjust based on actual individualized health risks. This would strongly incentivize better living. For example, there could be discounts for people who join and use gyms, follow a keto diet, don’t abuse substances, and so on. Reward them and many more will join in better practices. It’s possible that this could happen even without repealing the non-discrimination for pre-existing conditions. Simply reward people with lower premiums for being less likely to use medical services.
   Eliminate legal indemnifications from pharmaceutical harm. The rest would take care of itself.
   Permit non-allopathic services providers such as naturopaths and homeopaths to enlist to be paid with insurance money. This would save insurance companies millions if not billions of dollars. Such doctors rely on supplements and alternatives, not drugs, that cost far less. And they help people fix their lifestyle choices. This fits where the market is going in any case, as people are seeking out a greater range of opinion.
   None of these eight reforms rub hard on ideological wounds. All are about respecting individual choice, which is the essence of health. They can all be pursued without touching existing entitlement systems and legacy welfare provision. They would amount to the first major steps toward creating parallel systems of experimentation, all within the framework of the existing system. It seems like they should earn bipartisan support.
7. Jeffrey A. Tucker, Brownstone Institute

Oil producing countries are bracing for a bumpy ride this year, with a precipitous drop in prices to the lowest levels in four years seen as the initial, alarming sign of looming turmoil.

A price drop benefits any country seeking to cut its fuel bill. But in oil producing nations, lower prices can feed economic troubles, and sometimes political unrest, as governments slash spending.

Analysts who had already been predicting lower oil prices because of softening demand amid increased global production said the possibility of a tariff trade war and the overall climate of uncertainty could well deepen producers’ woes.

“The steep price dive and overall volatility is sending a very strong signal that the global economy is going to be rattled this year and that will translate into a lower demand for oil,” said Gregory Brew, a specialist on the geopolitics of oil and gas with the Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk analysis organization.

Wealthy producers may be able to cushion the blow

Earlier this year, the price for benchmark crude held steady around $73 a barrel, high enough to sustain the budgets of most producing nations. But some countries, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, base ambitious development plans on a price of at least $90 a barrel, analysts say.

Associated Press

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have earmarked hundreds of billions of dollars for giant projects to try to diversify their economies away from oil. Although Saudi Arabia pays for its Vision 2030 development program outside its annual budget, the huge, futuristic city project, Neom, depends on oil revenues.

To maintain those plans amid lower prices, these richer Gulf nations either have to draw money from their gargantuan reserve funds or borrow, analysts said. Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Kuwait all have easy access to international credit, and can sustain that for years with citizens unlikely to feel the effects, analysts said.

A different story for Iran and Iraq

In Iran, international sanctions have whittled its oil customers down. There’s China, but its demand for oil has slackened markedly amid an economic slowdown. And there are small independent refineries vulnerable to secondary sanctions, which the United States has imposed against two of them in recent months. To attract buyers, Iran will quite likely have to offer steep discounts, analysts said.

Iran is negotiating with Washington over the future of its nuclear program; any agreement could bring sanctions relief. But that is unlikely this year.

Iran also faces increasing pressure to cut spending by lowering its domestic energy subsidies. When it did that in 2019, antigovernment riots erupted and were put down with force. “Keeping energy prices very low is extremely important because they know that if they don’t, then they are at a relatively high risk of uprisings, riots and demonstrations,” said Homayoun Falakshahi, an analyst at the research firm Kpler.

Next door, Iraq depends on oil for an estimated 80 percent of government revenue, so a drop in price would force it to take measures like not paying public sector salaries for chunks of time, a step sure to create domestic discontent. Since the country is not under sanctions, it too can borrow internationally to cover its bills, although that is costly.

Vulnerability in Libya, Nigeria and Venezuela

Libya’s two governments each hold a different half of the country. One runs the bank that takes in oil payments from abroad and the other controls the oil fields. Any price drop would likely ratchet up tensions between the two as they jockey over the revenue, analysts said.

Nigeria’s economy remains terribly vulnerable to a drop in oil revenue, on which it depends to help subsidize energy prices. A new, almost completed private refinery could mitigate the kind of fuel supply problems that can spark political unrest.

Aside from Iran, the other global producer most exposed to price volatility is Venezuela, whose economy collapsed during the drop in prices in 2014-15. Public sector businesses and a bloated government payroll were so dependent on high oil prices that when they collapsed, analysts said, the ensuing economic problems sparked widespread protests that the government put down violently.

Help from Russia and Iran has helped leaven the potential fallout this time around, since increased production and refinery capacity mean Venezuela is unlikely to face the kind of fuel shortages that caused widespread blackouts and fueled public anger.

Robust oil and gas sales, especially to China and India, have helped insulate ordinary Russians from much economic fallout from the war. The Kremlin has already eaten into its reserve funds, however, and a further price drop would make paying for the war, and everything else, challenging.

Moscow probably still has enough cash reserves to muddle through, but in the short term, there could be pain, analysts said.

Neil MacFarquhar has been a Times reporter since 1995, writing about a range of topics from war to politics to the arts, both internationally and in the United States.

CHAPEL HILL, NC — Sources close to Jordon Hudson confirmed today that the 24-year-old has officially dumped Bill Belichick for Lou Holtz.

Rumors had surfaced over the past few weeks that Hudson’s relationship with 73-year-old Belichick was on the rocks. Days later, Hudson was spotted with 88-year-old Lou Holtz.

“I needed someone more mature,” explained Hudson, as details of the split became public. “Bill still had a lot of growing up to do. I’m ready for someone who is ready to settle down and who knows that they want out of life. Lou knows what he wants. It’s a motorized scooter and applesauce.”

At publishing time, Hudson had reportedly left Holtz for the corpse of John Madden

The Babylon Bee

Being an American citizen used to mean something; now, not so much. We are on the decline, lacking focus and unable to answer the most important question that matters: what is an American?

By 1800, America was largely an established and cohesive nation. We had an almost industrialized process of taking people in and producing fundamentally similar people, thoroughly American, within a generation or two. This process continued for the next 160 years with laws and policies aiming to integrate immigrants into a predominantly Anglo-Saxon, Protestant identity. Laws were enacted to encourage English language learning and cultural conformity.

However, the concept of assimilation saw the winds shift in the mid-20th century. The Civil Rights Movement and changing attitudes toward multiculturalism led to greater acceptance of diverse cultural identities. Assimilation was out, and cultural identity, whatever the heck that was, was deemed more important.

The decline of the central importance of the dominant culture in favor of making room for all kinds of competing ideologies and priorities, coupled with the beginning of the welfare state, has led to societal disruption that has been particularly hard on traditional Americana.

Let’s start with a working definition of what an ideal American must be:

An English-speaking man or woman who works, marries, believes in God, has at least 2.2 children, lives in an orderly manner without the requirement for government support, saves for retirement, and centers their lives around their children, recognizing intact families as the highest contribution to society possible.

There are 125 million individuals between 18 and 49, but only 31.1 million are suitable for childbearing. The current birth rate for employed individuals living here is only 1.5 births vs. the 2.1 necessary to sustain the population without immigration.

Couple the above numbers with a significantly declining labor participation rate and the lengthened lives of our citizens, and you can quickly understand how economic calamity is virtually assured unless we birth more traditional American babies to pay the bills.

The labor force participation rate in the U.S. has been declining over the past two decades, peaking at around 67% in the early 2000s. It has since dropped to approximately 62.5% as of March 2025, a drop of 7.2%, and is accelerating as women opt out of childbearing. This is unsustainable is probably one of the unspoken reasons behind the Biden administration’s unchecked immigration. It’s definitely the reason behind Trump floating the idea of a $5,000 per-child baby bonus.

Paying to incentivize women to have babies is an idea that is already a reality in some European countries. But here, just having babies isn’t enough. Immigrant groups are having babies, but they’re not assimilating to American values. Therefore, the question requires us to return to how we promote authentic American citizens to create the next generation of authentic and thoroughly assimilated Americans.

There are four fundamental changes that the government can incentivize or mandate that will accomplish this task in a single generation:

• Close the floodgates of illegal and unqualified immigration. Done!
• English-only in education, dealing with the government, and in the workplace. We have started this, but there is much left to do.
• Eliminate the majority of subsidies that induce people not to join the workforce.
• Encourage reproduction through tax policy, but exclude anyone on the dole from receiving such benefits. One of those benefits should be a low-interest housing loan with downpayment support.

That’s it. Adopt these four policies, and our population imbalance self-corrects. Who could be against this?

Democrats and some women, that’s who! Progressives have a deeply felt belief that marriage and children rob women of their freedom. There’s a lot of truth behind the stereotype of an “Angry Cat Lady,” who is a feminist and has embraced work and cats in lieu of family and children.

Years ago, TV’s Judge Judy correctly told a defendant,

These children are entitled to at least one parent to set a good example. Grownups take care of their children; they don’t just provide them with food, they provide them with a moral compass. They try not to teach them to become brawling animals in parking lots, hitting each other with 2X4s, scratching each other’s eyes out. Human beings don’t do that to each other. You don’t belong at a club at 12 a.m., you belong home, reading them stories from a book.

Progressives and Democrats subscribe to the theory that women have the right to choose everything. They can choose to work, be promiscuous, have abortions right up to the time of delivery, and they can reject having a family, getting married, or submitting to any moral authority. Somewhere along the line, perhaps after WWII, when women took the place of men in factories and offices, or later, when the Pill made it possible to become more like men, we discovered the Devil’s bargain women had engaged in to “Have it all.”

The essential truth of successful living is that sacrifice must override many personal desires. “Having it all” is a prescription for the cultural collapse nibbling away at us today. Importing human beings to make up for women who have stopped procreating is not a solution.

I know many women will disagree with me. Consumerism and women having “their own money” require two incomes today. We must reexamine the choices that made this so. We need a national dialogue that sees our thought and opinion leaders ask fundamental questions, such as whether we are really better off today with our misplaced priorities. I, for one, don’t believe we are.

Allen J. Feifer is an Author, Businessman, Thinker, and Strategist. Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow at www.1plus1equals2.com.

American Thinker

The German Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution (Bfv) categorised the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as “definitely right-wing extremist“, sparking widespread calls for a ban on the party.

A survey by German newspaper BILD published on May 3 revealed that some 48 per cent of respondents supported a complete ban on the AfD, including its dissolution, exclusion from elections and the removal of its MPs from the Bundestag, or parliament.

By contrast, 37 per cent opposed such a ban, while 15 per cent remained undecided or indifferent.

Banning the right-wing party could backfire, though. According to the same poll, 39 per cent believed that outlawing the AfD would damage Germany’s democracy rather than protect it.

The Bfv classification placed Alice Weidel’s party under intensified surveillance and branded its ideology as incompatible with Germany’s constitutional order.

It came at a politically sensitive moment: Latest polls showed the AfD as the leading party nationwide, a first in its history.

In response, the AfD is filing a lawsuit against Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, accusing the Bfv of politically motivated overreach, the party announced on May 5.

The ruling by the Bfv has also prompted scrutiny of AfD members employed in public service and triggered discussions about stripping the party of its access to State funding.

Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) told BILD on May 3 that officials “must examine what consequences this classification must have for the activities of AfD members in the public service”.

He added that it may also be time to review whether the party should continue receiving public money. He argued hat the Bfv decision also “gives cause to examine whether the AfD can be excluded from State party funding on this basis”.

Greens party politician and Bundestag Vice-President Katrin Göring-Eckhart on May 3 urged the Constitutional Court to investigate banning AfD as a party.

The AfD could be excluded from State party funding on that basis.

“A confirmed right-wing extremist party with aspirations against the free democratic order is a threat to democracy in our country. The Federal Constitutional Court should review a ban on the AfD,” she said on X.

Still, not all have been in favour of pursuing a legal route to negate the party.

Thorsten Frei, an MP with the Christian Democratic Union and the incoming head of the Federal Chancellery, called for a political rather than judicial strategy: “We must fight the AfD politically, not legally,” he said in an interview with The Pioneer news outlet published on May 5.

While the German Government weighed its legal options, segments of civil society have already taken action against the right-wing party.

During the Protestant Church Congress in Hanover on May 3, a resolution called “Ban AfD now” was adopted.

That urged the Bundestag, Bundesrat, and the federal government to request a ruling from the Constitutional Court on the party’s legality.

The resolution went further, urging church leadership to commit all available resources to the campaign.

This marked another chapter in the growing resistance to the AfD from religious institutions. Christian organisations have repeatedly voiced opposition to the party.

During the European elections last year, the Anti-Fascist Churches movement campaigned that AfD membership was incompatible with Christian values and should disqualify individuals from roles in the Church, its welfare arm Diakonie and organisations such as Caritas.

“The continued presence of AfD supporters in church institutions is a scandal,” a statement on the group’s petition website read.

“If extremist forces like the AfD are allowed into our spaces, we cannot call them safe and that is unacceptable.”

Anne-Laure Dufeal, Brussels Signal

Israel’s government has approved a plan to seize all of the Gaza Strip and hold control over the territory for an unspecified length of time, officials have revealed.

Government officials said the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into the hands of the terrorist group Hamas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet ministers unanimously approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning.

It came just hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.

The plan reportedly provides for the “conquering of Gaza” and retaining the territory.

It is expected to only be implemented after President Donald Trump’s visit to the region next week.

Until then, efforts will continue to reach a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas, Israeli media reported.

The plan has been presented by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir.

It provides for the “conquering of Gaza and holding the territories.”

The IDF will take control of territory in Gaza, move the civilian population toward the south, attack Hamas, and prevent the terror group from taking control of humanitarian aid.

The plan is gradual and focuses at first on a certain, unspecified area within the Strip.

It will then expand to other places, the Kan public broadcaster reported Sunday.

However, the outlet added that the intense fighting was expected to go on for months.

Additionally, the security cabinet approved a proposal to renew aid deliveries into Gaza while overhauling the mechanism in order to minimize the diversion of the goods by Hamas to benefit its operatives.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was the only one who voted against this proposal.

The aid deliveries will be implemented when the situation in Gaza necessitates it, according to the proposal.

The aid delivery proposal, first reported by The Times of Israel on Friday, would entail the IDF transitioning away from wholesale distribution and warehousing of aid and instead have international organizations and private security contractors hand out boxes of food to individual Gazan families.

According to Israeli and Arab officials familiar with the matter, the IDF would not be directly involved in the distribution of aid.

However, troops would be tasked with providing an outer layer of security for the private contractors and international organizations handing out the assistance.

Israel believes this method will make it harder for Hamas to divert aid to its fighters, the officials said.

Meanwhile, concerns are growing for the hostages still being held by Hamas.

Channel 13 news reported Sunday evening that Chief of Staff Zamir had warned ministers in recent days that Israel “could lose” the hostages in Gaza if it launches a major operation in the Strip.

Terrorists in Gaza are holding 59 hostages, including at least 35 who have been confirmed dead.

They were among 251 abducted on October 7, 2023, when Hamas led over 5,000 terrorists to invade southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and triggering the war.

“In a plan for a full-scale maneuver, we won’t necessarily reach the hostages,” the network quoted Zamir as saying in a meeting.

Keep in mind that we could lose them.”

Zamir was also quoted as contending that the war’s two goals of defeating Hamas and rescuing the hostages “are problematic in relation to each other.”

Hostages’ families have long argued this.

However, political leaders, including Netanyahu, have insisted that military pressure will aid in reaching a deal for the hostages’ return.

Frank Bergman, SLAY