An apparent drone swarm near a US Air Force base unveiled numerous vulnerabilities in homeland air defense.

Amid the raging conflict in the Middle East, the astonishing events at Barksdale Air Force Base earlier this month have attracted only limited media attention. It is reported that swarms of unidentified drones repeatedly loitered over Barksdale between March 9 and 15, drawing no publicly known effective response from the military or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

Barksdale is the headquarters of the Air Force’s Global Strike Command, which is responsible for the nation’s nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles and strategic bomber forces, including B2, B1, and B52 aircraft. The base is home to the 2nd Bomb Wing B52s and is the central hub of communications and logistical support for coordinating and directing those forces. The fact that potentially threatening drones were able to operate over such a critical complex with apparent impunity over several days, after a similar event, spanning 17 days, occurred more than two years ago at Langley AFB, is astonishing. Reports indicate that Barksdale personnel were repeatedly ordered to take cover as drones roamed over buildings and aircraft. 

That there was no reported effective response to that incursion comes as no surprise to those who have been calling for an overhaul of how the US homeland is protected. The truth is that homeland defense today remains largely centered on deterring nuclear threats, such as ballistic missiles and bombers, flying over northern polar regions, launching ordinance into North America. Decades ago, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM) were organized primarily to deter a strategic attack utilizing weapons of mass destruction. Protected by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the homeland was widely regarded as invulnerable to non-strategic threats. 

Beginning first with 9/11, and now with the advent of unmanned aerial systems (UAS)—including military-style drones, and such long-range precision weapons as cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles launched from space, air, land, sea, and subsea—that comfortable “safe haven” assumption no longer holds. What happened at Barksdale is not an anomaly but a forerunner of a new era in warfare. Defense of the homeland has become, and will continue to be, a far more complex challenge.

At Barksdale, as at Langley AFB, the government apparently lacked effective technology to identify and counter the drones. Even if counter-UAS capabilities (C-UAS) were available, a decision to use them was likely complicated by concern over potential collateral injury to military personnel and civilians, and property damage. Some reports indicate that Barksdale attempted to employ C-UAS jamming, but without success. The inability to jam could indicate that Barksdale was facing a threat with autonomous or effective anti-jamming capabilities. If accurate, this would suggest that a sophisticated foreign actor was behind the incursion rather than a drone hobbyist.

For example, in February of this year, US Customs and Border Protection used a Department of Defense-provided high-energy laser to engage what they believed were hostile drug cartel drones operating near Fort Bliss, close to the Mexican border. That led to controversy. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), part of the Department of Transportation, decided that the use of a laser made it necessary to issue an emergency order shutting down air traffic over El Paso below 18,000 feet for 10 days, citing unexplained“special security reasons,” and declaring the area to be a national defense airspace. 

Further complicating the picture is that Washington has not clarified responsibility and authority over UAS policy on dealing with and countering drones. For a national-level response to a strategic attack, NORAD and NORTHCOM have elaborate, well-known, detailed decision-making protocols for the National Command Authority. The decision-making chain is clearly established, reaching all the way to the president. It is designed to operate within minutes. The decision-making process today for responding to a UAS threat or another kind of conventional attack is murkier and nowhere near as settled, often involving several cabinet departments. The military is not even necessarily responsible for taking the lead.

The agency warned that aircraft entering the restricted space could be shot down. After a few hours, the White House, which had not been consulted, intervened and rescinded the no-fly order. Washington said that the threat turned out to be party balloons, not hostile drones. News reports said that there had been wrangling between the FAA, the Pentagon, and Homeland Security over the appropriate use of a laser in an area with heavy commercial air traffic. 

The El Paso experience highlights important governance issues regarding how emerging threats, such as drones and UAS, should be managed. In addition to the Pentagon, the Department of Transportation, DHS, and the FBI also play a role in such situations, as do other intelligence agencies. 

As the United States comes to grips with the reality that the homeland is not immune to potential military-style drone, missile, cyber, and other non-nuclear threats, it must re-evaluate comprehensively its approach to deal with such situations on a real-time basis. Kinetic and non-kinetic tools must be swiftly introduced at strategic, critical military and civilian infrastructure locations. The decision-making apparatus necessary to identify and to respond to such threats must also be modernized and streamlined.

The bottom line is that the United States must move forward aggressively to address these new UAS threats and others emerging in the homeland. Legacy approaches defined by stove-piped responsibilities and authorities no longer work. That antiquated framework must be promptly replaced by a collaborative, integrated architectural network that enables fused domain awareness and real-time collaboration among key decision-makers. Joint Interagency Task Force 401 is a solid first step in this direction, helping propel such a reorganization. It calls for full support from all agency stakeholders. That task force should be urgently empowered at the White House level to address policy and capability gaps swiftly.

About the Authors: Glen VanHerck and Ramon Marks

General Glen VanHerck is a retired US Air Force general. At the time of his retirement, he served as commander of NORTHCOM and NORAD. He previously served as director of the Joint Staff. He currently serves as a board director and advisor across multiple industry sectors, including serving as a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.

The parallels between American black ghettos and European no-go zones are obvious.

Bill Ponton | March 27, 2026

In a relatively short period from 1940–1960, over 2.5 million blacks migrated to Northern cities from the predominately agrarian South. Their assimilation into mainstream society was arduous. It became a visible problem by the 1960s with unrest and rioting commonplace in black neighborhoods during summer months. 

It was against this backdrop of urban unrest and Vietnam war protest that the Canadian rock band, Guess Who, created the 1970 hit American Woman. The song’s iconic lyrics express the band’s rejection of the great temptress, America, with her seductive allure but seemingly intractable problems (“I don’t need your war machines, I don’t need your ghetto scenes. Coloured lights can hypnotize, sparkle someone else’s eyes….”).

It was not just Canadians, but also Europeans who harbored a moral disdain for a perceived failure by America to assimilate blacks. Ironically, Europeans are now grappling with the same assimilation problems, and they are not doing much better; arguably, they are doing worse. A new report from the conservative New Direction Foundation for European Reform think tank entitled “No-Go Zones, Immigration and the Rise of Parallel Societies,” reveals the scale of Europe’s inability to assimilate migrants from the “Global South.” The report estimates the existence of 1,000 urban areas deemed “no-go zones,” in which there are elevated levels of crime, social fragmentation, and weakened state authority.

The parallels between American black ghettos and European no-go zones are obvious. The most menacing dimension is the rise of political Islam in Europe. America had its Black Panther movement in the 70s, but it does not compare to the radical Islamists whose future impact on an acquiescent Europe is yet to be fully felt. A spokesperson for the think tank wisely stated, “The first step is to raise awareness of the scale of the problem in order to act on the root causes of the problem. To achieve this, it is necessary to put an end to mass migration flows.”

In America during the 60s and 70s, whites retreated to the seclusion of suburbia to isolate themselves from urban problems in a phenomenon labeled “white flight.” A similar phenomenon is remaking the European landscape, but it is worth remembering that white flight took place in America during the baby boom. In contrast, native Europeans are facing the same pressure while experiencing a demographic collapse in their numbers. There is a name for that too: it’s called invasion.

American Thinker

U.S. Marines and paratroopers who could be sent into combat in Iran are conducting CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear) safety drills at their bases in Europe and aboard ship as they sail to the Middle East.

The National reported on Friday that advance units of paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, flown from America to Europe to prepare for possible deployment in Iran, have been supplied with “detection systems, gas masks and protective ‘Mopp’ coveralls.”

MOPP (Mission Oriented Protective Posture) suits are essentially hazmat suits for soldiers. MOPP alerts are issued in various levels requiring heavier amounts of protective gear as the anticipated hazard condition grows more serious.

Retired U.S. Marine Corps officer Jonathan Hackett told The National that the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit is “practicing CBRN drills on deck as we speak” as they head for the Middle East aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, a relatively small aircraft carrier that transports Marines and their support equipment to conflict zones.

“The CBRN unit can also be scaled up in size, but the conventional marine forces will have their CBRN gear and be drilling on it, with 15 seconds to get mask and Mopp on when someone shouts ‘Gas, gas, gas,’” he explained.

… and the worst-case scenario of a desperate Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) loading chemical or biological payloads into its missiles.

Iran also helped Syrian dictator Bashar Assad develop his chemical weapons, and some analysts fear Iran might have reclaimed some of Assad’s inventory after he was driven from power in December 2024.

“They may well still be on bases somewhere, but it’s stronger than hearsay that some of these chemical weapons actually moved eastwards and are now either in Iraq or Iran,” chemical weapons specialist Lennie Phillips told The National.

On April 4, Nato will be 77 years old. The chance that America will be counted among the celebrants when the birthday celebrations roll around is somewhere between nil and zero.

President Trump had long predicted that if America needed help, Nato would not come to its aid, even though, as he sees it, the United States has spent billions of dollars over decades defending Europe from Russian aggression. And when America did need help in the war against Iran – a few mine sweepers, please, sirs – the answer “no” came back in several languages.

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer heard the call of what The Spectator’s Tim Shipman calls his “soul-deep belief in international law’ and denied America the use of the military base operated jointly by the US and the UK on Diego Garcia. Starmer since modified that absolute refusal with a carefully circumscribed permission, allowing use of the base for “defensive purposes” only, while continuing to promise he will not involve Britain in America’s war on Iran. That comes, as Trump sees it, too late, “We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won.”

Trump says he is disappointed at the “shocking” refusal to allow America the use of Royal Air Force bases. The President has at least formally invited King Charles III to visit Washington in April, as has long been mooted. If Starmer has clung to office until then, he can count on a seat well below the salt, absent a pardon from the President.

German defense minister Boris Pistorius rejected Trump’s call for assistance with “This is not our war, we have not started it… To make it crystal clear, we don’t want to get sucked into that war.” Now that Iran has unveiled a missile that can reach Berlin, and Germany is feeling the consequences of the disruption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, he might be permitting himself a re-think.

Pistorius might find that he is a defense minister left out in the cold once Trump, who has been known to nurse grievances and believes vengeance is a virtue, turns from war to tariffs and to refocusing America’s military and financial alliances on the Middle East rather than on Europe. For one thing, even Germany will not reach its new 3.5 percent Nato spending target by 2029. Pistorius now predicts 3.05 percent by that date.

Others do not favor such lavish spending on their defense, and are in even less of a hurry when it comes to raising their contributions to Nato. Here is a list of countries and the plans they have made:

Belgium, 2.5 percent by 2034; Britain, 2.5 percent by 2027; France, 2.3 percent by 2028; Italy, 2 percent by 2028. Spain has a special deal with Nato to only contribute 2.1 percent, “no more, no less,” says Pedro Sanchez, Spain’s Prime Minister, who has denied America the use of the jointly-operated Rota and Morón bases in southern Spain.

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte saw no irony when, on March 26, he congratulated Nato members on recognizing the need for a greater contribution to the alliance. Many will not even reach the old 2 percent of GDP target, much less the new 3.5 percent target.

“Without the U.S.A., NATO IS A PAPER TIGER,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “COWARDS, and we will REMEMBER.” Even if Germany meets its 3.05 percent target, it will still need soldiers. An estimated 50,000 young people have taken to the streets in “school strikes against the war” to protest their government’s plans to introduce voluntary military service, with conscription possible if recruitment goals are not met.

One young man told the press, “I don’t want to serve in the army. I would not go to defend Germany. If you had to choose between Germany fighting or being led by Putin, then I would choose Putin.” Putin, who is fluent in German after years of service in Germany as a member of the KGB, must relish such reports in the German press and adjust his schedule for the re-establishment of the Soviet Union accordingly.

In short, the Europeans told President Trump that, as American wrestler Bobby Heenan once put it, a friend in need is a pest. Trump has vacillated between admitting he wants, even needs, help and boasting that he does not.

What the “transactional” President really wanted from America’s European allies was an offer of help without being asked, a quid pro quo to which he believes America is entitled in return for bearing a disproportionate share of Nato’s costs. As was the case with Britain’s position concerning use of Diego Garcia, the belated and carefully circumscribed offers of help from other allies were too late and too little in Trump’s view. As Trump told an interviewer: “We’ve protected them from horrible outside sources, and they weren’t that enthusiastic [about helping us]. And the level of enthusiasm matters to me.”

It matters enough so that Trump, who cannot legally exit Nato without congress, will find ways to use his power as commander-in-chief to engineer a de facto exit by redeploying troops and assets now devoted to Nato to areas of more direct concern, most particularly the increasingly wealthy post-Iran Middle East and on countering the threat from China.

So when Trump’s invitation to the Nato birthday bash arrives, the response may well be: “Best wishes, but I have pressing engagements elsewhere.”

Irwin Stelzer, The Spectator

The war started with Iran by the United States and Israel has left the European far right divided and doubtful…

In the first days of the war, the loudest silence came from Hungary’s ruling party… Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has praised Trump as a “peacemaker” for his role in the war in Gaza, neither condemned nor endorsed the attacks on Iran.

Orbán, who is campaigning for re-election on a “pro-peace narrative” and accuses the EU of fuelling the war in Ukraine by supporting Kyiv with money and weapons, has since resolved the dissonance by saying in an interview with Hungary’s ATV that bombing Iran is not a fresh war, but rather the “final elimination and closure of a previous, unresolved focal point”.

The same problem has affected the Italian League…

“We always prefer the diplomatic way”, the League’s head of delegation in the European Parliament Paolo Borchia told Euronews…

“The renewed destabilisation of the Middle East is not in Germany’s interest and must be brought to an end”, said Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla…

Consequences for energy and migration are top of the list also for the far-right Flemish Interest party, which raised the issue in a debate in the Belgian Parliament, recalling the knock-on effects of Western countries’ interventions in Libya and Syria.

Czechia’s ruling ANO party is having similar doubts. According to internal sources, on one side, they do not want to criticise Trump; on the other, they are not keen on blindly following the US and Israel, and especially not into a conflict that could drive up energy costs, a major issue in the country.

The most critical voice comes from the French National Rally (RN), whose leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella had already questioned US raids on Venezuela…

Vincenzo Genovese, Euronews

On 18 March, Cardinal Parolin addressed a plenary meeting of the French bishops by letter, delivering a message, or series of messages, from Pope Leo. The letter called on the bishops to defend Catholic schools and not to forget the care due to priests guilty of abuse, and it also addressed the question of the Traditional Mass:

‘Dear brothers, you intend to address the delicate subject of the Liturgy, to which the Holy Father pays particular attention, in the context of the growth of communities attached to the Vetus Ordo. It is concerning that a painful wound continues to persist within the Church regarding the celebration of the Mass, the very sacrament of unity. Healing it requires a renewed openness to one another, with deeper understanding of each other’s sensitivities – a perspective that can allow brothers, enriched by their diversity, to welcome one another in charity and in the unity of faith. May the Holy Spirit inspire you with practical solutions that generously include those sincerely attached to the Vetus Ordo, in harmony with the directives of the Second Vatican Council regarding the Liturgy.’

We have been rather starved of concrete indications of Pope Leo’s attitude towards the Traditional Mass (if he has settled on the term Vetus Ordo, that is fine by me) and this letter has stimulated much commentary.

The first thing to notice is the way in which Pope Leo has chosen to make his contribution to the French bishops’ discussion: in a letter not from him but from his Secretary of State. By doing this, he acts through formal channels, and is holding back from creating what could be seen as an official magisterial text.

On the other hand, he did not speak through France’s apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Migliore. The intervention of Cardinal Parolin, the most senior curial official, gives it greater weight, and the form of the intervention ensured that it would be public. This seems very carefully calibrated. Interestingly, Parolin is not known as a friend of the Vetus Ordo; an emollient message passed on by him seems particularly powerful, and there can be no doubt that the ideas in the letter come directly from the Holy Father.

The text is carefully worded. Pope Leo expresses the hope that the Holy Spirit will suggest ‘practical solutions’ to the bishops: he is not suggesting any himself. But he gives them an idea of what good solutions will look like.

First, they will be ‘practical’, as opposed to ideological or theological. The problem is not simply a practical problem, but the bishops should be approaching it with a view to a practical solution, a solution which is to ‘generously include’ those attached to the Vetus Ordo. This implies some kind of practical accommodation, which can only mean allowing more celebrations of the older liturgy.

This accommodation is for the sake of those ‘sincerely’ attached to the older Mass. ‘Sincere’ suggests a contrast with those whose attachment is instrumental: those who want to use the Vetus Ordo for some ulterior purpose. Their existence is not ruled out, and perhaps they can be blamed for the old policy, but clearly they are now less important than the great majority of people who attend it, who like it because they find it spiritually satisfying. If this is the case, after all, no further motive is necessary.

The importance of this kind of solution, and its appropriateness, is further clarified. It is important because the current situation represents a ‘painful wound’. Blame for this wound is not assigned to anyone; perhaps it is best to see it simply as the unfortunate outcome of history, including some very recent history. On a casual reading, the ‘wound’ metaphor might seem to refer to the division implied by the mere fact that there are two rival liturgical rites, but if Pope Leo is concerned about a practical solution to help those attached to the older form, this cannot be what he means. The wound that concerns the Holy Father is one that can be healed by ‘generous’ inclusion of those attached to the Vetus Ordo, suggesting that what he had in mind is their current deep unhappiness, in feeling excluded from the Church’s pastoral care. Pope Leo is calling for the bishops to understand the sensitivities of those attached to the Vetus Ordo, and, having come to that understanding, respond to this sensitivity by making provision for the celebration of this liturgy.

Some might suggest that those attached to the Vetus Ordo could have greater understanding of the other side in the debate, but of course this letter is not addressed to a gathering of traditionalists, but a gathering of bishops. As a matter of fact, as far as understanding goes, the situation is not symmetrical. The great majority of Catholics attached to the older Mass know the reformed Mass, and the people who attend it, extremely well, having lived for decades with the Novus Ordo, only discovering the Vetus Ordo as adults. It is the traditional milieu which is, unsurprisingly, a mystery to those people, priests and bishops, who have never much come across it.

The appropriateness of an accommodation for the Vetus Ordo is suggested by it emerging from ‘a perspective that can allow brothers, enriched by their diversity, to welcome one another in charity and in the unity of faith’. It is of the utmost significance that the Vetus Ordo can be described as part of ‘diversity’ in a positive sense. This means that Pope Leo understands it as having something to contribute to the Church – something to ‘enrich’ the whole – and as being able to do this in charity and unity of faith.

Those attached to the Vetus Ordo, like all Catholics, are called to a unity of faith, and this is a call traditionalists are happy to answer. What is crucial is that the older liturgy is not itself regarded as an obstacle to a unity of faith. This idea was the justification for the elimination of the ancient Mass put forward by Pope Francis in Traditionis custodes: that liturgical diversity undermines the unity of the Church. This argument was reiterated by Cardinal Arthur Roche at the last consistory, in the short paper he distributed to the cardinals.

This letter surely sounds the death knell of that argument. The problem remains, however, that Traditionis custodes is still the law of the Church, and seriously hinders bishops in France and elsewhere from applying the practical solutions Pope Leo now calls for. Bishops are unable to authorise celebrations of the Vetus Ordo in parish churches; they are unable to set up new personal parishes; and they are unable to permit priests ordained since Traditionis custodes to celebrate it. All of these things were explicitly designed to help eliminate the older liturgy, and to establish liturgical unity (in Pope Francis’s words) ‘throughout the Church of the Roman Rite’. If Pope Leo rejects the critique of liturgical diversity, and wants practical solutions to a different wound in the Church, one created by the marginalisation of Catholics attached to the Vetus Ordo, he needs to look again at these rules.

There was a man who created a movement called MAGA.

And he has continued forward.

They threw everything they had at him, and when that was not enough, someone tried to take his life in Butler, Pennsylvania. That is not rhetoric. That is reality. And by the grace of God, he survived.

Most people would have stepped away after that. Most people would have chosen safety and distance.

He did not.

So the lectures from people who found a more comfortable lane when things became difficult do not carry much weight.

It is easy to pivot. It is easy to reposition. It is easy to benefit from controversy.

It is much harder to stay in place and take the pressure.

While all of this is playing out, there is another layer that cannot be ignored. Foreign actors actively amplify internal divisions. They elevate the most extreme voices. They push the most divisive narratives. They do not need to create disagreements. They only need to magnify them.

When that amplification is constant, it creates the impression that division is everywhere and that it defines everything.

But that is not the full picture.

Step outside of the online environment, and the country looks very different. Most Americans still believe in individual liberty, personal responsibility, equal justice under the law, and rights that come from God rather than government.

Those beliefs have not disappeared. They simply do not trend.

What trends is conflict. What spreads is outrage.

And too many influencers understand that and lean into it because it benefits them.

You do not have to agree with everything Trump says or does. No one does.

But dismissing what has been accomplished, or pretending that this moment is ordinary, is not serious.

Some people are willing to take pressure to move the country forward.

Others are focused on protecting their position as the landscape changes.

People can see the difference.

President Trump is the president we need at this moment, and he needs support now more than ever. MAGA.”

Last quarter I rolled out Microsoft Copilot to 4,000 employees.

$30 per seat per month.

$1.4 million annually.

I called it “digital transformation.”

The board loved that phrase.

They approved it in eleven minutes.

No one asked what it would actually do.

Including me.

I told everyone it would “10x productivity.”

That’s not a real number.

But it sounds like one.

HR asked how we’d measure the 10x.

I said we’d “leverage analytics dashboards.”

They stopped asking.

Three months later I checked the usage reports.

47 people had opened it.

12 had used it more than once.

One of them was me.

I used it to summarize an email I could have read in 30 seconds.

It took 45 seconds.

Plus the time it took to fix the hallucinations.

But I called it a “pilot success.”

Success means the pilot didn’t visibly fail.

The CFO asked about ROI.

I showed him a graph.

The graph went up and to the right.

It measured “AI enablement.”

I made that metric up.

He nodded approvingly.

We’re “AI-enabled” now.

I don’t know what that means.

But it’s in our investor deck.

A senior developer asked why we didn’t use Claude or ChatGPT.

I said we needed “enterprise-grade security.”

He asked what that meant.

I said “compliance.”

He asked which compliance.

I said “all of them.”

He looked skeptical.

With the Democrats’ continued refusal to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) until their woke Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) demands are met, President Donald Trump announced Thursday evening in a Truth Social post that he was signing an executive order directing DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin to pay TSA workers.

Trump emphasized in his post that it was the Democrats’ fault, led by Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), that Transportation Security Administration workers hadn’t been paid, and that was because Democrats prioritize criminal illegal immigrants over American citizens:

The Radical Left Democrats, and their “Leader,” Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, have made it very clear where they stand, and that is, ON THE SIDE OF CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIENS, AND NOT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. They are refusing to fund Immigration Enforcement unless the Republicans agree to their Open Border Policies, which will never, ever happen again. They almost destroyed our Country, allowing 25 Million People to enter from Prisons, Mental Institutions, and Insane Asylums, those that are Drug Dealers, and thousands of Murderers, many of whom killed more than one person. 

Because the Democrats have recklessly created a true National Crisis, I am using my authorities under the Law to protect our Great Country, as I always will do! Therefore, I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports. It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it! I want to thank our hardworking TSA Agents and also, ICE, for the incredible help they have given us at the Airports. I will not allow the Radical Left Democrats to hold our Country hostage any longer. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP

🚨🚨🚨BREAKING — TRUMP SAYS HES INSTRUCTING DHS TO PAY TSA

pic.twitter.com/yvjFlUNe46— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) March 26, 2026

SEE ALSO: Thank a Democrat: Here Are Videos of Insanely Long Lines at Airports Across the Country

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) indicated earlier in the day that this was something Trump could do that was “perfectly legal”:

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, on Thursday suggested that a Trump intervention might be possible.

“I’m not going to go into the details, other than to say that there is funding that can be used perfectly legally to pay TSA, to pay the rest of the coast guard, for example,” Collins told reporters at the Capitol.

The move comes as the negotiations between Democrats and Republicans on how to end the partial government shutdown remain at a standstill, and as Trump is having ICE step in to help at airports across the country to ease some of the congestion brought on by TSA workers calling in sick. In some cases, ICE has also aided in medical emergencies for passengers waiting in long lines, as RedState previously reported.

Update: On X, DHS Sec. Mullin thanked Trump:

I want to thank @POTUS for his leadership in finding a way to pay our TSA officers to end this chaos at our airports. These hours long lines and thousands of Americans missing their flights was caused solely by the Democrats reckless @DHSgov shutdown.

 Many of DHS’ frontline workers are still not being paid including @FEMA, @USCG, and @CISAgov.

 The Democrats must stop playing political games with our national security, quit punishing our employees, and re-open DHS.

Sister Toldjah, Red State

A little more than two months ago, when Zohran Mamdani was still in his first days as New York City’s boy mayor, we suggested that he should be driven from office. It was that bad. Has the situation improved since then? No, it’s only become worse.

Let’s start off with the mayor hosting a Ramadan iftar dinner on March 11 at City Hall, where he was joined by Muslim city workers.

Well, isn’t that the prerogative of the mayor? After all, Christian elected officials have used government buildings for prayers and faith-based observances since the beginning of the republic.

But was this just devout Muslims practicing their religion? Or something more? Such as a public embrace of Islamism, which Center for Renewing America fellow Nathan Pinkoski describes “is best understood as a political ideology, a global project that aims to subordinate all aspects of government and civil society to Islam.”

Somali-born author and one-time Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali, herself a former Muslim, has noted that “political Islam implies a constitutional order fundamentally incompatible with the U.S. Constitution and with the ‘constitution of liberty’ that is the foundation of the American way of life.”

With that as background, understand that one of Mamdani’s “guests” apparently flashed an ISIS one-finger salute. In case you’ve been in a state of suspended animation for the last 25 years, ISIS is a terrorist group and a sworn enemy of the U.S.

As Republican Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville posted, “The enemy is inside the gates.”

The iftar dinner was followed by a counter-protest, dubbed “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City,” which is constitutionally protected, and during which a couple of terrorist-inspired young Muslim men allegedly tossed homemade explosives at the demonstrators.

Both men were arrested. One “defiantly” flashed his own ISIS salute after the pair had been busted, the New York Post said.

Yet, despite the danger to life posed by the bombs, Mamdani came “out harder over peaceful protest than he is at guys throwing incendiary devices outside his house,” says podcaster Stephen L. Miller.

But that level of cultural hatred of America and the eliminationist rhetoric is only part of what Mamdani has brought to New York. Because just like Los Angeles’ inept far-left Mayor Karen Bass (a loud and proud supporter of Cuba’s late communist leader, Fidel Castro), you vote for the smile and the big promises, but then find out what you really got: rank socialism, which has never worked anywhere it’s been tried.

Socialism and Islamism in the Big Apple. What a concept.

Readers might recall that in early January, we wrote that Mamdani plainly wants “to seize the means of production, that his clearly implied wish as an Islamist is to globalize the intifada against the Jews, that defunding the police is close to his heart.”

During his inauguration, Mamdani pledged that his administration would “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”

Again, no surprise. Mamdani is a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America. And he has surrounded himself with like-minded people. That includes Mamdani’s hand-picked director of New York’s “housing justice” office, Cea Weaver.

Haven’t heard of her? You will. Like Mamdani, she’s a self-proclaimed socialist and collectivist. She claims that “for centuries we have treated property as an individualized good and not as a collective good”; describes homeownership as a “weapon of white supremacy”; and wants government to “seize private property.”

She’s serious. Weaver unabashedly says she wants to “impoverish the white middle class” and would be delighted for voters to “elect more Communists.” And of course, tax the rich.

So why not tax the rich? Well, for one thing, they’re already leaving New York for red states as fast as they can. They know what’s coming. And they’re taking New York’s tax base with them. No surprise that desperate Democrat New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is imploring those who have moved to come back.

She knows that those who voted for the “tax the rich” nonsense have a big surprise coming.

As the New York Post reports:

Their ‘Tax the Rich’ campaign targets millionaires, but Democratic Socialists of America lefties are now pushing for a slew of tax hikes that would slam middle-class New Yorkers.

The party’s NYC chapter is asking potential candidates seeking its endorsement if they will back hiking income taxes for individuals making more than $300,000 — three times less than the $1 million threshold socialist Mayor Mamdani campaigned on.

The DSA-NYC is also drumming up support from pols to tax New Yorkers with inheritances larger than $250,000, according to a copy of recent DSA candidate questionnaires obtained by The Post.

Here it comes, New York! There have been 22 major nations that have declared themselves as “socialist,” or “Marxist,” or “communist” in modern history. All of them have failed. Those that struggle on have adopted some version of capitalism to keep their socialist hells alive.

This is the future New York chose when it elected Mamdani. Domestic intifada and socialism.

Dear New Yorkers: Just as happened in once-bountiful and beautiful California, you picked your fate when you went to the ballot box and voted for socialism anndd Islamism. And now, as the late H.L. Mencken might say, you’ll get it “good and hard.”

Issues and Insights Editorial Board