follow Pennsylvania’s lead

Don't sleep on them Florida boys

[View Article at Source]Such moves pose a challenge to Russia and Iran. The post U.S. Seizure of Venezuelan Tanker Doesn’t Only Threaten Maduro appeared first on The American Conservative.

[View Article at Source]Only a MAGA leader can hold conservatives together after Trump. The post The Old Guard Is Not the Right’s Future appeared first on The American Conservative.

The filmmaker's death is being investigated as a homicide. Continue reading…

The man who was arrested this morning as a person of interest in the Brown University shooting is being released by the FBI. Here’s the video: Sounds like they don’t have a . . .

Foreign Affairs U.S. Seizure of Venezuelan Tanker Doesn’t Only Threaten Maduro Such moves pose a challenge to Russia and Iran. (Photo by Jesus Vargas/Getty Images) The U.S. seizure of the tanker Skipper earlier this week has been widely interpreted as a significant escalation by the Trump administration against the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. Losing the tanker, which was carrying Venezuelan crude to Cuba, is a significant blow to Maduro and will make it more difficult for the Venezuelan government to fund itself, as it is overwhelmingly reliant on oil exports for government revenue. However, the seizure is also an escalation of American economic warfare generally, including against Iran and Russia, which have also taken advantage of the world’s “shadow tanker” fleet to evade U.S. sanctions and sell energy abroad. The Skipper was just one of thousands of such “shadow tankers,” a large group of mostly aging and obsolete tanker ships that profit from the transport of black market oil from sanctioned countries. Shadow tankers often fly false flags and manipulate the location data such ships are required to broadcast (to prevent maritime collisions) in order to give the appearance of legitimate operations and throw off law enforcement. The Skipper, for example, was at the time of its capture falsely sailing under the Guyanese flag and manipulating its location to appear as if it were near the large oil fields in Guyanese territorial waters. Shadow tankers scoop up sanctioned oil at below-market prices in countries like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela before sailing to countries like Cuba and China to sell. Often, tankers will transfer cargoes at sea to other vessels to further obscure the origins of their illegal carriage. Their numbers have multiplied as U.S. sanctions have broadened, and they serve as a convenient method for foreign governments to reduce the impact of attempts by the U.S. to strangle their energy markets. The Skipper was in fact originally sanctioned in 2022 not for carrying Venezuelan crude, but for smuggling Iranian oil used to support the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah. The ship, at that point named the Adisa, was sanctioned as part of a large network of ships and companies that allegedly took Iranian oil and blended it with imported Indian oil to sell abroad as a seemingly legitimate product. The ship has also been connected with the transportation of Russian oil. Cracking down on shadow tankers will undoubtedly make life significantly more difficult for the Maduro regime, which desperately needs the oil revenue brought by the tankers to pay for military equipment and government salaries. But if the seizures continue, it could also put a significant dent in the budgets of other states who have been targeted by American sanctions, including Russia and Iran. For Venezuela specifically, the loss of the Skipper comes at a moment of deep financial fragility. The country’s oil sector, once the backbone of the national economy, has suffered years of underinvestment, corruption, and political interference. Production has stabilized somewhat in recent years, but only at a fraction of its former capacity, and nearly all remaining output depends on creative export arrangements that bypass or obscure U.S. sanctions. Shadow tankers have become central to this system. They allow the state oil company, PDVSA, to move crude to Cuba, China, and occasionally other buyers willing to risk secondary sanctions, often at steep discounts that further shrink Venezuela’s revenue. The seizure of a single vessel might seem minor relative to Venezuela’s broader economic crisis, but the loss of the Skipper should be enough to make operators of shadow tankers think twice about smuggling oil in the Caribbean. Oil tankers are not trivial to acquire, and losing a ship and its cargo (aboard the Skipper, nearly $100 million worth of crude oil) is a significant financial blow. Tankers that are willing to make the journey will demand even lower prices to make up for the risk, further cutting into Venezuelan margins. The political consequences inside Venezuela could be even more significant. Oil revenues are not just an economic resource; they are the glue that holds together the ruling coalition around Maduro. Military commanders, political loyalists, and Venezuelan oligarchs tied to the regime depend on access to the oil trade for patronage and personal enrichment. When export channels shrink or become more perilous due to American enforcement, the regime must stretch its resources further to maintain loyalty. If seizures like that of the Skipper become more frequent, they could complicate Maduro’s ability to maintain the loyalty of his allies within the country. Even so, it’s unlikely that further seizures of shadow tankers in and around Venezuelan waters would be enough to topple Maduro. Autocrats in general are very capable of adapting to poverty in the countries they rule, and Maduro has been through worse economic pinches than the one he faces now. Such operations will, however, make his life significantly more complicated, and add additional teeth to American sanctions reaching far beyond the waters of the Caribbean. The post U.S. Seizure of Venezuelan Tanker Doesn’t Only Threaten Maduro appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics The Old Guard Is Not the Right’s Future Only a MAGA leader can hold conservatives together after Trump. A new Manhattan Institute survey analysis claims the future of the right lies with traditional Republicans, not the new forces brought forth by Donald Trump or the “Online Right.” It shouldn’t count as a revelation that the average Republican isn’t a based social media poster. It’s obvious and it’s something your author has written about many times. But the point being made by the Manhattan Institute is not simply that the offline right is very different from what we see on X. It’s that ordinary Republican voters want the old GOP back. The purpose of contrasting ordinary Republicans with the extremes of the online right is to subtly revive the lame conservatism Trump defeated in his primary battles. The Manhattan Institute study identified two large blocs of GOP voters. One is the “Core Republicans,” which apparently make up 65 percent of the GOP electorate. The other is the “New Entrant Republicans,” a group comprising 29 percent of the coalition.  The Core Republicans are longstanding GOP voters who are “consistently conservative on economic, foreign policy, and social issues,” the report states. “They favor lower taxes, take a hawkish view of China, remain firmly pro-Israel, and are highly skeptical of progressive agendas on transgender and DEI issues.” The New Entrants, as their name suggests, are recent GOP voters with more unorthodox views. “They are more likely, often substantially more likely, to hold progressive views across nearly every major policy domain,” the study finds. “They are more supportive of left-leaning economic policies, more favorable toward China, more critical of Israel, and more liberal on issues ranging from migration to DEI initiatives.” But, strangely enough, it’s also the demographic where a “significant share also report openly racist or antisemitic views and express potential support for political violence.” At the same time, it’s more “racially diverse” and younger than Core Republicans. It’s hard to reconcile all these findings to discern a clear bloc of voters. They’re more racist, yet more diverse and progressive on DEI—how does that work?  It’s likely true this demographic is more anti-Israel and more conspiratorial than the typical Republican voter. But it’s hard to determine their concrete beliefs, besides that they are more “populist” in spirit and less committed to the old GOP. The Manhattan Institute wants us to believe that the future of the right lies with the Core Republicans rather than the New Entrants. This was explained by the organization’s spokesman Jesse Arm in its public policy magazine, City Journal. Arm’s article appears to think the battle for the GOP is just between traditional Republicans and Nick Fuentes. He mocks the idea that the Fuentes fan—which he describes as a “twentysomething male Zoomer, still living at home and spending inordinate amounts of time online, and steadily dosing video games, pot, and porn”—is the future of the party. He conflates this caricature with the New Entrants to argue for the superiority of the Core Republicans. [BLOCK]The loudest voices in the right-wing attention economy speak to, and for, a particular segment: younger men, often nonreligious, often alienated from institutions, steeped in Internet-fueled irony and grievance. Our survey suggests that they are numerous enough to matter. But they are not the median Republican voter. The coalition’s beating heart remains the normie Republican Washington keeps forgetting: older, more churchgoing, more hawkish, more pro-Israel, and uninterested in burning the country down.[/BLOCK] It is curious that the core features of ordinary Republicans are that they are “hawkish” and “pro-Israel.” It gives the game away for what kind of conservatism Arm desires. They want neoconservatism back, and imagine it’s what the base wants. This isn’t an accurate picture.  Ordinary Republicans are not as pro-Israel as they once were. In 2022, just 27 percent of Republicans had a negative view of Israel. Now it stands at 37 percent. Among Republicans under 50, half hold a negative view of the Jewish state. This is the future of the GOP. It doesn’t sound like “pro-Israel” will be one of their core tenets.  Republicans are notably less hawkish than they were in the George W. Bush era. A plurality of Republicans either want to cut or entirely eliminate funding for Ukraine. By comparison, a majority of Democrats want to increase funding for Ukraine. Republicans are less likely now to back NATO and other international commitments. Republicans are not as greatly concerned with foreign affairs as think tankers are. It was ranked near the bottom of issues that 2024 voters cared about. The average Core Republican that Arm idolizes may not be an “isolationist,” but he’s likely to have questions about America’s relationship with Israel, NATO, and Ukraine. These matters also don’t animate regular voters as much as they do the pundits and analysts who obsess over foreign policy for a living. But it’s not just the foreign policy of the old guard that analysts like Arm want to restore: Everything about Trumpism must be put out to pasture. Arm implies the future GOP should jettison the new voters Trump brought in, in favor of other demographics.  It’s unclear what voters Con Inc. expects to win over with neoconservatism, which lost decisively in 2008 and 2012 in the general election and 2016 in the Republican primary. There’s not a great demand for the return of Paul Ryan or Jeb Bush. The entire GOP has been Trumpified to a great degree as well. Every GOP presidential contender will need to pretend to be MAGA to have a shot in 2028. Obsessing over fiscal policy, advocating for more foreign interventions, and being willing to capitulate on immigration is not a winning formula either in the GOP primaries or for a general electorate. But that’s what the old guard wants back. Con Inc. knows they can’t frame the dynamic as “MAGA vs. the old guard,” since Republicans love MAGA and the new GOP it has created. So they choose the fantastical framing of “twentysomething loser addicted to porn vs. normal people.” This makes it an easier choice for people, but it’s completely divorced from the reality of the conflict. The people pushing for a realignment are not all basement dwellers. Many of them are in the White House and could easily succeed Trump. These leaders don’t want to take the party back to the glory days of Karl Rove. They want to push the party in a new, nationalist direction. They want the GOP to address the problems of the 21st century, not resuscitate the platitudes of the Reagan era. It’s crucial for whoever leads the party to keep the Trump coalition together. You have to please both the Core Republicans and the New Entrants. The party can’t win elections if one bloc flees for the other side. Never Trumper David French recognizes this, which is why he urges Democrats to read the study and work to win over the Core Republicans. French, unlike other Never Trumpers, has given up on the GOP entirely. He thinks it’s Trump’s party now and for the foreseeable future. He’s obviously right. Only an America First candidate, not a Paul Ryan type, can hold the coalition together. And that’s the only way Republicans can win in a post-Trump world. The post The Old Guard Is Not the Right’s Future appeared first on The American Conservative.

Los Angeles, CA – December 14, 2025 – In a devastating development that has stunned the entertainment community, acclaimed director and actor Rob Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, 68, were discovered dead in their Brentwood residence on Sunday afternoon. Authorities are treating the incident as an apparent homicide, with reports indicating wounds consistent with a knife attack. LAPD at Rob Reiner’s Brentwood home after couple found dead The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a medical aid call at approximately 3:38 p.m. at the home on the 200 block of South Chadbourne Avenue. Paramedics arrived to find a man and woman deceased, later identified as the Reiners. The Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division quickly took over the case, confirming it as a homicide investigation. No arrests have been announced, and officials have released limited details, describing the situation as a “family incident” in some reports. Law enforcement sources told The Los Angeles Times that a family member was being questioned in connection with the deaths, and the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation, confirmed that there was no sign of forced entry into the home. Sources familiar with the probe have also indicated that one of the couple’s children may have discovered the scene, adding layers of heartbreak to an already unimaginable tragedy. The neighborhood was cordoned off as investigators worked through the evening, with senior LAPD leadership on site. Rob Reiner directing Jack Nicholson on the set of A Few Good Men Rob Reiner’s career in Hollywood spanned more than five decades, beginning with his breakout role as Michael “Meathead” Stivic on the groundbreaking 1970s sitcom All in the Family, where he portrayed the liberal son-in-law opposite Carroll O’Connor’s iconic Archie Bunker. The series, created by Norman Lear, tackled social issues head-on and earned Reiner multiple Emmy nominations. Transitioning to directing, Reiner helmed a string of critically acclaimed and commercially successful films in the 1980s and 1990s. His 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap became a cult classic, satirizing the rock music world. He followed with coming-of-age drama Stand by Me (1986), fairy-tale adventure The Princess Bride (1987), romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally… (1989)—where he met Michele, then working as a photographer on set—thriller Misery (1990), and courtroom drama A Few Good Men (1992). Many of these works have endured as cultural touchstones, with several inducted into the National Film Registry. Rob Reiner as Michael “Meathead” Stivic with Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker in All in the Family Reiner, son of comedy legend Carl Reiner and actress Estelle Reiner, grew up immersed in show business. He was previously married to actress-director Penny Marshall from 1971 to 1981, with whom he shared a daughter, Tracy (whom he adopted). After meeting Michele on the set of When Harry Met Sally…, the couple wed in 1989 and raised three children together: Jake, Nick, and Romy. Michele Singer Reiner, a talented photographer and later producer, collaborated with her husband on several projects in recent years, including documentaries and the 2025 sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. Spinal Tap band pic from Rob Reiner’s 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap The sudden and violent nature of their deaths has left colleagues, friends, and fans in shock. Tributes have begun pouring in across social media, reflecting on Reiner’s contributions to film and television. As the investigation unfolds, authorities urge anyone with information to come forward. This remains a developing story, with the Reiner family undoubtedly grappling with profound grief. Our thoughts and prayers go out to their children, extended family, and loved ones during this extraordinarily difficult time.The post Rob Reiner and Wife Michele Found Stabbed to Death in Brentwood Home first appeared on Worth it or Woke.