Prager University has teamed up with The American Spectator’s editor, Paul Kengor, for a special six-part video series on history’s worst dictators. The “Hall of Evil” series launched on Feb. 3 with the first installment on Bolshevik dictator Vladimir Lenin (click here). A new installment will be released each Monday morning through mid-March, with Lenin followed by Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Fidel Castro, and Pol Pot. Kengor talked about how the series came about and how impressed he was with the PragerU operation. “In 2018, I had done a video for PragerU on Karl Marx,” recalls Kengor. “I was blown away by the response. The video has 5 million views on the PragerU site and another 3.35 million on YouTube. Prager University has an enormous impact.” The Prager staff was pleased with the response and enjoyed working with Kengor. “They told me, ‘Let’s do this again in the not-so-distant future,’” said Kengor. “Last year, they came to me with the idea of doing six videos in what we initially called a ‘Worst Dictators’ series. They eventually changed the name to the ‘Hall of Evil,’ which I think is brilliant.” Kengor and the Prager team spent four days together last June writing and reviewing scripts and recording the videos in a Pittsburgh TV studio. “They’re an incredible operation — state of the art,” said Kengor. “They have decades of experience in film, TV, Hollywood. The final products attest to that. They’re amazing.” Kengor says that a driving motivation for the series is to educate young people about history’s worst villains, especially communist dictators from the 20th century. “It should be no surprise that nearly all of the thugs that we profile were Marxist despots,” says Kengor. “Unfortunately, that will be a surprise to young people educated in our terrible K-12 government schools and our hideous left-wing universities, where ‘diversity’ is hailed but not taught when it comes to diversity of ideas. They’ve been taught that communism is a good idea — all about sharing wealth and helping the poor.” (RELATED: Marxist Women’s Day) Kengor adds that no one will be surprised by the inclusion of Hitler in the “Hall of Evil,” but he expects resistance from admirers of the likes of Fidel Castro. “Our higher-ed indoctrination centers have tried to create heroes out of the likes of Fidel and his murderous little toady Che Guevara,” says Kengor. “But Fidel was evil (as was his buddy Che). He has earned a rightful place in our Hall of Evil. As have the other killers: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot.” Kengor says that he’s “happy to join PragerU in providing this crucial remedial history education. We need to help educate the millions of misled and duped Americans who failed to learn these things at their awful government schools and their over-priced, massive rip-off, corrupt, one-sided, secular universities.” Follow us here at The American Spectator as we link each week to the latest video. The post Who Made It Into the ‘Hall of Evil’? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Three-fifths is the most notorious fraction in American history. For purposes of apportionment, the U.S. Constitution’s Three-fifths Compromise counted “other persons” — namely black slaves — as equal to 60 percent of non-slaves, who were overwhelmingly white, along with free blacks. The notion that blacks in bondage were, essentially, worth 40 percent off compared to whites is one of the more notorious aspects of America’s original sin: slavery.  Lost in all of this is the fact that the 3/5 Compromise was designed to reduce the overall population count of Southern states in each census. Tallying slaves as 5/5 human in decennial reapportionment would have given Dixie even more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The 3/5 Compromise weakened the slave-owning states’ political power. Alas, this reality has been shoved down the memory hole — good and hard. Still, the 3/5 Compromise has nothing on Hamas’ 1/30 Compromise. This morally repugnant facet of the recent deal between Israel and its Jew-hating tormentors dictates that, instead of one hostage being liberated in exchange for one Palestinian terrorist released from Israeli captivity, each male hostage that these bloodthirsty kidnappers free unleashes 30 Palestinian killers! Even worse, every liberated female hostage prompts Israel to give 50 murderous anti-Semites their walking papers. If these savages eschew careers in commercial real estate and, instead, resume jihad, Israel can do little about it. No one can blame Israel for wanting its people back. But how dare Hamas believe that an Israeli life is worth one-thirtieth or one-fiftieth of a Palestinian life? In other words, relative to Palestinians, Hamas is trading Jewish men at a 96.7 percent discount and Jewish women at 98 percent off. Next to this, the slave-owning South’s “40 percent off for blacks” formula seems comparatively dignified. Also, like Palestinian water torture, Hamas drips out two or three hostages every few days. Release the goddamn hostages already. All of them. Now! With their execrable fractions and sadistic sloth, Hamas members are filthy, repulsive swine. They should be slain, not traded like baseball players. The time is now for Israel to adopt a death penalty for terrorists. Jew killers nabbed between Gaza and the Golan Heights should suffer the terrible, swift sword of Israeli justice. They should get the death penalty, very quickly, for killing, attempting to kill, or plotting to kill Israelis, Americans, and others on Israeli soil. A dead terrorist is worthless in trade for live Israelis. But not even the corpses of these scum should exist.  Post-execution, these vermin should be cremated. An Israel Defense Forces aircraft should dump their ashes into the Mediterranean, with profound apologies to the fish that must endure the sickening sight of Hamas/Hezbollah dust sinking to the seabed below. These Jew-killing monsters soon would learn that Jerusalem has nothing to barter for kidnapped Israelis. The Palestinian prisoner/Israeli hostage exchange rate would collapse, and this stomach-turning human traffic would stop, due to utter futility. If executing, cremating, and scattering Islamic terrorists seems cruel and unusual, here is an effortless way to avoid such punishment: Reject jihad.  Israel should implement this policy, not send Hamas 30 hardened, convicted Jew killers for every Israeli man set free and 50 practicing jihadists per female Israeli. Rabbi Gideon Black illustrates the consequences of having no anti-terrorist death penalty. “Ashraf Zughayer, the Hamas leader who arranged for the killing of my cousin and attempted to have me killed, got out of prison January 25 as part of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas,” Rabbi Black wrote in The Free Press on February 2. “He had served 22 years of what were supposed to be six life sentences—one for each person whose murder he orchestrated.” As Black explained: “Yoni Jesner, my cousin and closest friend, was 19 years old when a Hamas suicide bomber whom Zughayer dispatched murdered him and five others on a bus in Tel Aviv in 2002.” Black accompanied his cousin during this terrorist attack. Black still has “physical scars on my torso.”  Zughayer, the man who arranged this deadly terrorist mayhem was “welcomed back to his East Jerusalem neighborhood as a hero,” Black continued, “draped in Hamas flags atop a white Toyota pickup truck just like the ones his Hamas comrades rode as they stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023.” Rabbi Black is torn between keeping Palestinian killers behind bars and springing them to unchain Israeli hostages. He warns, however, that “releasing terrorists has been proven to lead to more terror. Radicalized Palestinian youth have been reared on a curriculum of Jew-hatred.”  Black explains this policy’s fatal absurdity: “A deal Israel struck in 2011 saw a single captured soldier, Gilad Shalit, freed in return for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, of whom a staggering 280 were serving life sentences for terrorism. Many have reoffended—most prominently, Yahya Sinwar, who immediately upon his release took charge of the Gaza Strip’s terror network and subsequently masterminded the October 7 attack.” Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu should enact retroactive capital punishment for terrorists and, where otherwise appropriate, a one-Palestinian-for-one-Israeli exchange rate. This reform would correct a key weakness in the Jewish state’s overall policy approach:  Israel is too nice.  Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor. The post The 3/5 Compromise Has Nothing on Hamas’ 1/30 Compromise appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has a basic idea about everybody on the planet; he believes that people just want to live well in nice housing and safe communities. The world saw that in Singapore in 2018 when Trump met with North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un; Team Trump made a video that offered the Hermit Kingdom a place at the world’s prosperity table. The world saw that side of Trump again Tuesday when the president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took press questions in the White House East Room. Trump’s appeal: He wants to turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East” — and he wants the United States to own the land. While some heads in the room exploded, Trump pitched his message to those outside the room. What do Gazans have to lose? Trump bluntly stated that Gaza is now a “hellhole.” For more than a year, Israel bombarded the seaside strip of land with the goal of destroying Hamas so that its thugs cannot repeat the atrocity of Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 and created 251 hostages. Gaza was a “hellhole” before the 2023 atrocity. After being bombed back to the Stone Age, it’s not habitable, Trump offered. Let Egypt, Jordan, and other nations take in Palestinians while the United States nation builds. The obstacles are many. As Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies put it, Palestinians have been “willing to live in rubble, live in tents, live without water or electricity, and suffer as living symbols of the Palestinian national cause. And this is what they have been encouraged to do. They’ve been incentivized to do by the rest of the Arab world since, since 1948.” As if to prove Schanzer’s point, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas responded, “We will not allow the rights of our people, for which we have struggled for decades and made great sacrifices to achieve, to be infringed upon.” I have to agree. But if the Arab World sees welcoming Gazans as a betrayal, perhaps other Muslim nations — say, Malaysia or Indonesia — could pitch in, Schanzer offered. Bottom line: Trump’s rhetoric “forced the Arab world to begin to engage more seriously if they don’t want the transfer of Gazans, if they don’t want the U.S. to take over the Gaza Strip, they need to provide an alternative.” Danny Danon, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, told CNN, “I think we all agree that it should require the consent — consent of people to move out from where they live, and the consent for other countries to receive them.” True. But Trump’s proposal for U.S. ownership is essential. In 2005, Israel withdrew from a functioning Gaza only to see Hamas take charge in 2007. Is Trump’s “Riviera of the Middle East” scheme likely to happen? Probably not. The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake offered four possible explanations for Trump’s Gaza gambit: It provides a distraction, it’s a negotiating ploy, Trump sees value in adversaries believing he is volatile, and/or “His sudden imperialist streak is very real.” I see a president who seized the opportunity to send a message to Palestinians — that they deserve better — and who chose to point a harsh spotlight on the misery that pervades corners in Gaza. The worst part is, that misery is a choice, a bad choice, but not a choice that needs repeating. Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X. COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM The post A Real Estate Developer’s Guide to the Middle East appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The fate of President Donald Trump’s ambitious economic policy plans will be determined by the people he appoints to critical positions. With a debt of over $36 trillion (heading toward $59 trillion in 2035 by some estimates), inflation not resolved, an entitlement crisis looming, and the need to extend the president’s 2017 tax cuts, we’d better hope the cooler, more experienced heads prevail. As it happens, Kevin Hassett, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and later a senior adviser to the president during Trump’s first administration, has been appointed to lead the National Economic Council. Clearly one of the economists Trump trusts most, Hassett might just be the person capable of charting a fiscally responsible path through challenging circumstances. “Personnel is policy” is not just a platitude; it’s a fact that’s shaped past administrations. Key advisers have long played leading roles crafting monumental economic policies. It’s a long list that includes Arthur Laffer, whose theories on tax cuts and supply-side economics fundamentally reshaped fiscal policy and spurred growth during the Reagan years. Ezekiel Emanuel has been called the architect of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, with long-lasting impacts on U.S. health care. Hassett could play an equally significant role. Take the debate about extending Trump’s tax cuts. Letting them all expire isn’t really an option, but tax cuts are expensive. How to pay is crucial. Unfortunately, in this populist era, corporations are often scapegoated for all that’s wrong with the world, and some voices are demanding higher corporate tax rates to pay for individual cuts. Here, Hassett’s scholarship will prove invaluable. In 2006, he and Aparna Mathur coauthored the first empirical study examining the link between corporate taxes and manufacturing wages. Analyzing data from 72 countries over 22 years, they found that the burden of corporate income taxes is largely shouldered by workers through lower wages. This conclusion has since been reinforced by many studies. In a recent review of the academic literature, Cato Institute economist Adam Michel writes: “The best economic evidence suggests that workers pay more than half, and likely three-quarters, of the cost of the corporate tax. Thus, cutting business taxes is a tax cut for working Americans.” While there are still debates over details, it’s now well established that corporate tax cuts aren’t simply giveaways to wealthy capitalists. Having someone within the administration who is so authoritative on this issue will be essential if we’re to avoid the mistake of paying for some tax extensions with damaging corporate tax hikes. Indeed, Hassett’s work will be important in assessing which expiring tax provisions should absolutely be extended based on an ability to trigger investment, productivity and economic growth. In that respect, his recent paper on the 2017 corporate tax reforms, coauthored with the Hoover Institution’s Jon Hartley and Josh Rauh, demonstrates the importance of restoring the full-expensing provision that is now phasing out. Allowing businesses to fully deduct their investments means productivity, growth and a more prosperous workforce. Beyond tax reform work, Hassett has been a key researcher on how best to reduce the debt. In 2010, he and coauthors Andrew Biggs and Matthew Jensen published a paper covering more than 100 instances in which countries tried to reduce budget gaps. Governments which “addressed their budget shortfalls through reduced spending burdens were far more likely to reduce their debt than countries whose budget-balancing strategies depended upon higher taxes.” What’s more, “the typical unsuccessful fiscal consolidation consisted of 53 percent tax increases and 47 percent spending cuts. By contrast, the typical successful fiscal consolidation consisted of 85 percent spending cuts.” As Hassett, Biggs, and Jensen made clear, a vast majority of countries that have attempted to reduce debt-to-GDP ratios have failed precisely by relying too heavily on higher tax rates. Considering that the United States needs to implement austerity measures sooner rather than later — it’s more a question of “when” than “if” — having someone who understands the importance of carefully designing fiscal adjustments is, once again, essential. There are many other areas where Hassett could be influential. While he may believe that Trump’s tariffs can be used to get concessions from other countries, he understands that, fundamentally, these are taxes imposed on Americans that pave no path to prosperity. Much attention has been given to Trump’s appointees in areas like health care and defense. Hassett’s appointment should not be overlooked. It signals a focus on growth, job creation, and even elusive fiscal responsibility — not just short-term populist measures. Veronique de Rugy is the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. To find out more about Veronique de Rugy and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM The post Personnel Is Policy: Hassett Brings Fiscal Responsibility to the White House appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Long-lived, the dawn never misses an opportunity to paint the roses black. How difficult it is to understand our levity. How arduous the battle against my arrogance is. How appropriate it seems that February, a month that begins by ending, should come after a January that lasts 150342 days. In January the year begins, in December it ends, in March the sun comes out, and in August the beaches shine. But in February, what the hell happens in February? Nothing at all. Cold and pallid February. Anticipation of spring. Crucible of time, intermingled afternoons by name of night. There is a social current, perhaps unstoppable, that clamors to eradicate the month of February, for being a month of sadness, of informative boredom, and a meaningless halftime. And it is true, February is only of any interest as a season of emotions, or as a chronicle of shady events. I am often overcome by the memory of an aimless February, enraptured in the calendar, like a cat surprised by the flash of a torch. February and a spasmodic, almost cyclical, almost nautical sadness. A mourning as of departure to the sea. A brief kiss that does not close. A firm embrace that languishes. A slow song that speeds up. And José Alfredo Jiménez, perhaps, with a tequila-induced slumber.  February, a month of huge scarves on the girls, perfumed with aromas of hopeful dances, and black coats covering the Paul Newmans that sweep the streets in a hurry unbefitting the beauty of the moment. A month in which their beauty has to be sensed through a thousand layers, with streets heaving with walking onions fresh from the hairdresser, and sprayed with the perfumes they were given for Christmas. Little beauties. February, yes. Month of prison without correspondence, of unalterable monotony on the other side of the window, of never-ending work days. The light falls, and so do they, fateful daggers of youth that break our souls, and fill with ashes old postcards of bygone days of light and smiles. Afternoons of golden beer, soccer, and the congregating of groups around ashtrays full of dreams. When all was still to be done and today, for some, time has expired. Painful realization: this is no longer my time. Our smiles closed down, just as they closed the bars that were supposed to last forever. And we stay like this, icy, watching the incense rise between the damp walls of a church. It is impossible to color these days without the dense aroma of a winter wine. But sometimes neither Mencía nor Rioja. And then, only a prayer remains, soft, in a thread of voice lost among the animal noises of the streets. A prayer that says “let March come, let us drown in flowers.” Sleepless month of wild contrast, between the cold and the extreme heat when entering and leaving the house, due to the utopia of the heaters, which behave like the perfect economic systems of a socialist, that is to say, imperfectly. Icy lounges to sit and think in, or not to think. And ambulances full of questions, equations of doubt, who is God calling to his party today. February, what a month for a war. And for a sincere promise to see her again tomorrow, the girl, even if later the clock swallows up the emotions without warning, and blows out the lives, fleeting souls, at the feet of the good God. All the same, I won’t see her, you won’t see them. February is a month of disappointment and inaction. February is a month of exasperating indecision.  February, also like a scythe, dispassionately cutting out fairy tales, among the still colorful tremors of our youth. Memories are already forever a living smile, but with a grimace of the slowest sadness. February. Groundhog Day in the United States is the feast of Our Lady of Candelaria in the Spanish-speaking world. Instead of staring at the groundhog, in my land we look toward the heavens: if it rains on the day of Our Lady of Candelaria, winter is over and you can plant your seed; if it is sunny, winter is still to worsen. You know what happened, don’t you? That’s right. It was a wonderful sunny day. February is, in short, Rainer Maria Rilke, armed with a pad of loose verse, dipping the nib of his pen in my eye. And it is the month, so says popular wisdom, “when birds get married.” I was having coffee today on a terrace and there was next to my table a bunch of chirping sparrows doing strange dances around a female. Accuse me of perverting the scientific method if you wish, but I think that was not a wedding, but a bachelor party.  READ MORE by Itxu Díaz: The Table of Cruel Non-Binaries: Media Attack on MAGA Influencers at Inauguration Backfires The Europe of Equivocating Fools The post The Strange and Unnecessary Month of February appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

In the early 1980s, cinema’s rules of censorship did not stretch to video releases. Cheap and often gruesome films flooded the market as VCRs grew in popularity. Following a campaign led by Mary Whitehouse and the British advocacy group National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association (NVALA), prosecutions commenced in the UK in the early 1980s against [...]

from And We Know: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Geoffrey Grinder, Now The End Begins: A jaw-dropping new photo shows the US Navy firing off a drone-destroying directed energy laser light weapon — dubbed Helios — from the warship USS Preble This story today on the stunning progress being made by the Pentagon with directed energy laser weapons, or DEW, is interesting to me […]

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) has released a fully unedited video of Kamala Harris’ controversial interview with 60 Minutes. The new video shows CBS News only aired half of Harris’s response to “60 Minutes” reporter Bill Whitaker’s question about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not heeding the Biden administration. Whitaker asked, Harris: “The Wall Street Journal said that he— that your administration has repeatedly been blindsided by Netanyahu, and in fact, he has rebuffed just about all of your administration’s entreaties.” Harris responded, “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. And we’re not going to stop doing that.” She added, “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.” Watch the unedited video here: BREAKING: FCC releases unedited ‘60 Minutes’ interview with Kamala Harris during the election President Trump sued CBS, alleging the interview was “deceptively doctored” to help Harris win. pic.twitter.com/tIxzGtKjIE — Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 5, 2025 Check out what Fox News reported: The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) released the unedited transcript and video handed over by CBS News of its controversial “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The raw transcript showed CBS News had aired only the first half of her response to “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker’s question about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not “listening” to the Biden administration in a preview clip that aired on “Face the Nation,” but aired only the second half of her response during the primetime special. “But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening,” Whitaker said in the October 2024 interview. “The Wall Street Journal said that he— that your administration has repeatedly been blindsided by Netanyahu, and in fact, he has rebuffed just about all of your administration’s entreaties.” “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. And we’re not going to stop doing that. We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end,” Harris responded. Breaking: The FCC has released the unedited full @60Minutes interview with @KamalaHarris. The CBS show previously only released a heavily edited package in the original airing before the election. The prior FCC chair under Biden rejected calls for the unedited video to be… pic.twitter.com/4GZFfxAz0C — Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) February 5, 2025 Per The New York Post: The Federal Communication Commission on Wednesday released the unedited version of the network’s controversial “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala. The Tiffany Network published two never-before-seen excerpts from the sit-down, which President Donald Trump has alleged was deceptively edited to help the Democratic nominee in her failed bid for the White House. The Post reported earlier this week that FCC Chair Brendan Carr planned to put the investigation into high gear after CBS News handed over the full transcript of the Harris interview on Monday. Carr vowed to launch a probe following a complaint by the Center for American Rights, a right-leaning activist group, which argued that the long-running television newsmagazine favorably edited the October sit-down with the 2024 Democratic Party presidential nominee. The FCC is investigating whether CBS News exhibited political bias against Trump and the Republican Party during the 2024 election cycle.

President Trump has officially signed an executive order that bans biological males who have “transitioned into women” from competing in women sports. The Executive Order was titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which gives the Federal government the authority to make sure that entities that receive federal funding abide “by Title IX in alignment with the Trump administration’s view, which interprets “sex” as the gender someone was assigned at birth.” Trump while signing teh order shared, “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over.” Watch the moment it happened here: BREAKING: Pres. Trump signs an executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. https://t.co/nrACqVTkKU pic.twitter.com/l8w44cmH4L — ABC News (@ABC) February 5, 2025 Per WTOP: President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday intended to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports. The order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” gives federal agencies, including the Justice and Education departments, wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with the Trump administration’s view, which interprets “sex” as the gender someone was assigned at birth. “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over,” Trump said at a signing ceremony. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the order “upholds the promise of Title IX” and will require “immediate action, including enforcement actions, against schools and athletic associations” that deny women single-sex sports and single-sex locker rooms. “We’ve gotten the woke lunacy out of our military, and now we’re getting it out of women’s sports.” Ahead of signing executive orders, including a ban on transgender women in female sports, Trump says, “The war on women’s sports is over.”https://t.co/rKxazPq9qW Sky 501 pic.twitter.com/Uazcnv4V8T — Sky News (@SkyNews) February 5, 2025 Per ABC 10 San Diego: President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that is aimed at prohibiting people who were assigned male at birth from participating in women’s sports. “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over,” Trump said in front of a group of supporters at the White House. The executive order, entitled “Keeping Them Out of Women’s Sports,” instructs the Department of Justice to enforce a ban on those assigned male at birth from competing in female sports categories. Schools that fail to comply with the order may face the loss of federal funding and potential legal action, as Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs, including sports.