Degrees with median earnings below high school graduates could be cut An Indiana bill that would cut funding for “low-earning degrees” is now headed to Governor Mike Braun’s desk and, if signed, would take effect on July 1. An undergraduate degree is classified as having low earnings outcomes if, four years after graduation, the median earnings of its graduates do not exceed the median… Source

Foreign Affairs Five Reasons for Ukraine to Give Up Donbas Russia’s demands are unfair, but ceding territory in the east could help end the current war and prevent future conflict. A Ukrainian serviceman searches for land mines in a wheat field in Donetsk region on October 7, 2022. (Photo by ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images) It is misleading when Western governments and the Western media say that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has not made compromises and is unwilling to negotiate. Though Russia has not changed its essential goals since the start of the war, it has compromised significantly around the edges of those goals.  The concession not to object to Ukraine’s membership in the European Union grants the key wish of the Maidan protestors of 2014. Raising the ceiling on caps on the Ukrainian armed forces and the recognition that Ukraine deserves robust security guarantees, barring the presence of NATO member troops on Ukrainian soil, are large security concessions. Possible compromises on the postwar borders demanded at the beginning of the war are significant territorial concessions.  But Moscow has insisted that there can be no compromise on the entirety of Donbas and Crimea being part of Russia. That demand is a difficult one for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to acquiesce to, and it is unfair. But little in war is fair, and nothing in this war has been fair. It was unfair for the U.S. and NATO to lie about eastward expansion. It was unfair for the U.S. and NATO to ignore Russia’s security concerns, take core issues off the table, and refuse the request for diplomacy on the eve of the war. It was unfair for the U.S. to promise Ukraine as much as it needs for as long as it takes if they go to war with Russia and then to break that promise. And it was, of course, unfair for Russia to go to war with Ukraine. And it is especially unfair for Russia to compel Ukraine to cede land diplomatically that it has not lost militarily. Russia, though, has hinted at a willingness to exchange land outside the eastern Donbas that it has conquered for land inside Donbas it has not. Agreeing on borders after a war with mutual swapping of territory to make the borders coherent is not unheard of, and the failure to do so in the past has, at times, sown the seeds of future conflict.  The real unfairness is the demand for Ukraine to cede territory at all, because it is illegal under international law to acquire territory by force (though Russia would claim that the land was acquired by the will of the people as expressed by a referendum and not by force). Article 2.3 of the UN Charter demands that member states “settle their international disputes by peaceful means,” and Article 2.4 requires all members to “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” This norm has no exemptions and cannot be modified, including, according to the International Court of Justice, in self-defense. Though it is undeniably unfair for Ukraine to have to cede all of Donbas to Russia, there are five practical reasons for it to do so. The most urgent is the need for Ukraine to end this war. The loss of Ukrainian lives is horrific and unsustainable. Ceding the last 10 to 14 percent of the Donbas could be part of the key to doing that. Russia has two core goals in this war: preventing NATO from absorbing Ukraine and protecting ethnic Russians in Donbas. The first has been achieved. That leaves the second. After the diplomatic betrayal of the West and the resultant failure of the Minsk Agreements that would have given the Donbas provinces autonomy within Ukraine, that left, from Russia’s perspective, incorporating the region within itself. That goal now seems nonnegotiable. Yielding to it could end the war. The most practical reason is that Ukraine can cede Donbas to Russia diplomatically, or they can lose Donbas to Russia by war. The outcome is inevitable; the choice is real. The Donbas will be lost, but it is better to lose it with no more loss of life if possible. The third reason is that a border drawn at the west of Donbas makes ethnic and historical sense. Ukraine has always been a nation divided. Northwest and central Ukraine has historically oriented its gaze westward to Europe; southeast Ukraine has historically oriented its gaze eastward to Russia. Elections and culture have traditionally reflected this divide. Though pushing a boundary beyond the Donbas makes no ethnic or cultural sense, drawing it at Donbas does. And arguably it reflects the will of the people as expressed in multiple referendums going back to the ’90s. It might also prevent Ukraine from slipping back into civil war once the international war with Russia is over. Ceding the Donbas to Russia might also go some distance in accomplishing Ukraine’s need for security guarantees. The need for Ukraine to acquire security guarantees against Russian attack is now demonstrably clear. But Russia attacked based on its perception of an existential threat posed by NATO and possible war in the disputed territory of the Donbas and Crimea if Ukraine became a member of NATO. Removing those causes reduces the odds of future Russian attack. Ceding the Donbas, along with Crimea, which already seems to be conceded, could be not just a key to ending this war, but a key to preventing future war. There are other ways in which ceding the Donbas to Russia could help Ukraine to better move forward. A sovereign Ukraine on 80 percent of its original territory integrated with the West with membership in the European Union could be sold, very plausibly, as a victory for Ukraine. But Ukraine can only clear a path to EU accession by conforming with the organization’s requirements for guarantees of freedom of religion and linguistic diversity. The monist vision of what it means to be Ukrainian, with its suppression of the language, cultural, and religious rights of ethnic Russian citizens of Ukraine, dominates in Ukraine and has only gotten stronger since the war. The path to EU membership could be facilitated by allowing the separation of predominantly ethnic Russians in the Donbas.  For similar reasons, ceding Donbas to Russia could help a sovereign Ukraine avoid immediately descending back into the same civil strife that preceded the war with Russia in which the enemy is internal ethnic Russians. And finally, the de jure recognition of the Donbas as Russian could help prevent the stage being set for future battles of a Donbas that has only de facto been recognized as under Russian control. De facto recognition allows for negotiations down the road. But it could also allow for conflicts down the road.  It is unfair for Ukraine to be forced to agree to losing all of Donbas to Russia because it is against international law to acquire territory by force. But there are many practical reasons why ceding the Donbas to Russia could benefit Ukraine by ending the war without unnecessary additional deaths and by moving into a future integrated with Europe and with greater security against both external and internal conflict. The post Five Reasons for Ukraine to Give Up Donbas appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs War on Iran Will Squander America’s Military Edge The U.S. can sustain combat operations for a long while—but Americans won’t be safer afterwards. Early Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump lashed out at those arguing that the United States would soon run out of missiles to fuel his war of choice in Iran. “The United States Munitions Stockpiles have at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better…Wars can be fought ‘forever,’ and very successfully, using just these supplies…” he posted on Truth Social.  Trump is right about one thing. Lack of U.S. weapons will not be a constraint on the fighting in Iran. Stockpiles are not unlimited, but they are plenty deep to allow the military to fight for as long as Trump chooses. But Trump’s war will still do long-term damage to U.S. military power, creating an extended period of vulnerability that the United States will struggle to overcome.  The Trump administration may believe that its combat operations in Iran are a powerful manifestation of American military dominance, but in the end, this war is likely to accelerate the overdue death of the American imperial project, possibly on terms quite unfavorable to the United States and its allies.  Concern about the depth of U.S. missile arsenals has been on the rise since 2022, when the conflict in Ukraine reminded policymakers and military analysts about the massive defense industrial demands of modern warfare. These concerns did not stop the Biden administration from draining U.S. stockpiles, however, by providing over $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine and doubling down on military assistance to Israel after October 7, 2023. The Trump administration’s exploits in the Middle East in 2025—against the Houthis and in the 12-Day War—put additional pressure on U.S. magazine depth, depleting supplies of some of the most advanced U.S. weapons, including Tomahawk missiles and THAAD and Patriot air defense interceptors. The revelation that the United States expended 25 percent of its THAAD missile holdings defending Israel in June 2025, for instance, triggered alarm bells for U.S. officials and the general public.  Still, warnings that the United States will run out of missiles in Iran or predictions that relative magazine depth will be the war’s decisive factor go too far and fundamentally misunderstand the risks and costs of the new war in the Middle East. It is indisputable that the United States has limited quantities of its most advanced and exquisite precision and air defense missiles, including Patriot and THAAD interceptors, the new Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles. But the Pentagon’s supplies of less advanced munitions are deep and can be replenished relatively rapidly, especially if financing is available.  The United States has large stockpiles of Small Diameter Bombs and Joint Direct Attack Munitions that turn cheap bombs and missiles into precision weapons and even more substantial supplies of gravity bombs which lack precision targeting but can still hit and destroy hardened targets. These weapons are all that will be needed once the United States establishes air superiority, a level of control Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth suggests the U.S. military may already have.  When it comes to air defense, the United States also has a diversity of options, including several variants of Standard Missiles and Sea Sparrows for protection of naval assets and AIM-120 and other air-launched missiles that can be fired by fighter jets. Efficient counter drone systems are in shorter supply, but even here, the U.S. military has a growing number of choices, including laser-guided weapons such as the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, that offer low-cost solutions for Iran’s large supply of Shahed drones. The bottom line is that the idea that the United States will be forced to cease combat operations in Iran because it has no more missiles or interceptors is unrealistic. However, as supplies of the best munitions dwindle, the Pentagon will have to prioritize targets and accept more risk in both its offensive and defensive missions. It will have to tolerate higher levels of civilian collateral damage and lower air defense interception rates, which will mean more U.S. casualties and damage to U.S. military hardware. While this is far from ideal, it will allow the Trump administration to continue the war for as long as necessary to achieve something that it can declare a success.   But the ability of the United States to keep fighting the war does not mean that rapid expenditures of expensive U.S. weapons in the Middle East—a region where the United States has few strategic interests—and against Iran—a nation that poses no threat to the U.S. homeland—will not have costs for the United States. It absolutely will. Most eyes are focused on the short-term implications of the fighting in Iran, but it is the longer lasting geopolitical costs—costs that will weaken the United States for years if not decades to come—that matter most. While U.S. missile and air defense interceptor stockpiles will likely last through this war, they will have to be rebuilt afterward—along with the arsenals of Gulf partners. Already high demand for Patriot missiles is likely to skyrocket, along with orders for counter drone systems and offensive munitions of all kinds, as states (including the U.S.) try to fill gaps revealed by the current round of fighting.  This spike in U.S. requirements and the needs of Middle East partners could not come at a worse time. Today, European allies, fearful of the threat from Russia, are looking to acquire U.S. munitions in large quantities. Ukraine is almost wholly dependent on U.S. air defense for protection of civilians and critical infrastructure. And allies in Asia are also looking to increase their own purchases of U.S. air defense and missile systems with an eye on China’s rising military power.  These demands and those of the U.S. military can be addressed, but only with immense amounts of time and money. For some weapons, the limit is production capacity. For others, the issue is that high cost and limited budget space constrain what the United States and U.S. clients can feasibly purchase at a given time. Once this war ends, long backlogs of orders are likely, especially for weapons that the U.S. military needs most. The most exquisite weapons require long lead times, can take years to build, and single points of failure can derail production schedules at almost any time. The inevitable result is a prolonged period of strategic vulnerability for the United States, one that will ripple across its network of allies and partners. During this period, Washington will face a stark geopolitical reality. U.S. military forces abroad will be more exposed and less protected than they are today. If a conflict were to erupt in Europe or Asia—even one that the United States managed to stay out of—the U.S. ability to secure American bases and materiel could be constrained. Its ability to support weakened allies and partners would be even more limited. In a post-Iran war future, Washington will have to make harsh choices. It will have to decide whether to keep its global military footprint and accept the higher risk to its forces and assets or to reduce its global presence to protect U.S. assets and personnel. At the same time, commitments that the United States made decades ago will be largely insolvent.  For at least a period of several years, the United States will likely not be able to defend Taiwan if it were to be attacked. European allies, also weakened by lack of U.S. military supplies, will similarly be left to fend for themselves. More immediately (as soon as next month), Washington’s ability to support Ukraine’s air defense and munitions needs will be reduced, with possible implications for its ongoing war against Russia. Over time, U.S. allies will move away from the United States, perhaps permanently, building their own defenses and finding new partners. For those that have long argued for U.S. global retrenchment, this outcome may not be entirely unwelcome. But there is a meaningful difference between a retrenchment made by choice and managed to protect U.S. interests and one forced on the United States after a wasteful war that consumes what remains of U.S. global military advantage.  The latter case offers no guarantees that the United States will be able to protect its interests abroad and ensures a loss of strategic flexibility that will leave Americans less safe. Most importantly, in the event of a future crisis that does have implications for Americans, there is no guarantee that the United States would be positioned or equipped to respond. The result could be damage to U.S. economic interests or even the physical security of the homeland—the exact opposite of “America first.” Therein lies the ultimate irony: A war fought as a needless display of American military hegemony is ultimately likely to destroy the very hegemony it sought to entrench. The post War on Iran Will Squander America’s Military Edge appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics The Iran War Has Ended the Trump Coalition The president’s betrayal has driven apart the disparate factions he brought together. Has Trump’s Iran invasion wrecked MAGA? For the White House and its allies, the question is nonsensical: MAGA is whatever Trump says it is. It’s rooted in the words Trump uttered before a single primary vote was cast in 2016: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” It’s reflected in the doctrine of Trump infallibility that permeates the White House. Many Trump supporters have long considered those notions ridiculous, while at the same time recognizing that Trump was exceptional in many ways. They would roll their eyes, chuckle and support him nonetheless. He was, they would say to themselves, actually quite good on very important issues, many of his appointments were first rate. Others have argued that for many low-attention voters, backing Trump has no relation to actual issues anyway; people root for him as a fun disruptive personality, as they might a professional wrestling favorite. These theories are about to be tested.  Up against this is the sheer enormity of Trump’s betrayal—a betrayal obviously not of all his supporters but of those who found his regular critiques of forever wars compelling and thought credible his promotion of himself as the “peace candidate.” This was one of the two salient issues (the other was immigration) that in 2016 separated him from the GOP establishment represented by Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and in 2024 from Nikki Haley. Trump had, if not exorcised neoconservatism from the GOP foreign policy playbook, demoted it from its previously dominant position. His attack on Iran demonstrated that this view of Trump was completely mistaken, and those who held it feel saddened, shocked, betrayed, and stupid, in various degrees. He lied to his core supporters for years. As someone wrote on social media, the scale of the con is breathtaking.  What does this mean politically for MAGA? Supporters of the war and the Trump administration claim all is fine: Eighty-five percent of Republicans support Trump’s war, though some polls like the Washington Post’s put the figure at 81 percent. George W. Bush went to war with 93 percent Republican support, so from the outset of Trump’s war there are two to three times as many Republicans in opposition as Bush had. Are these war opponents Never-Trump Republicans, GOPers who never liked him because of his character and style, or people who liked him because he was the “peace candidate”? More the last, I would surmise—a big part of “never-Trumpism” was due to his seeming disdain for hawkish GOP foreign policy orthodoxies. In any case, I don’t find 85 percent a particularly impressive display of MAGA support, particularly for a political faction that has never won national elections against Democrats by large margins.  These anti-war Republicans will not be able to constitute a new post-Trump MAGA movement within the Republican party. Their most clear path to continued influence in the GOP was through J.D. Vance, perceived as a genuine foreign policy realist, a young and often brilliant Iraq vet skeptical of promiscuous armed interventions. But Vance can’t oppose the war as vice president. One can’t even imagine a Hubert Humphrey–style resurrection—the strategy of quietly letting it be known to insiders you have doubts about your boss’s war, while relying on your inside track as vice president to secure the nomination. Humphrey had a 20-year record as a good liberal and effective politician to draw upon. Vance was two years in the Senate. He faced a real choice about whether his career would be better served by remaining a senator from Ohio, and was cognizant of the risks; it’s now obvious he chose wrongly.  Perhaps the best analogy to what will happen to the “pro-peace Trumpers” is the Obamacons, former Republicans and conservatives who voted for Barack Obama over “bomb, bomb Iran” John McCain. There were never a lot of them—Nebraska’s Sen. Chuck Hagel and Colin Powell were the most prominent; several were upper-middle-level GOP apparatchiks; National Review’s senior editor Jeffrey Hart was the most interesting. Less prominent was this writer (who endorsed Obama and canvassed for him). But one can imagine that this coterie helped bring some former Bush voters over to Obama. Ten percent of Republicans voted for Obama in 2008, and some data-monitoring political scientists argue that Bush voters switching or sitting the race out were more critical to Obama’s victory than new voters. One key here was that Obama, despite his exotic biography, ran as a mainstream figure; he was clearly antiwar, but his victory or at least the scope of it was in great part due to his seeming to have a greater grasp of the seriousness of the financial crisis than McCain. He did not turn really to the left and begin emphasizing divisive racial politics until after his second victory in 2012.  It is already clear that among “influencers,” the group of conservative defectors from the Trump war far outstrips the 2000s. It includes most obviously Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, Sohrab Ahmari, Matt Walsh, and Ann Coulter. They reach far more people than Jeffrey Hart did. It should be mentioned that Trump has already obliterated any GOP orthodoxy on fiscal matters, so that the brake mechanism of “what about the deficit?” is already moot. Of course the Democratic choice remains to be seen: It might or might not include “defund the police,” transgender transitioning for children, and a return to Biden’s open borders. But if not, it’s easy to imagine a large chunk of the 15–20 percent who oppose Trump’s war sitting the election out or crossing over. The result would be a landslide.  An ancillary casualty of Trump’s war is a project like Yoram Hazoney’s national conservatism. His conferences both helped bring about and reflected a kind of truce between mostly Jewish neoconservatives and moderate paleoconservatives, with emphasis on common ground: borders, the danger of unrestricted immigration, the importance of national economies, the importance of the nation state as a focus for belonging in global society increasingly without moral or actual boundaries. The younger generation of neocons had more or less given up their support for fairly open immigration, chastened perhaps by Muslim migrant terrorism. Foreign policy was on the back burner, and Hazony’s conferences brought together old friends who had split over the Iraq War and the related, more general question of whether Israel’s influence over American foreign policy was excessive. The shared perspectives possible when such issues were distant are obviously out the window, as dead as Vance’s presidential prospects. Both will be missed.  The post The Iran War Has Ended the Trump Coalition appeared first on The American Conservative.

"Every word is perfectly placed..." The post Perfume Genius’ favourite Bob Dylan song: “A really beautiful, simple hymn” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

It’s nothing short of ironic that a group that first got noticed for the line “I hope I die before I get old” (from “My Generation”) lasted over fifty years. The Who was one of the few bands not dominated by their lead singer. Roger Daltrey had to compete with the guitar antics of Pete Townshend, who was also the band’s primary songwriter. There was also Keith Moon’s over-the-top manic drumming. Meanwhile, bassist John Entwistle stood stoically off to the side providing a solid foundation. Somebody had to. The Who arrived in the mid-’60s with youth anthems like “My Generation” and “The Kids Are Alright.” In addition, The Who’s concerts were frenzied experiences. They destroyed their instruments long before it was fashionable. My Generation Written by Townshend the song became one of the band’s most recognizable songs. The Kids Are Alright In ’67, they unleashed “I Can See For Miles” which was one of the most intense songs ever recorded. They brought down the house with a smashing performance at the legendary Monterey Pop Festival. All that would have insured them a place in Rock history. I Can See For Miles Pinball Wizard But there was more. As the ’60s were coming to a close there was news that Townshend was composing a Rock opera. “Tommy,” the simple story of a deaf, dumb and blind kid who was a “Pinball Wizard” became both a commercial and artistic success. “Live At Leeds” came next in ’70 and was one of the all-time great live Rock albums. But The Who’s greatest achievement came a year later with “Who’s Next” containing the incredible “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Bargain,” and “Baba O’ Riley.” Won’t Get Fooled Again Baba O’Riley By the late ’70s though The Who seemed to run out of steam, which was probably inevitable. With Moon’s passing in ’78 it might have been a good time to hang it up. Proclaiming Moon irreplaceable, they replaced him anyway with ex-Faces drummer Kenney Jones. The Who also launched a series of successful “farewell” tours. Jones didn’t last long but The Who continued, for a period, as a trio – until they brought in drummer Zak Starkey (Ringo’s son) who played the kit longer than anyone else. In ‘02, Entwistle died from an apparent cocaine-induced heart attack in Las Vegas just prior to the launch of the band’s U.S. tour. Not wanting to upset fans or concert promoters, Daltrey and Townshend pressed on with the tour as a “tribute to John.” Declaring Entwistle “irreplaceable” (hey, we’ve been here before!), they hired Pino Palladino, who had worked on Townshend’s solo projects. The Who teamed with the U.K.’s Teen Cancer Trust for an ’09 holiday fundraiser, Who Cares. “At a time when your body is changing, your social life is everything and you’re still trying to figure out who you are, getting cancer can seem like an impossible blow to take,” said Daltrey who was spearheading the effort. “But thanks to Teenage Cancer Trust, thousands of teenagers are taking it, and coming out fighting.” The band’s involvement with the cause continued over a decade and a half. As The Who, now down to Daltrey and Townshend with later additions, were preparing for a real, this is it, final ’25 North American tour, Daltrey fired Starkey, for alleged miscues (which may not have been Starkey’s fault) during a live show at London’s Royal Albert Hall. There were also monitor volume issues. Starkey was then un-fired. Days later though, Starkey was fired again with Scott Devours, who’d worked with Daltrey, filling in. ### The post The Who appeared first on RockinTown.

from SGT Report: From the Bolshevik revolution to Israel to the Federal Reserve to the IMF to drug trafficking & human trafficking to endless and wars for profit, this is very clearly Rothschild’s fallen world – and it sure looks like Donald J Trump is in their pocket just like the Clintons were. Penny Kelly […]

by Stephen Paul Foster, The Unz Review: From Reuters, February 4, 2026: GENEVA/WASHINGTON … U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is sounding the alarm on U.N. finances, warning that the world body is at risk of “imminent financial collapse” due to unpaid fees and a budget rule that forces it to return unspent funds. Guterres has repeatedly spoken about […]

Montrose and Van Halen frontman regrets that he never got to make his concept album about aliens and space travel under the banner Sammy Wilde And Dustcloud