I don’t know if Matt Walsh and Megyn Kelly wear the same brand of frilly panties. That’s not the point. What’s twisting their briefs out of all proportion is inane. Those two must be packing a lot more of that prickly Celtic DNA than I am. When a pitiful creature like Wajahat Ali can get your Irish up, you’ve gone back to the “am not, are too” playground. If you leave that chip on Euro-phobic shoulders alone, it might fall off by itself. When you come from a culture teeming with abundance and creativity it’s less than charitable to rub people’s noses in it. Ali’s “I’ll show those white people” hate video pits the man grappling tooth and nail with Joe Goebbels, Richard Spence, William Pierce, David Duke, and the gamut of crackpots who’d bother trifling about the historical accuracy of Yakub inventing whitey on Patmos some millennia ago. Some people are allowed to wear swastikas with impunity. They can be entertaining. Who didn’t get a laugh hearing Joy Reid say people of European descent didn’t invent anything while speaking on a podcast proving the opposite. Anyone bothered by having 100 percent of his ancestors from west of 60 degrees east longitude and north of the Mediterranean Sea is beneath pathetic. Anyone suggesting the tribes from there had no culture is functionally illiterate. Western culture permeates the globe. It would oppress readers compiling the number of customs, practices, devices, and even lifestyles — now common in the remotest spots on Earth — that people prone to sunburn came up with. Squabbling over it is as sensible as debating which way tomorrow’s sunrise is coming from. None of this puts anybody else down. Everyone — who means no harm — is welcome to the party. That people from elsewhere make magnificent contributions to human welfare is not in dispute. Still, Europe and North America together comprise less than 25 percent of habitable landmass. The burden of development in developing countries falls on the occupants of them. El Norte cannot be the perpetual solution. Constitutional republicanism appears to be the closest thing to a political panacea yet known. Wherever it has failed the denizens of the nation must simply try harder. How else did the U.S. thrive after its devastating Civil War? Everywhere has had its share of dictators, demagogues, misanthropes, mass murderers and villains. Superior technology has enabled the most destructive of them. But isn’t it the rust in the spear? It also enables convenience, comfort, reduced suffering, and longer life. Greta Thunberg is on the same course as Ted Kaczynski. Getting down into the slop with the Reids and the Alis leads straight back to where Hitler and the like would take us all. Competition is good for business, tribalism is good for violent combat. It is redundant to point any of this out. Without good doses of history we can’t learn from mistakes. Wallowing in the sins of forefathers around the clock however, is what kept Hatfields and McCoys slaughtering each other. Wajahat’s loathing for the land he has adopted runs so gut deep it plumbs into cuisine. Hence, I’ll state my preferences with no apologies to anyone. When starving after swimming the Atlantic all afternoon spaghetti Bolognese with mixed greens tops my list. Some dish that originated in the Pamirs never comes to mind. I’ll take Dover Sole, a mustard rubbed rack of lamb, chicken saltimbocca, schnitzel, Hungarian goulash, and a score of other menu items before thinking of leaving the continent. I can go Thai or sushi now and then, sure, but the idea that Euro-cuisine alone leaves a palate bereft is silly. Adding new things to the mix is no indication that its dietary predecessors were inferior. Looking over a Delmonico’s menu from the 19th century would leave very few salivating for kabobs. When it comes to literature can anyone imagine the picaresque genre out of Spain if the Moors remained in charge? Sun Tzu gives excellent tactical advice but his oeuvre is a bit sparse on the laughs and heartbreaks you’ll get from Fielding, Hugo, Dostoyevsky, or Cervantes. The world has an insatiable appetite for entertainment generated by the West. Going round with people enraged about movie actors with complexions like Thomas Edison’s makes as much sense making a stink about the rarity of ridge runners from Appalachia in Noh productions. Denigrating American chicken dishes is about as close as Ali gets to funny. If he thinks a bird on a skewer is never dry it can only be by avoiding that fare. Pakistan has a population over three and one-half times the size of the UK while producing about one-fortieth as many books. The U.S. publishes at least 80 times as many titles, if you include self-published screeds, the factor exceeds one thousand. That explains why a writer like Waj stoops to salvos in the kitchen rather than the publishing house. The very reason applying yardsticks to compare ethnic accomplishment is called “racist” is the sad reality of how far behind some people are. The fact that everyone knows is that Westerners hit the cultural lottery. That’s exactly what drives aimless dolts nuts. Watching them melt down in sour grapes is delicious fun. The cultural world marches on around them. When you come from a culture teeming with abundance and creativity it’s less than charitable to rub people’s noses in it. But humbly bowing before the ungrateful raving of lunatics is taking etiquette a bit too far. If Wajahat really wants to gather traction he should convert to Hinduism. Giving up beef would be a small price to pay for the right to say how bad whiteness was in a past life. READ MORE from Tim Hartnett: What They Get Wrong About ‘What We Get Wrong’ Trashing the Culture Remember the College Treachery  

The U.S. seizure of a Cuba-bound Venezuelan oil tanker this week indicates that the Trump administration is moving ahead with operations against the regime of Nicolas Maduro. Sorties from the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier strike group have been flying ever closer to Venezuela’s coasts and thousands more Marines are disembarking at bases in Puerto Rico to reinforce the 22nd MEU readily deployed on the USS Iwo Jima and other amphibious warfare ships stationed in the Caribbean. There is a high probability of at least some American casualties, even in the limited standoff warfare contemplated. The day before Navy Seals roped onto the sanctioned tanker Adisa that previously shipped Iranian oil under a Hezbollah-linked company, F-18 Hornets flew into the Gulf of Venezuela. skirting the port of Maracaibo in the closest open approach yet to Venezuelan territory staged by the U.S. naval task force. Hours earlier Trump was threatening to hit “land targets” as he realized that the only way to remove Maduro and his drug Cartel de los Soles will be by force. “Maduro’s days are numbered” Trump said. But the Venezuelan dictator gave no sign of budging in one or more telephone exchanges with the U.S. president last week. He insisted on keeping his narco billions, on guaranteed protection against arrest or extradition and on virtual control over a successor government. “His conditions for stepping down don’t seem to have changed much since negotiations for a transfer of power began during Trump’s first term more than five years ago,” says a former U.S. diplomat involved in the previous discussions. In an apparent show of force, Venezuelan F-16s displayed aggressive maneuvers within six miles of the Gerald Ford , even challenging an F-18 CAP flying out to intercept them. “It was clearly provocative, exceeding anything we experienced during the cold war with the Soviet Union,” says ex-Navy combat pilot and former NSC official Luis Quinones. Tuesday’s U.S. air incursion into the Gulf of Venezuela could have been a response to the attempt to buzz the Ford. Military analysts also say that the Navy fighters were “probing” Venezuelan air defenses to check for responses such as radio traffic and encrypted signals in ongoing efforts to map out regime air defenses. The sortie may have also been for purposes of deflecting Venezuelan attention away from the sea extraction of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, which was underway around the time that the F-18s supported by a Growler electronic warfare aircraft circled the coastal region. Machado says that the U.S. government was kept closely informed of her exit by boat to Aruba, where she caught a private jet to Norway to collect the Nobel peace prize. Delays in her arrival were due to difficulties encountered in what has been revealed as an elaborate escape plan involving the use of disguises and diversionary operations, supported by U.S. intelligence agencies. “Maria Corina’s problem now is returning to Venezuela,” one of her U.S. based supporters told The American Spectator. Maduro’s attorney general Tarek William Saab has declared her a “fugitive,” threatening instant arrest if she returns. The Nobel prize enhances her heroic standing as leader of Venezuela’s persecuted opposition, but remaining in exile could mean that hopes for an internal uprising to depose Maduro and replace him with the legitimate winners of last year’s elections, are dashed — in what is now a familiar pattern. While her running mate and official presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzales fled Venezuela to Spain last year, Machado remained in hiding, using at times the shut-down U.S. embassy building in Caracas which has been under Swiss diplomatic protection since the State Department pulled out in 2019. Her calls for the army to mutiny recorded in videos released on social media became less regular as regime repression grew and the apparent Plan A for her to emerge before adoring crowds as Maduro was arrested by soldiers heeding her call, melted away. “We are approaching a phase in which Trump may try to do limited land strikes,” says Dr. Evan Ellis, senior research professor of Latin American studies at U.S. Army War College who served on the State Department policy planning staff in the previous Trump administration. By remaining in Venezuela Machado could complicate the types of initial standoff operations being planned by the Pentagon. Protecting her from falling hostage to Maduro would require a direct U.S. airborne landing around Caracas with the strong likelihood of significant American casualties which the Trump administration wouldn’t risk in an election year. Maduro’s ruling circle, closely advised by the Cubans, believes that the administration can be dissuaded from invading Venezuela by raising the specter of another “Vietnam.” While current-day Venezuela bears no resemblance to the Republic of South Vietnam of the 1960s, it’s not an idle threat. Cuban special forces and intelligence agents embedded throughout Venezuela’s armed forces provide Maduro’s inner security ring and have refined the communist military doctrine of “Peoples’War” over decades. Maduro claims to be organizing 280 “points of resistance” throughout the country with highly trained urban guerrilla cells in Caracas that is also defended by heavily armed regular troops. Even assuming that Venezuela’s armed forces largely collapse following waves of U.S. precision air strikes and electronic jamming of their radar and communications, die-hard regime supporters currently organized as “Collectivos” recruited from Tren de Aragua and other prison gangs could emerge as a guerrilla force coordinating with Colombian terrorist groups and Hezbollah, whose strength in Venezuela is similarly estimated to be in the thousands. They have plenty of arms: over 100,000 AK-103 assault rifles and Dragunov sniper rifles acquired from Russia which has set up factories producing compatible 7.62 ammunition in Venezuela. Maduro boasts having 5,000 Russian shoulder-fired Igla SAMs distributed among his armed forces and Collectivo militias which could be lethal against helicopters. Easy to conceal Pantsir mobile SAM batteries delivered by Russia are also highly effective against low-flying aircraft. The CIA is presumably working on penetrating what would in essence be a manufactured guerrilla movement. But experience shows that clandestine military structures tend to remain “known unknowns” until intelligence gaps get discovered the hard way, particularly in Venezuela’s treacherous environment teeming with double agents. Dismantling the vast criminal organization running Venezuela and its external support system may require months of surgical raids and bombings to destroy its supply chains, scatter its resources, and kill its main heads. Marines and airborne units may at some point be sent in to occupy certain key locations. The presidential compound and main army headquarters at Fort Tiuna in Caracas may be off limits to U.S. ground troops initially, due to the high losses which urban warfare in Venezuela’s sprawling capital would entail. But limited landings to take oil ports around the Gulf of Venezuela and the main airport of Maiquetia on the coast might be less costly. Controlling Venezuela’s oil flow while diminishing its narco traffic would be the surest way to strangle the regime and starve out its armed supporters. It’s then that surviving factions of the army disconnected from the regular chain of command might turn on Maduro — unless a Tomahawk missile, Reaper drone, or Seal Team Six gets him first. There is a high probability of at least some American casualties, even in the limited standoff warfare contemplated. Even a few bodybags could damage Trump and the Republicans in the upcoming midterms . Maduro and his allies know that’s their main Trump card, as does the American Left. READ MORE from Martin Arostegui: Putin’s Caribbean Gambit Unmasking Iran’s Hidden Footprint in the Americas The Soros Footprint in Latin America  

The government may not silence conscience or conversation. The American experiment depends on this simple, yet increasingly threatened principle. And that is what’s at stake in Chiles v. Salazar, the Supreme Court case brought by Kaley Chiles, a Colorado counselor who contends that a 2019 Colorado law forbids her from offering counseling to minors who, for deeply held religious reasons, seek help addressing same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria. Narrowly tailored safety rules are legitimate; viewpoint-based censorship is not. Those who care about the First Amendment need not endorse every viewpoint voiced in a counselor’s office to understand what’s at risk. A free society must tolerate — and protect — the right of adults and children under adult care to seek counsel consistent with their convictions, and the right of counselors to speak and advise in good conscience. As Kristen Waggoner of the Alliance Defending Freedom put it: “The government has no business censoring private conversations between clients and counselors.” That is precisely the constitutional question the Court now faces. Defenders of Colorado’s law say that the state is regulating professional practice to protect minors from harmful, discredited treatments. That is a weighty interest. But, when does state regulation of a private practice cross the line of censorship, particularly when the counseling session consists of conversational, faith-informed talk rather than a clearly defined medical intervention? The answer matters far beyond this single law: it will shape whether states can silence therapists, pastors, and parents who speak from religious conviction about human identity and moral formation. From the oral argument before the Court, it was clear that several justices were wrestling with whether Colorado’s statute crosses a constitutional line by regulating viewpoints rather than conduct. Religious and civic conservatives have long warned that legislative zeal to enforce cultural orthodoxy can slide into penalizing ordinary pastoral counsel. Albert Mohler warned that bans of this kind could “criminalize normal orthodox biblical counsel” and imperil the ability of families and churches to live out their convictions. That is not hyperbole to believers; it describes a legal regime in which conscience is subordinated to state preferences. This is not merely a dispute about therapeutic technique; it’s a dispute about who decides which ideas may be expressed in private counseling sessions. A culture that narrows the space of permissible speech to a single set of orthodoxies forfeits the pluralism that makes democratic life possible. Alan Sears, a longtime leader devoted to defending religious liberty, has repeatedly emphasized that living according to one’s deepest convictions must be protected in both the public square and one’s private life. When the state starts dictating which religiously informed counseling methods are lawful, it tilts the scale against pluralism and toward centralized coercion. Nor is this some abstract legalism. Counselors and families already report a chilling effect: therapists decline to provide faith-informed counsel out of fear of state sanction; parents and adolescents are deterred from seeking approaches consistent with their beliefs. The resulting flight from help or movement underground to unregulated providers is hardly the picture of thoughtful public-health policy. If the state’s interest is truly the welfare of minors, the government should pursue narrowly tailored measures that protect health while preserving robust First Amendment protections for clients and counselors alike. This case demands humility from both sides. Those who view conversion efforts as harmful are right to press concerns about safety and empirical evidence. Those who view the law as an overbroad censorship are right to defend the free exchange of ideas and conscience. The Constitution resolves such disputes not by choosing which views are right, but by guarding the marketplace of ideas and ensuring that the state cannot single out disfavored perspectives for suppression. If the Supreme Court protects Kaley Chiles’ right to speak and to counsel consistent with her convictions, it will not be endorsing any one theology or therapeutic method. It will simply be reaffirming an older, truer principle: the government may not silence private, faith-informed conversation. As former Vice President Mike Pence has repeatedly said in defending religious liberty and free speech, our founders entrusted to citizens and communities, not the state, the responsibility for shaping conscience and belief. That constitutional trust deserves protection. The Court should guard that trust. Narrowly tailored safety rules are legitimate; viewpoint-based censorship is not. In a free republic, the remedy for speech we dislike is more speech: honest conversation, reasoned persuasion, and pastoral care, not the blunt instrument of criminal law. The stakes of Chiles v. Salazar are larger than one statute or one counselor: they reach to the soul of our constitutional order. The Supreme Court should protect the rights of counselors and their clients to pursue truth and moral formation according to conscience, not permit the state to dictate an approved orthodoxy and silence those who don’t fall in line. READ MORE from Greg Schaller: The Supreme Court Puts IQ on Trial Again Republic or Democracy: Democrats’ Crusade to ‘Save Our Democracy’ Is a Ploy to Undermine Our Constitution Shutdown Shows We Must Scale Back Bureaucratic Infringement of Gun Rights Greg Schaller serves as the director of the Centennial Institute, the conservative think tank of Colorado Christian University. He has taught politics at CCU, Villanova University, and St. Joseph’s University. He holds a BA in political science and history from Eastern University and an MA in political science from Villanova University.

The Sixth Annual Idiot of the Year Awards An idiot is someone who’s convinced they aren’t one. That exempts me from the category. If you gather a bunch of idiots and put them in charge of the world’s major nations for a decade, you get roughly what we have now. Today is my favorite day of the year. My job for twelve months is to spot fools and prove that they are fools. My job today, one day a year, is to gather the biggest fools of all into a single ranking. The 2025 crop has easily surpassed all previous ones. Once again, I have the honor of presenting to my friends at The American Spectator the nominees for the 2025 Idiot of the Year Award — and I can’t wait to read your votes in the comments. I can’t think of a better ending for the biggest promoter of international wokeism than to end up putting up with Katy Perry 24 hours a day. Nicolás Maduro, a shapeless, hollow mass growing around a mustache. He’s the kind of person you’d never want to rob a bank with. The kind who drops a piece of paper with the address of where you’re hiding the money in the middle of the heist. The one who gets nervous, kills all the hostages, and leaves without the money. The one who can’t count bills without constantly licking his fingers. The problem in Venezuela is that it’s being robbed — and Maduro is the leader of the gang. Pedro Sánchez, the man who whispers to his handcuffs. After watching all his collaborators end up in jail for corruption, with dozens of judicial investigations open into his inner circle and even his family, he refuses to resign, claiming his government acts swiftly against corruption. Indeed, his party acts swiftly to steal before the judges arrive. Despite being the son-in-law of the owner of a large network of brothels, he’s spent years hammering on with the slogan “I’m a feminist because I’m a socialist,” and now a #MeToo movement has erupted within the party, including his chief advisor, who turned out to be a pervert. In short, the legal net is tightening around Moncloa Palace hour by hour, and millions of Spaniards are already chilling expensive champagne, waiting for the moment this man — who has done so much damage to Spain and the world — finally falls. Zohran Mamdani, the Democrats’ new icon. With economic ideas that would make a first-year economics student blush, Mamdani has become the new Democratic darling; everyone wants to be like him. My suggestion: they start by throwing themselves to the ground, butt up in the air, pointing away from Mecca. Pete Buttigieg, attempting to convert to the faith of common sense (still a long way to go). After spending his entire career relentlessly promoting identity politics and “wokeism,” now that he’s out of power, he’s suddenly realized that the left will never win another election if it doesn’t distance itself from these obsessions that divide society. It’s not that he’s had a change of heart; he just wants to win elections. Buttigieg’s conversion miracle was wrought by Saint Donald Trump. Bad Bunny, the typical rich guy who wants everyone else to be poor. He claims he makes songs, which makes you wonder what the Rolling Stones, Hombres G, or even Mozart are really doing. A guy whose lyrics could be the script for a low-budget porn film tries to lecture you on feminism and tolerance. Mahmud Abbas, the friendly face of car bombs. Every terrorist group needs a useful idiot who, precisely because he seems like an idiot, is allowed into presidential palaces and takes photos dressed in a suit and tie. Ted Sarandos, public enemy number one of Western culture. Conservatives have plenty of reasons to criticize Soros and denounce his entire network of influence to make the world a worse place. But the focus of the culture war today isn’t Soros — it’s Sarandos. Netflix is poison for the West. I’m amazed that so many conservatives are happily funding that poison. Ursula von der Leyen, Montagu’s harrier inhabiting the Brussels carpet. One day we should talk about how the CDU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany), teeming with far-left idiots in disguise, has ruined Europe. The best representative of this organized gang of traitors is von der Leyen. Ali Khamenei, the meddler-in-chief. Find any place in the world, any place you like, examine its main problems, zoom in, and you’ll find Iran working behind the scenes to make things worse. Richard Gere, “exiled” in Spain. I have written to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Foundation of Friends of Stranded Sperm Whales due to Obesity, because I consider it an unnecessary ideological genocide against Spaniards that, in addition to putting up with Pedro Sánchez, we now have to endure Richard Gere lecturing us on politics from his luxury mansion Española. Deportation now! Justin Trudeau, Katy Perry’s boyfriend. I can’t think of a better ending for the biggest promoter of international wokeism than to end up putting up with Katy Perry 24 hours a day. Good luck with that, Justin. READ MORE from Itxu Diaz: Give Me War and Give Me Castles Something to Hold Against Donald Trump Sánchez’s Spain Is a Caricature of Political Corruption

from ZeeeMedia: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Micah Zimmerman, Activist Post: Argentina is considering a major shift in its approach to bitcoin. Argentina’s central bank, the Banco Central de la República Argentina (BCRA), is reportedly drafting rules that would allow commercial banks to offer bitcoin and crypto trading and custody services to customers. TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/ If approved, the new regulations could […]

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'He Gave Them A Microphone': Erika Kirk Demolishes Claims Her Husband 'Incited Violence'

'unthinkable tragedy'