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Brad Schimel lost to Susan Crawford, which sucks. 

And you can’t blame MAGA for not showing up to vote–Trump and Elon did an amazing job of mobilizing their voters, boosting conservative turnout by about 25% over the last Supreme Court election, which already had a high turnout compared to a more normal off-year election. The losing conservative in 2023 got 818,000 votes in that year. Schimel received 1,050,000 this year. 

That’s a very nice turnout boost for the conservative in the race, so you can’t claim that there was a lack of interest, effort, or that Trump and Musk should have done more to mobilize their base. 

Democrats, too, mobilized their base, and I’m not sure you could argue that they did a better job of it than Republicans, as tempting as that argument is to make. If this were just a base election, instead of one more like a general election where less motivated voters turn out, the vote totals wouldn’t be so off-the-charts high for an off-year election. Supreme Court elections have tended to be sleepy affairs, and even with all the ridiculous amounts of spending (Scott Walker, the former Republican governor of Wisconsin, pointed out that Schimel had more money spent against him by over $10 million than was spent in Walker’s gubernatorial campaign), getting people to vote on April Fool’s Day is an impressive achievement. 

That means that swing voters–at least swing voters made nervous by the Trump revolution–were motivated to vote and went to the polls to vote for Susan Crawford. I wish that this weren’t so, but there it is. MAGA and some swing voters went Schimel to defend two House seats from redistricting challenges, but anti-MAGA forces and more swing voters came out to oppose Trump. 

Most polls showed a tight race leaning toward Crawford, but once again Atlas Intel–the most accurate pollster of the 2024 election, came through again in 2025. They didn’t QUITE hit the nail on the head–doing so would be a matter of luck more than skill when using polling methods–but they came darn close. 

Schimel’s disadvantage appears to be anchored in a net favorability gap: Crawford has a positive net image of 6pp vs. -11.4pp for Schimel. pic.twitter.com/RRBPSrETzK

— AtlasIntel (@atlas_intel) April 1, 2025

Their poll, with a margin of error of 4%, showed a 7-point race. The final margin was 10. They came much closer than their competitors, although another new pollster SoCal Strategies also did well. That pollster had more undecided voters, missing Crawford’s ultimate support by a larger margin. 

#New On Point Politics/SoCal Strategies Wisconsin State Supreme Court Poll
Susan Crawford: 50%
Brad Schimel: 42%
500 LV
3/25-3/26https://t.co/7LWVAUVToF

— SoCal Strategies (@SocalStrategies) March 27, 2025

Scott Rasmussen’s RMG Research also did well, but their poll was too long ago to know how accurate would be in an election more than a month later. I like Scott, but it’s hard to credit a poll more than a month out from election day with a big win. 

The lessons from this election, to the extent we can extrapolate, seem to come down to a few basic ones. First, massive spending can drive interest enough to boost turnout, especially when the stakes seem high. Second, MAGA turnout really IS motivated when Trump pushes people to show up–this election was not lost due to Republican indifference-. And third, there is a not insignificant number of swing voters who are nervous about Trump’s revolution and want some balance to rein him and MAGA in. Fourth, and unsurprising, is that negative messagine works. Schimel was pounded on air–I saw anti-Schimel commercials during the March Madness games. 

I don’t read the election as a backlash against Trump, but more as a warning sign that Democrat messaging is working to some extent. There is a substantial number of people who are nervous about Trump doing too much too fast. People look around and don’t like all the storm and strife. They see all the pushback and perhaps think that where there is smoke, there’s fire. 

It’s not a movement against Trump with swing voters, at least not yet. But all the noise and anti-Trump propaganda is taking the shine off the Trump agenda with voters who were skeptical before and whose confirmation bias has kicked in. And Democrats, who were depressed before, are angry enough now to march to the polls to take on the Republicans. 

A lot of establishment Republicans will take the lesson that slower is better, and in that they are 100% wrong. The opposite is true. The reality is that Trump’s reforms are necessary to save the country from bankruptcy, and none of the reforms are possible without momentum that is fleeting. People dislike radical change, even when it is necessary. 

So best to rip the band-aid off or rip the loose tooth out than extend the inevitable pain. 

Unfortunately, establishment-types prefer lesser and longer pain and irritation than quick jolts of pain and rapid recoveries. They are p**ssies. 

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There is a reason why conspiracy theorists are generally disdained. We all know that some people look for wild explanations for easily explained phenomena, seemingly willing to believe the most outlandish things in order to buttress their unique view of how things work. 

There are plenty of implausible conspiracy theories out there, and some of them are associated with the Right, while others are just idiosyncratic. 

But the biggest and least talked about conspiracy theory that is far too outlandish for a rational person to believe is that the Pravda Media is interested in the truth, our government elite is looking out for our interests, that the government is not fundamentally corrupt, and that the people running our country are doing so with any amount of integrity. 

With all that we know, Occam’s Razor says that all the madness we have lived through over the past decade or two are the result of very bad people doing very bad things for very bad reasons. They lie, create hoaxes, plunder our tax dollars, and have contempt for the ordinary citizen. 

“The border is secure.” Yeah–then how to explain the 95% decrease in border crossings once Trump took over? “Joe Biden is sharp as a tack.” “You cannot get COVID if you get the vaccine.” “Kids are resilient” and won’t be hurt by school closures. Russia collusion. Steele Dossier. General Milley calling China. Censorship. Misinformation. 51 Intelligence officials. 

The list of lies, harmful policy choices, exposed corruption, media malpractice is too long to list. How many “now it can be told” tell-alls from reporters are coming out–contradicting everything they told us when Biden was in office? 

Chuck Todd and Steve Schmidt unleashed: Joe Biden and his crackhead children edition

Steve also takes a swipe at the Lincoln Project. pic.twitter.com/4hJJFTFCij

— The Researcher (@listen_2learn) March 3, 2025

Gee, now that Biden is out of office Todd has changed his tune a bit. Is it because of an epiphany? No. He knew Biden was evil. But Biden was his guy until he wasn’t, and he lied. Case closed. 

By now NOBODY has an excuse to believe that our elite is anything but a bunch of lying parasites who hate us and want to remake America in their image, and will do just about anything to accomplish that goal. This is not a conspiracy theory: the evidence is irrefutable.

It is the people who deny this who are the new conspiracy theorists. They have a view of the world, and no amount of contradictory evidence will shake them from it. They are the people who see two planes crash into the World Trade Center and then assert that government agents planted explosives in an hour and took the towers down with a controlled implosion to cover for Jewish terrorists. 

It’s insane. Planes hit the towers, fires weakened the steel reinforcements, and buildings came down once the structure was weakened enough. No explanation is needed. Any decent engineer can explain it with provable facts. 

Trusting the media is no different than the “Mossad or CIA blew them up” conspiracy theories. You have to go out of your way to create the most implausible explanations for obvious things. 

A great example of how corrupt our elites are is the case of the Hunter Biden laptop and the censorship of its public revelation. As everybody knows, the FBI knew that the laptop was real, but told Twitter and Facebook it was disinformation that should be suppressed. And now an investigation by Catherine Herridge and Public’s Michael Schellenberger shows that an FBI agent even blurted out the fact that the laptop was real in a meeting with Twitter, causing panic and a coverup by his superiors. 

This is a CatherineHerridgeReports @C__Herridge / Public Investigation

In 2024, an FBI official admitted to House investigators that an FBI employee had inadvertently confirmed the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop to Twitter on a conference call the morning of October 14,… pic.twitter.com/lf96noyAHU

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) April 1, 2025

his is a CatherineHerridgeReports 

@C__Herridge

 / Public Investigation

In 2024, an FBI official admitted to House investigators that an FBI employee had inadvertently confirmed the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop to Twitter on a conference call the morning of October 14, 2020, the day the New York Post published a story about it.

“I recall that when the question came up, an intelligence analyst assigned to the Criminal Investigative Division said something to the effect of, ‘Yes, the laptop is real’,” testified the then-Russia Unit Chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force in a closed door transcribed interview.

“I believe it was an (Office of General Counsel) attorney assigned to the (Foreign Influence Task Force) stepped in and said, ‘We will not comment further on this topic.’”

For the first time, and with a change of administration, the FBI has now turned over to GOP House investigators the internal chat messages that show Bureau leadership actively silenced its employees.

The FBI, which had a special task force to counter foreign election interference, could have set the record straight by confirming the laptop was real and the subject of an ongoing criminal probe. Instead, FBI leadership allowed the false narrative about the laptop to gain momentum.

The FBI provided the chat messages to congressional investigators with heavy redactions.

Some of the redactions on the chats are marked “OGC AGC,” which appears to mean that they were made by the FBI’s Office of General Counsel and Associate General Counsel.

An individual whose name is blacked out, tells Elvis M. Chan, the San Francisco-based FBI special agent tasked with interacting with social media companies, there was a “gag order” on discussion of Hunter Biden’s laptop. In a separate exchange, Chan is told “official response no commen(t).” 

In the chat, the FBI officials showed awareness that the laptop may have contained evidence of criminal activity.Asked Chan, “actually what kind of case is the laptop thing? corruption? campaign financing?”Another FBI employee responds, “CLOSE HOLD —” after which the response is redacted.To which Chan responds, “oh crap” appearing to underscore the serious nature of the probe, which included felony tax charges. Chan adds, “ok. It ends here”.In the same conversation, Chan is asked if “Anyone discussing that NYPost article on the Biden’s?” Chan responds, “yes we are. c d confirmed an active investigation. No further comment.” “C D” is likely shorthand for the FBI’s Criminal Division.Said another FBI employee, whose name was redacted by the Bureau, “please do not discuss biden matter.”We asked for a response from the bureau and the FBI employees identified in the chat messages. An FBI spokesman declined to comment.According to the IRS whistleblowers, DOJ prosecutors blocked standard investigative protocols that might have led to Joe Biden ahead of the presidential campaign.“There were a lot of overt investigative steps that we were not allowed to take because we had an upcoming election,” said Joseph Ziegler, the IRS case agent on the Hunter Biden probe.. “And it related to the president’s son. So not even the candidate.”The FBI chat is cryptic and the heavy redactions make it difficult to discern context. For example, an employee says to Chan that “[redacted] has a gag order from [redacted]… got checked by [redacted] had to backtrack – sorry!”

Another cryptic exchange came from Laura Dehmlow, the FBI employee who told House investigators that an FBI employee had accidentally confirmed that the laptop was real. “WTF(redacted) No COMMENT.”An employee whose name is also withheld wrote, “nope, just a domestic hit job, yay” to which Dehmlow responded, “Yup.”The exchange may be referring to the FBI’s knowledge that the laptop was authentic and not a foreign “hack and leak” or “Russian information operation,” as 51 former senior intelligence officials alleged at the time.The IRS whistleblowers said there was no basis for the statement from the former intelligence officials….

We know the FBI had the laptop for about a year before this, were investigating, yet they still reached out to social media companies to warn them off of allowing people to discuss the laptop story, telling them it was disinformation, likely from Russia. 

There is no innocent explanation for this. None. Zip. Nada. You need to create a crazy map with cross-connecting lines and bizarre explanations for why this was not a coverup to help Joe Biden–about whom the FBI top brass told their investigators to ask no questions despite obvious connections between him and Hunter’s business interests. 

It was, in short, using the power of the FBI to interfere in the election through unconstitutional censorship of speech. 

Yet there are vast numbers of people who still believe the Pravda Media because it tells them what they want to hear. Imagine voting for a candidate who ran on sterilizing and mutilating children and taking gender-confused kids away from their parents. The media told you this was “life-saving” care, and you believed them. 

Now, imagine learning that it was even worse than giving lobotomies to children. What mental gymnastics would you NOT go through to deny that you were complicit in human rights atrocities? 

Multiply that by 1000–your belief that Democrats are compassionately led to the decline of America’s cities, with hundreds of thousands of deaths from fentanyl, a homeless crisis, increased violent crime, and all the dysfunction in America’s Blue cities. Would you want to admit that you were wrong and responsible for all that? 

Especially if by waiting just 10 years, you can be assured that the world will end because of climate change. All the best people in the elite have told us so. 

Under those circumstances, I wouldn’t want to risk admitting to myself or others that I trusted the wrong people and helped them commit atrocities. It would be like getting Fauci to admit he funded the creation of COVID. 

So people believe the media because the alternative is worse. 

But belief in the goodness of our elites is the equivalent of a conspiracy theory. Occam’s Razor shows us that the disasters we are dealing with are intentional. The hijacking of USAID for left-wing causes was intentional. The use of “color revolution” tactics on Americans was intentional. 

If you believe Fox News and Republicans concocted all this evidence to fool Americans, you are nuts. It’s there for all to see. It is not, as the media would try to have you believe, “cheap fakes.”

Men landed on the moon. the towers came down because planes crashed into them, and the transnational elite is evil. If you still believe the lies and hoaxes, it is because you have a screw loose or don’t want to face reality. 

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This genuinely surprised me. A story about enrollment at Howard University, a leading HBCU founded in 1867, reveals that Howard’s student population is only 25% male. Apparently, this is not that unusual for HBCUs.

Howard, one of the most elite historically Black colleges and universities in the nation, is only 25 percent men — 19 percent Black men…

Howard is not unique. The number of Black men attending four-year colleges has plummeted across the board. And nowhere is this deficit more pronounced than at historically Black colleges and universities, or H.B.C.U.s. Black men account for 26 percent of the students at H.B.C.U.s, down from an already low 38 percent in 1976, according to the American Institute for Boys and Men. There are now about as many non-Black students attending H.B.C.U.s as there are Black men…

“Everybody knows that the women dominate this campus,” said Tamarus Darby Jr., a 20-year-old sophomore at Howard.

“You see predominantly women out here running for positions, and then you see their friends, young women, showing up for them and supporting them,” he said. “It’s different for the men.”

This has obviously been a problem and getting worse for some time but the article then takes a detour attempting to pin future failures on the Trump administration.

…now programs designed to nurture Black academic achievement may be dismantled by the Trump administration, which deems them “racist” diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Cultural centers, mentorship programs, work force recruitment activities and scholarship programs are all threatened by the White House’s promise to cut funding to universities that do not eliminate what it calls racial preferences.

This strikes me as an exercise in missing the point. If black male enrollment is already at 19% at Howard and dropping, concern that Trump might make things worse seems like a distraction. How about dealing with why the enrollment is so low in the first place. All we really get on that point is one paragraph:

The causes are many. Higher college costs, the immediate financial needs of Black families, high suspension rates in high school and a barrage of negative messages about academic potential all play roles in the decline of Black male enrollment and college completion. Howard estimates that its cost of attendance for undergraduates easily exceeds $50,000 a year.

The cost issue doesn’t really make sense in this context. If there are plenty of college-age black women who can afford to attend Howard, there ought to be just as many college-aged black men who could afford it as well. Presumably it’s either a matter of taking out loans, which both men and women can do, or it’s about relying on family money, which both men and women can do.

Putting that aside, we’re left with half a sentence about “high suspension rates in high school and negative messages about academic potential.” That’s really the only explanation offered in the entire piece, which seems odd.

This very much seems like a problem worth addressing. As someone quoted in the story points out, it’s hard to achieve upward mobility in today’s world if you don’t go to college. But I also wonder if this isn’t a case where something has changed more generally and black male students are just a leading indicator. There have been plenty of recent stories about a gender gap among all students headed to college.

Nationwide, women comprised 58% of all college students in 2020, up from 56.6% six years earlier. Women have outnumbered men among college students for decades, but the gap continues to widen. In 1979, about 200,000 more women were enrolled in college than men. By 2021, that difference had grown to about 3.1 million more women than men in college.

Using data from the U.S. Department of Education for fall 2020 college enrollments, The Chronicle found that women students outnumbered men in every state. In 13 states, women made up 60% or more of college students. West Virginia, where 50.2% of college students were women, had the lowest percentage difference between men and women students.

Women outperform men in ever state. Why is this happening? It’s not because of discipline issues, at least not primarily. Girls just seem to perform better in high school, setting themselves up for future success.

Differences in the academic records of the sexes begin well before college. Girls significantly outperform boys in tests of reading in early grades. Girls complete more college-preparatory courses than boys in high school.

A 2019 report from the U.S. Department of Education shows that 46.4% of high school girls took either an AP course or an IB course compared to only 37.8% of boys. While 12% of high school girls participated in dual enrollment programs, only 9.7% of high school boys did so. When these numbers are broken out by race, girls in all racial and ethnic groups were more likely than boys to earn credits in these pre-college courses.

The gender gap among all students isn’t as great as the one at Howard, at least not yet, but clearly there is a change taking place that impacts all races. We may all be headed for a future where most colleges look more like Howard does now. We should probably try to work out why that is happening before we get there.

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Well, it certainly took long enough, but at the end of April – the 28th to be exact – Canadians are going to the national polls.

For the first time in what seems like eons, there won’t be a weepy, woke Fidelito Trudeau at the head of the Liberal ticket.

Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cried like a petulant child in his last moments in office. pic.twitter.com/OhHm5Jut2t

— Keean Bexte (@TheRealKeean) March 14, 2025

Don’t cry for me, Fidelito!

The truth is, I never liked you.

Under normal circumstances, one would imagine anything or anyone replacing the ineffectual 51st governor would instantly be a vast improvement over the wimpishly whingey and malevolently manipulative man-child. 

Not these are not normal times.

Canadian liberals shuffled off their moribund coil and hand-selected a World Economic Forum (WEF)/Davos devotee global banker type, who has earned somewhat of a reputation for expedient decision-making and who’s never really cared for spending time in Canada at all, as their next prime minister.

Mark Carney has never been on a ballot in his entire life, and here he is – Prime Minister of Canada.

The rest of Canada was pretty unhappy about how this all went down, and it proved to be a welcome break for the Conservative Party head, Peter Poilievre. 

Once a high-wire act and sure ‘next thing’ for prime minister in the era of Trudeau’s general dystopian incompetence, Mr Poilievre had been taking a beating lately thanks to Trump’s unrelenting Canada bashing and his seemingly tongue-tied inability to formulate a coherent response to it.

He simply couldn’t do any better than, ‘Canada’s great! Don’t be mean!’

Pierre Poilievre: “My message to President Trump — Knock It Off.”

Donald Trump: “Who or what is a Peter Polyliar?”#NeverPoilievre #pierrepoilievreisbroken pic.twitter.com/ZM8WbP2kNO

— Paul D. Heaslip 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 (@HugoMonster96) March 7, 2025

Swan dive in the polls.

Personally, I think Trump threw him a bone when he talked up Carney and said it was a shame Poilievre ‘stupidly’ didn’t like him very much. 

I might not be the only psychic working the 1-800-OCa-nada numbers this weekend.

Leftists are openly and with a straight face suggesting that Trump and Poilièvre are WORKING TOGETHER on a “mass reverse psychology play”. https://t.co/fghTVkufqN pic.twitter.com/P5dAtCahgt

— Marc Mongrain (@Lukathor) March 20, 2025

Would you put it past Trump?

Not me.

In the meantime, the slickster appointed banker turned prime minister from ‘Eat the Bugs‘ world has been running into headwinds. 

First, as an Oxford graduate, he was probably surprised to get hit with a plagiarism scandal.

Mark Carney is facing serious accusations of plagiarism in his Oxford doctoral thesis, with academics identifying multiple uncredited passages lifted.

Northern Perspective’s Tanya and Ryan joined The Candice Malcolm Show to discuss: https://t.co/bCZQsw9mgj pic.twitter.com/QdlpRGxDdf

— Juno News (@junonewscom) March 30, 2025

But, as he sits on Harvard’s board and voted to keep their serial plagiarist in her cushy job, it was more an institutional failure than personal.

Fun fact for Canadians.

Mark Carney @markjcarney is a Member of the Board of Harvard – https://t.co/9vm9LhFVQA

Carney voted to keep President Gay despite evidence of her own Plagiarism and Institutional Anti-Semitism and discrimination against Asians by Harvard under her… https://t.co/xwScbtnStn

— Andrew Haynes (@AndrewJWHaynes) December 23, 2023

So many of those educated elites from those same schools seem to suffer from the same maladies, don’t they?

So strange.

That little brouhaha was only beginning to blow over when other, more pertinent to life in Canada, scandals erupted.

The first is Carney’s fascination with China. His many public statements touting Chinese economic prowess and his preference for them are being revisted.

When Mark Carney tells you what he wants, believe him. pic.twitter.com/uEn7UamBPA

— Canada Proud (@WeAreCanProud) April 1, 2025

Canadians find this particularly alarming in the face of Carney’s announcement that he has no intention of building any new Canadian pipelines or allowing any new fossil fuel operations.

Mark Carney is clear he will not meet any of the asks to assert Canada’s energy independence.

Like Justin Trudeau, he just doesn’t believe that there’s a business case for our natural resources.

Yet Germany, Japan and Greece wanted our LNG.

Canada can’t afford Mark Carney. pic.twitter.com/5LLXx4CBZe

— Stephanie Kusie (@StephanieKusie) April 1, 2025

This, as Poilievre points out, will keep Canadians dependent on the United States.

BREAKING: Mark Carney says, “we do not plan to repeal Bill C-69.”

This Liberal law blocked BILLIONS of dollars of investment in oil & gas projects, pipelines, LNG plants, mines, and so much more – all of which would create powerful paycheques for our people.

A 4th Liberal… pic.twitter.com/0eaJZ9ASrt

— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) April 1, 2025

Hard as it is to believe, one of the knocks on Poilievre is that he has always been ‘Canada first’ and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. It seems that’s a bad thing.

…One of Poilievre’s slogans — “Canada First” — echoes Trump’s own talk of putting “America first.” He uses “woke” as an all-purpose pejorative and says he is on the side of “common sense.” He has toyed with conspiracy theories and said he would ban his ministers from attending the World Economic Forum.

Poilievre thrives on conflict and has attacked major media outlets and accused them of being in league with the Liberal government. He also took to describing Liberal policies as “wacko” (after being ejected from the House of Commons for using that word to describe the prime minister).

Sadly, according to the Canadian press, Poilievre also uses the same English as Trump.

This is also a bad thing, it would seem. 

Much worse than denying your country energy independence and allowing your ministers to go to Davos. 

And seriously, why would you want to change when Davos has already come to you?

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Taiwan’s president William Lai made news a couple weeks ago when he made some strong statements about mainland China, calling the country a “foreign hostile force.” That’s objectively true but in China’s eyes it’s also unspeakable.

In some of his strongest rhetoric yet amid worsening cross-strait ties, Taiwan leader Lai Ching-te has labelled China a “foreign hostile force”.

He said Taiwan had “no choice but to take even more proactive measures” as a result, as he announced a raft of new national security measures, including reinstating a military court system and tightening the residency criteria for those from China, Hong Kong and Macau…

President Lai said China had “taken advantage of Taiwan’s freedom” to recruit different members of society, including current and former armed force members, organised crime groups and the media to “divide, destroy and subvert us from within”.

Taiwanese authorities charged 64 people with spying for China last year – a three-fold increase from 2021 – Lai claimed, adding that the majority of them were current or former military officials.

The Chinese have always hated Lai and were furious about his comments. They responded with a barrage of attacks on Lai and threats against Taiwan, saying reunification was non-negotiable.

Lai Ching-te’s obstinate stance on “Taiwan independence” and his rampant provocation and confrontation once again prove that he is an outright “destroyer of cross-Straits peace” and a “creator of crisis in the Taiwan Straits,” said Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, on Thursday…

Chen emphasized that the island of Taiwan is a sacred and inseparable part of China’s territory. It has never been, and will never be, a country. Taiwan belongs to all Chinese people – this is an undeniable historical and legal fact, as well as the status quo across the Taiwan Straits that cannot be changed. Our determination to resolve the Taiwan question and achieve national reunification is as solid as a rock, and our capability is unshakable. We will never allow any person or force to separate Taiwan from China, nor will we leave any room for any form of “Taiwan independence” separatist activities. If “Taiwan independence” separatist forces dare to cross the red line, we will have no choice but to take decisive measures.

The fact that Taiwan has never been controlled by communist China and that people in Taiwan don’t want to be controlled by communist China doesn’t matter to the mainland. Today, China carried out what one observer called a “pre-invasion drill” around the island.

Chinese land, navy, air and missile forces would “approach close” to Taiwan and practice “seizure of overall control, strikes on sea and land targets, and the blockade and control of key areas and lanes” at sea, Senior Col. Shi Yi, a spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army regional command that oversees Taiwan, said in a statement issued on Chinese state-run media.

Sometimes, China’s military does not spell out why it holds drills. This time, officials and state media reports were clear: “This is firm punishment for the Lai Ching-te administration’s rampant ‘pro-independence’ provocations,” Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for the Chinese government’s office on Taiwanese affairs, said in a statement.

Ms. Zhu singled out a speech by Mr. Lai on March 13 in which he described China as a “foreign hostile force” and laid out 17 measures that Mr. Lai said would combat deepening Chinese subversion and spying in Taiwan…

“Clearly, the Chinese Communist Party is trying to enhance the effectiveness of its military displays and intimidation by deliberately sending ships within our vicinity, creating opportunities for close armed encounters,” said Chieh Chung, a researcher at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, an organization in Taipei supported by the defense ministry.

In addition to the military action, there was also a propaganda effort aimed directly at President Lai. It included a video picturing him as a bug-like parasite being held by chopsticks over a flaming Taiwan.

The announcement was accompanied by posters declaring that the Chinese military was “closing in” on “Taiwan separatists” and a series of unusually personal attacks on Lai. In one animation, the democratically elected president of Taiwan was depicted as a poisonous “parasite” trying to hijack Taiwan — until he ultimately met a fiery end…

Beijing has sought to undermine Lai by exploiting rising doubts about American support.

“History proves that the U.S. only gives Taiwan superficial ‘rock-solid’ support, while long preparing to ‘abandon Taiwan’ for its own interests,” the Chinese state-run Global Times newspaper said Tuesday…

“We want to warn the Lai administration that if they continue to pursue ‘independence,’ the People’s Liberation Army will take further action,” Lt. Col. Fu Zhengnan, a researcher at the state-run Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, told state media.

China has already indicated many times that it plans to “reunify” with Taiwan by force if necessary. In other words, you either hand your separate and distinct country to China or they take it by force. If those are the only options then threats probably aren’t going to be effective since force was already on the table long before now. Unless Taiwan is ready to surrender, nothing has changed.

Here’s the creepy video of President Lai as a parasite being taught a lesson by Chinese fighter jets.

Video #3 features an animation of Taiwanese president Lai as a “parasite poisoning Taiwan island,” “parasite hollowing Island out,” (with Lai throwing his opponents in jail and grabbing money), and finally “parasite courting ultimate destruction,” with Lai being “burned” by PLA… pic.twitter.com/HwPNVqAUDH

— Lyle Morris (@LyleJMorris) April 1, 2025

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Two victories in the bag in Florida.  

Voter ID has a big win in Wisconsin–called early with only a few percent of the votes counted because the margin was so overwhelming. The Supreme Court race has been called for the bad guy, Susan Crawford. This is a significant loss and will be the election that spawns a thousand think pieces. 

Scroll down for detailed results.  

April Fool’s Day may seem to be an odd one to hold an election, but then again, many people worry that our elections in America have become something of a joke.

They aren’t, of course, even though a conversation with any Republican insider will give you a sour view of how elections are conducted in our fine country.

The ridiculously amateur execution of the process, the concerted effort to prevent any sort of ballot security, and the inability of Democrats – why is it always in Deep Blue states and localities that counting votes is beyond their ken? – to come up with results in a timely manner, have left Republicans deeply cynical.

I have spoken to a number of establishment insiders – not conspiracy theorists, but people who have navigated the process for decades, often successfully – who will casually tell you that Republicans will lose most races in contested areas unless they have a buffer of 3-4% in vote totals.

They just assume, with reasons, that Democrats cheat and are resigned to that reality. “Too big to rig” is not just a slogan – it is the strategy of every Republican running for office in a competitive district.

Off-year, and especially non-November, elections are especially tough for Republicans. The majority are barely aware that an election is taking place, and the motivation to vote is much lower than in presidential years. This is true for both Democrats and Republicans, but Democrats have a huge built-in advantage despite this.

A huge fraction of their voters are public employees and teachers’ union members, and for them, all these elections are existential. Controlling the levers of government is not just nice for them but directly tied to their pay and power. Winning these off-year elections gives them enormous – outsized – influence.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court race is a case in point. The battle is for control of the US Congress, not just a judicial seat in a middle-sized state. The Court has control over redistricting, and the liberal candidate is promising to redraw Congressional District lines to take two seats from Republicans and give them to Democrats. Hence, the interest.

Then, there is the Wisconsin ballot question on Voter ID:

There is even a race for the Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction that people are watching:

In Florida, there are two House races to fill vacant seats, and they are important for the next two years. Results are here:

Special elections are often seen as bellweathers for the next general election. Generally speaking, I think that notion is overblown, especially when the elections are this far out from the 2026 elections.

But they still matter. A lot.

Editor’s Note: Our VIP members make our live results coverage of national, state, and special elections possible! Support our reporting as we fight to bring you the truth and cover high-stakes elections that will affect our great country. Join HotAir VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.

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Last week I wrote about Jonathan Haidt’s update on what has happened in the year since his book The Anxious Generation was published. For the most part, Haidt had a lot of good news to report about parents around the world who seemed to find common ground around some of the ideas he was promoting, specifically that smart phones and social media are creating bad outcomes for a lot of kids and need to be more tightly controlled.

As positive as all of this sounded, there was one thing that had him worried. Just as parents seem to be making moves to deal with the damage caused by screens and social media, AI was hovering on the horizon. And that technology has the potential to scramble childhood even further.

Haidt didn’t really go into a lot of detail about his concerns about AI in his piece for the Free Press, but in an interview published today by Ezra Klein, he goes into a lot more detail. After reading some of this, I found myself being thankful that my kids are either young adults or nearly there. Because the AI future really does sound worrisome, not just for individuals but for society as a whole. 

They got into this by first talking about prestige and how social media has the ability to hack that natural desire which all humans have. And that brings Haidt to recall a particular AI powered app he sees as a harbinger of things to come. (Ezra Klein’s comments are in bold, Haidt’s are without bold.)

One of the most disgusting apps I’ve ever seen — well, there is lots of competition. But there’s a thing called Famefy. The idea is that lots of young people are lonely. They’re not able to get followers. They’re putting stuff out there, and nobody is watching.

Well, that’s really crushing. Imagine your 9-year-old not getting any followers.

But if you give her Famefy, Famefy will generate as many followers as you want. You want millions? You got it. And you can see them praising you, giving you hearts…

And these are A.I. followers?

Yes, A.I. followers.

This is the most “Black Mirror” [expletive] I’ve ever heard.

Exactly. And this is why I’m so passionate about how we have to move quickly this year, 2025. This is really our last year before A.I. really has a big impact on life.

And that leads to a discussion of AI powered digital friends and how that could turn into a very dark path for a lot of kids.

I actually think about relationships the most. I’ve said this many times before: I’m a believer in transformational artificial intelligence. I think it’s coming very fast. If you ask me whether I think A.I. will spur economic supergrowth anytime soon, I would say no. I think A.I. is going to be more evident in its upheaval of relationships.

Because our economy has all kinds of friction in it. It’s very hard to rebuild firms around A.I. But what about when you can have any kind of digital friend you want — or, for that matter, digital lover?…

And I think the friction of relationships between human beings is really important. As a person, it’s good for me that my wife does not adapt herself into whatever I want her to say. It is part of being a healthy human being that other people exist with friction to you.

I was a very lonely kid. I did not have many friends. What if I had a lot of A.I. friends and that began to pattern my expectations of other human beings? And then when other people did not fulfill those expectations that was a frustration to me? And it made my A.I. community that much more alluring?

One interesting part of this discussion is the way in which both Klein and Haidt, both of whom are secular, keep returning to faith communities as a limit on this kind of thing. For instance, here’s Chait’s response to Klein’s statement above.

I’ll draw on a really insightful analysis from a Christian writer, Andy Crouch. I did a session with him at N.Y.U. We had a conversation mostly on Chapter 8 of “The Anxious Generation,” which was about spirituality.

And Crouch said something so powerful that I always bring up, because it’s so helpful. He said: What is magic? Magic is an instant, effortless effect on the world.

You know: Snap your finger, something appears. It’s always been the human dream. And technology is essentially magic. Technology allows us to do things. You want a car to come pick you up, press a button — hey, here’s this car. So the technology is magic.

And he says: Now let’s look at how children are formed. How do you get an adult?

And again, he’s coming from a Christian perspective, so they care a lot about the moral formation, the religious formation of their children.

He says: The three areas of formation for children are home, school and church — or any religious organization. Those are the three areas. And all three of those areas are now colonized by tech.

The gist of this is really something all conservatives believe: There is no such thing as a free lunch. When it comes to children, there are no shortcuts for turning them into mature, responsible adults. They must engage in real challenges in the real world to get there. They must face setbacks and learn to overcome them. And only then can they feel the real pride of having some success they earned for themselves by making good choices, by being diligent, by overcoming adversity and challenges from other people. The good life and the challenging life really can’t be separated from one another in this universe.

But if we have machines that can do not only some of the physical work but also the mental and social work too, things change, or at least appear to change. If there are AI bots and AI friends, this is going to potentially be a seductive fantasy for a lot of kids, one that is feels better and easier than real life. It’s a shortcut to getting some of the things you want in the same way that drugs are a shortcut to feeling the way many people want to feel. 

But of course the old saying about a free lunch is still true. There’s no payoff down that road packed with AI shortcuts, AI followers and AI friends. You aren’t really getting success and achievement, just a simulacrum of those things, one that makes you less prepared and adjusted for life in the real world. 

But just as with drugs, a certain number of young people aren’t going to heed the warnings and are just going to go with what feels good in the moment. The argument Haidt is making is that adults who see what’s coming need to stop that future from ruining young lives before they even get acclimated to the real world.

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This seems important.

God dang it, just when you think you have a deal… 

…But Trump’s big mouth sure works in mysterious ways, doesn’t it? That’s why, while I invariably cringe at his framing, I always counsel sticking around to see what shakes out.

This time, he shook the Chinese right out of the Canal Zone and in less than two months.

BlackRock strikes deal to bring ports on both sides of Panama Canal under American control

…some malevolent Winnie the Pooh steps on it.

The Panama Canal: Ground Zero for World War 3 in the Western Hemisphere?

China is Blocking Transfer of Critical Entry Ports of Balboa & Cristobal from Hong Kong -based CK Hutchinson Port Group Holdings to U.S. based BlackRock in Blockbuster Deal with 43 Ports in 23 Countries pic.twitter.com/5zXOBMaPWS

— DaKey2Eternity (@Key2Eternity) April 1, 2025

So what the heck happened?

Truth be told, China was blind-sided by the entire Trump Panama offensive and not only how quickly but how completely Panama caved to the pressure.

The Chinese were furious in February when the Panamanians invoked their 90-day ‘get out of jail free’ card to withdraw from the infamous CCP ‘Belt and Roads’ (BRI) initiative. They thought they had the isthmus in the bag.

China has slammed Washington’s “Cold War mentality” in Latin America after Panama quit its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China on Friday hit out at the United States for sabotaging the global infrastructure programme.

Beijing “firmly opposes the United States using pressure and coercion to smear and undermine Belt and Road cooperation,” said Lin Jian in a statement. “The US side’s attacks … once again expose its hegemonic nature.”

Referring to a visit this week to the region by Marco Rubio, Lin said the US Secretary of State’s comments “unjustly accuse China, deliberately sow discord between China and relevant Latin American countries, interfere in China’s internal affairs, and undermine China’s legitimate rights and interests”.

Chairman Xi got hit with another right hook when Hong Kong-based CK Hutchinson and Holdings worked out a deal with a United States consortium led by Blackrock to turn over control of the ports at both Canal entrances.

…The consortium, comprised of BlackRock, Global Infrastructure Partners and Terminal Investment Limited will acquire 90% interests in Panama Ports Company, which owns and operates the ports of Balboa and Cristobal in Panama, according to the filing.

Trump was, naturally, pretty damn happy.

…Mr. Trump touted the move in his address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, saying that “to further enhance our national security, our administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it.”

“Just today, a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal, and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal, and a couple of other canals,” the president said

The Chinese government, while technically having nothing to do with a semi-autonomous Hong Kong-based port company, has everything in the world to do with anything operating out of Hong Kong, and it went on the attack against CK Hutchinson’s deal immediately.

The first step was excoriating the company in opinion pieces in both Hong Kong and mainland Chinese newspapers, letting everyone know where the government stood.

…On Saturday, the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office — the Beijing-based authority in charge of Hong Kong affairs — reposted a newspaper editorial titled “Great entrepreneurs have always been outstanding patriots”.

The article, originally published by the Beijing-backed newspaper Ta Kung Pao in Hong Kong, said many Chinese people have questioned “how so many important ports can be so easily handed over to ill-meaning American forces“.

“If (entrepreneurs) fail to see the true nature of American politicians… and choose to dance with them, perhaps they can do a mega-deal and get rich for a while, but in the end they have no future and will be scorned by history,” the piece read.

…CK Hutchison stocks in Hong Kong plunged more than six percent on Friday after Chinese authorities republished an op-ed telling the company to choose “which side it stands on”.

That older article appeared in the commentary section of Thursday’s Ta Kung Pao, which is owned by a subsidiary of the Liaison Office.

In contrast, Saturday’s editorial was excerpted on the front page and its full text ran on page three.

Chinese media pressure on the company has only increased as March moved on, the April closing date moved closer, and relations between the Trump administration and China, in the throws of a war of trade and words, has become frostier.

A pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper stepped up criticism of CK Hutchison’s (0001.HK), opens new tab deal to sell its Panama ports to a BlackRock-led group, sending its shares lower on Monday, as sources said the transaction, due to be signed by April 2, would be delayed.

The deal has become highly politicised as the Hong Kong conglomerate is thrust into the cross-hairs of an escalating China-U.S. trade war that has deepened concerns the financial hub’s edge will erode further amid geopolitical tensions.

Friday, the gloves were off, and the Chinese government officially stepped in to block the deal under the guise of an ‘investigation.’ An anti-trust review is needed, the Chinese have said.

RIGHT

Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison (0001.HK), opens new tab will not sign a deal next week to sell its two port operations near the Panama Canal to a BlackRock-led group, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said, as pressure mounted from Beijing.

China’s market regulator said it will carry out an antitrust review on the Panama port deal in accordance with a law to protect fair competition and safeguard the public interest, its official WeChat account showed late on Friday.

Thanks to the sudden review requirement, that darn paperwork won’t be ready in time…if ever.

Damndest thing.

…Sources told Reuters that Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s deal to sell the Panama ports, including Balboa and Cristobal on either side of the canal, will not have the proper paperwork signed with the BlackRock-led investor group by the April 2 deadline for “obvious reasons.”

Those obvious reasons include an infuriated Chinese Communist Party, which views Li as having bent the knee to Trump and the Americans by agreeing to give up such critical infrastructure around the canal.

For weeks, various Chinese media outlets called CK Hutchison’s billionaire founder “spineless” and questioned which “side he should stand on.” 

Another source said that talks are still very much underway regarding the $19 billion deal, which includes 43 ports in 23 countries. 

While the Trump administration has to come up with a Panama workaround, the Li family, who owns Hutchinson, has basically been told by the Chinese government, ‘You won’t ever work in THIS town again...’

…In another report, The Telegraph noted, “Chinese authorities have effectively blacklisted CK Hutchison and the business interests of the Li family by telling Chinese state-backed firms they will struggle to get regulatory approval for any work involving the group.”

They can be persuasive.

A quick glance at a map explains why Hutchinson’s holdings are so crucial in the eyes of the CCP hierarchy. The deal for the Canal ports was really extensive in nature – 

…The deal will give the BlackRock consortium control over 43 ports in 23 countries, including the ports of Balboa and Cristobal in Panama, as well as others in Mexico, the Netherlands, Egypt, Australia, Pakistan and elsewhere.

#Panama: Why did #China pressure Hutchison Port Holdings to delay the @BlackRock deal?

Hutchison was the single largest Chinese company in the business. A deal for 43 ports in 23 countries–199 berths–would have meant one-third of #PRC‘s global port network wiped out instantly. pic.twitter.com/fYxyAqV8R1

— Ryan Berg, PhD (@RyanBergPhD) March 28, 2025

Hutchinson is between a rock and a hard place in Beijing, as rhetoric ratchets up accusing the company of endangering China’s national security interests, which would trigger additional direct Chinese intervention. 

…Moreover, Ta Kung Pao called for applying China’s Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law against CK Hutchison, which allows Beijing to impose countermeasures on foreign entities that enforce sanctions or harm China’s interests and has advocated for punitive measures if the deal goes forward. The newspaper also invoked Hong Kong’s National Security Ordinance, further signaling potential legal challenges.

In sum, if China wants to prevent the deal from happening, it certainly has the tools to do so. Nonetheless, such actions would vindicate—in part—Trump and his team’s claim that China could potentially instrumentalize CK Hutchison’s position in Panama to influence the Panama Canal operations. The Chinese government’s intervention to prevent the transaction with the aim of safeguarding its national security and interests would also mean the end of Hong Kong’s autonomy in all but name.

In Panama, the company faces rough sledding as well. Panamanian authorities have opened an investigation into the company’s holdings and port operations there. 

…Most importantly, CK Hutchison’s operations at the Balboa and Cristobal ports carry additional risks. Aside from the BlackRock deal, both ports are currently under an audit from Panama’s Comptroller General, and there is a pending Panamanian Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of both ports’ concessions. This means that CK Hutchison’s legal problems in Panama could be transferred to BlackRock and its partners.

Meanwhile, if China blocks the deal and Panama’s legal rulings and audit go against CK Hutchison, the company could find itself with no ports and no income. In that event, a lengthy arbitration between CK Hutchison and Panama would likely follow, similar to the one currently underway between Isla Margarita, Landbridge Group, and the Panama Colón Container Terminal.

This is a really excellent illustration of why the Trump administration is trying to pivot from a focus on Europe and the Middle East to the Pacific.

We haven’t the assets we need to straighten this out if things slip sideways. And the Chinese have been sidling sideways for a number of years now, while the US had eyes every place but on them.

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What is it about Democrats/liberals that makes them think that multiplying by zero equals anything but zero?

By now anybody who isn’t brainwashed knows that “expert” when attached to a political dispute is just another word for “person who agrees with me,” And that credentials are little more than sanewashing otherwise indefensible positions such as “a woman is a person/thing/object which claims to be female.” 

We don’t really care, Margaret. pic.twitter.com/klw8NPpWjS

— Bad Hombre (@joma_gc) March 31, 2025

Attach a prestigious credential, multiply the number of credentialed people repeating the same thing, and the credibility level that should be attached to a statement made by them should still be zero. Zip. Nada. Bupkis. 

Worthless. 

Experts gave us a long series of lies, half-truths, fact checks that were complete BS, “misinformation” censors, and countless letters assuring us that some falsehood is completely, unquestionably true. 

If experts were to be believed every coastal city would be underwater, the Maldives would be submerged, Hunter Biden would be clean as the driven snow, and Joe Biden would still be doing handstands while reciting Homer in the original Greek. 

Expertise is not necessarily worthless, but if you doubt me about how insane and corrupt our current “expert” class in matters of politics and policy, I would be happy to give you a lesson or 10. 

The only reason why so many people still listen to these people is that it gives them cover to continue to pretend to believe what they have already decided to believe. We all want our opinions confirmed, and all get deeply uncomfortable when something doesn’t fit into our view of how the world does or should work. You and I are just as susceptible to that, I am afraid. It is how our brains work. 

These LW straw men are hilarious. https://t.co/hQs7lHVk6G pic.twitter.com/bjAK2ZtzjL

— Charles X Proxy™ (@Charlemagne0814) March 31, 2025

The difference is whether you are willing to rethink your assumptions when the evidence stacks up. Most people aren’t, I am afraid, or at the very least it takes a long time and they rarely jump from “this was an error but the intentions behind it were good” to “the bastards are lying.”

Sometimes the former is true, but often the latter is. 

Finding the truth may be a team sport–none of us can do so on our own–but supporting the team over reality is a mistake. I made that one supporting George Bush and the Iraq war, and the consequences of that mistake were enormous. Democrats made it with COVID,  and I can’t wait for them to admit it. 

Letters from “experts?” They add nothing to the conversation. They are as trustworthy as the FEMA guy who passes by your home because you have a Trump sign in front of it. 

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Back in mid-March, another sort of shadowy operation, something called the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), was targeted for DOGE inspection thanks to their general recalcitrance in complying with Trump admin directives. 

USIP, led by George Moose (I mean, you can’t make this stuff up), who is also a Harvard adjunct professor (go figure), launched its own active mini-rebellion against the incoming Trump administration.

Shrilly screaming, ‘You’re not the boss of me!’ at the top of their underdeveloped lungs and stealing tiny hammers from the janitorial staff they’d always openly despised, the institute’s righteous government employees – along with their fearless leader – barricaded themselves in the building and proceeded to lay waste to whatever they could in a heroic last stand against the invading forces of Elon.

…Much of USIP’s leadership, including Moose, barricaded themselves on the building’s fifth floor, closing window shades and blocking access points in a last-ditch effort to resist DOGE’s entry, the official told the DCNF.

The obstruction didn’t end at damaged doors. Prior to Monday’s confrontation, USIP leaders disabled telephone lines, internet connections and other IT infrastructure, forcing communication among staff through walkie-talkies, according to the official. This deliberate effort to disrupt operations delayed DOGE’s entry and added to the confusion during Monday’s standoff.

Flyers distributed internally further revealed an organized, premeditated resistance strategy. “Greet the guest(s) but do not engage in conversation and immediately notify the on-duty lieutenant,” read the flyers, referring explicitly to anticipated DOGE officials, photos and names of whom were included. The DCNF exclusively obtained one such flyer, including a photograph of it sitting inside a security guard booth outside the building. These flyers were posted throughout the facility in the lead-up to Monday’s confrontation, the official said.

Raw courage-wise, it wasn’t exactly Thermopylae or Masada, but it was a mess when the people who belonged there, including acting USIP president Kenneth Jackson, finally got in. They were accompanied by the Washington, D.C. Metro cops who, ironically, escorted Mr. Moose out of the building. I say ‘ironically’ because Mr Moose had called the D.C. cops to stop the invasion to begin with. Sort of an ill-considered preemptive strike, you might say.

Mr. Moose denied lawful access to Kenneth Jackson, the Acting USIP President (as approved by the USIP Board). @DCPoliceDept arrived onsite and escorted Mr. Jackson into the building. The only unlawful individual was Mr. Moose, who refused to comply, and even tried to fire USIP’s… https://t.co/Fy8hJClx9E pic.twitter.com/yqq81qNKXM

— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) March 18, 2025

As of Friday, termination letters are going out, and there is all sorts of angst about the 28-year-old DOGEr who has been named to wind the USIP operation (and its $80M endowment (!)) down.

Employees with the U.S. Institute of Peace started receiving termination letters effective immediately on Friday evening, five people told POLITICO, a major blow to the embattled organization as the Trump administration seeks to dismantle its operations.

While the size and scope of the firings is not immediately clear, longtime outside general counsel to USIP George Foote said nearly all of the institute’s U.S.-based employees received the termination notifications, with a handful of exceptions including regional vice presidents responsible for coordinating with overseas employees.

…According to [Outside USIP General Counsel George] Foote, USIP will continue legal efforts to reverse DOGE’s attempts to dismantle the institute.

What a great use of more taxpayer money by the USIP. May it be as wildly successful as their past efforts in their core mission of ‘conflict resolution, prevention’ and ‘peace building measures.’

The offended and now upended USIP employees filed a lawsuit to try to prevent the now rebooted governing board from installing their chosen candidate, with the aforementioned 28-year-old Nate Cavanaugh as the temporary Mr Jackson’s designated replacement. The panic induced by what Cavanaugh has been ordered to do is palpable reading the report. 

They’re serious – the Trump team is going to take this place apart.

An official allied with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has been put in charge of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a congressionally created and funded think tank targeted by President Donald Trump for closure, according to a federal court filing Monday.

Two board members of the Institute of Peace have authorized replacing its temporary president with Nate Cavanaugh, the filing says. They ordered him, it says, to transfer the institute’s property to the General Services Administration, the federal government’s real estate manager, which is terminating hundreds of leases at DOGE’s behest.

…The action follows a Friday night mass firing of nearly all of the institute’s 300 employees. Former employees say only a small number did not get notification, including colleagues who are abroad, who were given until April 9 to return to the U.S., and the regional vice presidents, who direct the areas where they are based.

Two former employees, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said they were reached by private emails because they have been locked out of the institute’s system and were not able to return to work since a tense standoff earlier this month in which DOGE members were accompanied by law enforcement. They were given until April 7 to clear out their personal effects.

So they were all fired on Friday as well and have been ‘locked out of the institute’s system,’ eh?

Let’s get into the reason for that, shall we? Ergo, we need to return to Moose’s Last Stand at USIP Hill for a moment.

Along with all the third-grade, Obama White House staff, pissy-level vandalism, it turns out that the Institute of Peace (Why does that sound so Communist Chinese?) staffers were engaging in some last minute document shredding, computer wiping type clean-up.

Like, with cloths or something.

Yeah – that kind. 

What on Earth would they have to hide, peaceniks and all that?

It turns out that they were busy trying to wipe a terabyte of financial information, according to what Elon released last night.

WAIT, WHUT

Only, see, USIP’s problem is the DOGE guys are computer whizbangs, where the valiant resisters are not. 

DOGErs managed to recover the information.

Well. Wouldcha lookee here.

Yup

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 1, 2025

That’s Taliban in the terabyte with a ‘T’ for, ‘Oh, terrific.’

DOGE: The DOGE team fought for days to gain access to the United States Institute of Peace. Eventually, with help from the FBI and Metro Police DOGE was able to access the agency and discovered massive fraud, waste and abuse-including payments to Taliban and Iraq. pic.twitter.com/VymOebovfY

— @amuse (@amuse) March 31, 2025

‘Surprise‘

🚨 USIP UNDER FIRE: $13M FUNNELED TO PRIVATE ENDOWMENT, TALIBAN-LINKED PAYMENTS UNCOVERED

Each year, the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) receives $55M in taxpayer funding. But over the past decade, $13M was quietly transferred to its private Endowment—outside congressional… https://t.co/vBxrmZgYg1 pic.twitter.com/tRkOZvYSp5

— DOGE Tracker (@Tracking_DOGE) March 31, 2025

… But over the past decade, $13M was quietly transferred to its private Endowment—outside congressional oversight—and used for private events and travel. 

Now-canceled contracts include $132K to an ex-Taliban official, $2.2M to an accountant who tried to delete 1TB of financial data, $1.3M to an Iraqi youth league, and $675K for private aviation. The waste is staggering.

They probably should have used a bigger cloth.

Rocks, rocks, and more rocks to turn over and SUCH sneks under every single one.

Never would we know without the DOGE.