There’s no sugarcoating this, so I’ll give it to you straight. We don’t have a competitive domestic computer-chip industry, and we won’t have it in the next 10 years. China will take Taiwan and control TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company — the first dedicated chip foundry in the world and the most important). And the U.S. will keep buying chips from TSMC with CCP back doors in them — and pretend it’s fine. That’s the depressing reality of Intel’s failure to provide an alternative to TSMC. The idea that we’re going to just man up and re-shore leading-edge chipmaking is now clearly a fairy tale. But it’s not just Intel’s fault. The problems that got us here are all part of the larger off-shoring of U.S. manufacturing over the last 30 years, and they won’t be solved by propping up Intel with a few tariffs and a couple of billion dollars. When we knuckle under and help China keep the lights on at TSMC, maybe with some face-saving rhetoric, it will continue the last 30 years of optimizing for cheap goods at the expense of national sovereignty. It's the continuity-preserving path. Amid this disaster, we need a complete and total reboot of all U.S. industrial policy, with chip-making as one part of that bigger effort. But even if we can get it together to begin this, the path to pulling it off goes through a long period of time when China’s Communist Party has root access to our domestic systems and steals or sabotages our stuff. At least China doesn’t want to completely wreck us because it needs someone big enough to buy a lot of its stuff. The U.S. has to remain functional enough to support Beijing’s continued rise to world dominance, and, of course, we do supply some of the critical inputs to leading-edge chip fabs that it'll need to run TSMC. So keeping us alive in second or third place globally is a win for them — and us. And because there’s no alternative, we will accept that. We can’t very well take Apple, Google, NVIDIA, etc. out behind the barn and shoot them. We’ll keep buying TSMC output and pretending it’s all A-OK. We’ll make it through the digital revolution as a country, but we’ll get taken down a peg (or two ... or three). Yes, we should’ve thought about this back when we had a choice. Forget about chips — we should never have given the Chinese our factories! The whole industrial policy was so obviously, monumentally stupid. But here we are, so we’ll muddle through. Now, some insist that we can slip the noose because of TSMC’s big, high-profile expansion plant in Arizona. Unfortunately, the Arizona fab was always going to be trailing-edge, negligible in terms of impact on our domestic chip issues. How could it be otherwise? Why on earth would TSMC do anything material to lessen our dependence on it? LOL. Furthermore, if TSMC is already low-key CCP-captured — a development thought likely in some circles in D.C. and Silicon Valley — then China itself would just be giving up its eventual leverage over us by lessening our dependence on TSMC. And if not, there's still no way Taiwan would want us to be less likely to come to its aid when China moves on it. No matter how you look at it, TSMC’s Arizona fab was always whatever the industrial policy equivalent of security theater is. It was maybe a nice idea if we could've executed on it, but it was never a real plan to save us from being dependent on China for our transistor supply. And so, this Intel catastrophe is very, very bad, and there's no real light at the end of this tunnel that isn't an oncoming train. There's no quick fix or way to just throw a few (borrowed) billions at this issue and really make a material difference in a short time. That's all fantasy. We have to find the will to re-industrialize, and we're going to have to do it in a world where China is basically more advanced than we are. We're very fortunate that China has its own massive problems — its own set of dominoes falling from decades of bad decisions. It's good to be bullish on America, but we're going to have to be bullish on ourselves as the underdog. We're going to have a long journey of coming back from behind. If you don't see it yet, you'll get it eventually. Better start now. A bitter pill to swallow A lot of replies to my recent Intel/TSMC thread are of the nature of, "We will surely blow up the fabrication facility if China invades," or, "Why would we not blow up the fab?" etc. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company getting wrecked is the scenario I outlined in this article from a few years ago, and it's what I obliquely refer to when I say the U.S. will not take NVIDIA, Apple, Google, etc. out behind the barn and shoot them. Our whole tech sector would be massively damaged, some parts of it maybe fatally, by the direct and indirect impact of the sudden loss of TSMC. From my previous article, there are a few important details about the semiconductor business you have to keep in mind going forward: "The market for advanced microchips fits together like this: The equipment and tooling for making leading-edge chip fabrication plants comes from the US and Europe. The two leading-edge fab makers, who have the proprietary know-how to turn that equipment and tooling into fabs that turn out chips more advanced than anyone else’s, are in Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung. (There are actually sort of two-and-a-half leading-edge fab makers, with Intel being the half. It has stumbled but will recover and join the other two, soon.) The customers for the outputs of those leading-edge fabs are global, including in the US and Europe. Porting a chip design from one company’s fab process to another is costly and painful. It’s not like you send an email with some files to a different address and a few days later identical chips come off a new production line in a different factory. No, customers are tied to specific companies’ fabs, and suddenly losing access to that fab means suddenly no more chips until you complete a lengthy, costly re-targeting process.” If TSMC suddenly goes dark, what happened to Intel's share price the other day will happen to the rest of the NASDAQ — instant, massive carnage. Imagine Apple can't release new iPhones for some indefinite number of years and can't say when it'll be able to. I simply don't think we're going to do this to our tech sector. Instead, we'll keep TSMC running under CCP control if that's at all an option that's on the table post-invasion. And I suspect it will be, because I think TSMC is already likely de facto under CCP control. There have been many similar replies to the effect that the U.S. won’t “lose” TSMC. I can't imagine being this confident that the U.S. will suddenly put some great power rivalry with China ahead of its own naked commercial interests like this, after decades of us doing the exact opposite (which is why we're in this bind!). Imagine a country that sent all its manufacturing overseas to save money suddenly being willing to slaughter most of the NASDAQ in the name of sticking it to China because, hey, it's a rival, and you can't trust those guys! Sorry, I'm not seeing it. When we knuckle under and help China keep the lights on at TSMC, maybe with some face-saving rhetoric, it will continue the last 30 years of optimizing for cheap goods at the expense of national sovereignty. It's the continuity-preserving path.

Like everyone else, I’m repulsed by the images of burly men in female sports compromising the safety and integrity of women athletes. However, we must avoid the trap set by some insidious elements on the “right” who want to focus the entire fight solely on saving female sports. That focus is just one logistical absurdity in a broader campaign of gender confusion and social contagion that we must eliminate from our society — a contagion that is more pervasive among women than men. As a kid, I never could have imagined that a well-known Bruce would one day go on camera and call himself “Caitlyn” with a straight face. But even more unimaginable is that in the ’90s, I never would have thought that if such a time arrived, the only opposition from the right would focus on the logistical and fairness arguments about women’s and girls’ sports. Now, we see Bruce appearing on ostensibly right-leaning media as an advocate of female sports while simultaneously grooming a generation of youngsters to think it’s normal to cosplay as a female, as long as it’s not in sports. A society cannot survive an entire generation of females who don’t even know what it means to be a woman. Let’s be clear: When a well-known, 6'3" man steals the essence of womanhood by dressing up and cosplaying as a female, it poses a far more pervasive problem for civilization than merely diluting elite professional women’s sports. It harms all women and contributes to the confusion in our society, where femininity is increasingly becoming a lost trait among a generation of girls. Allowing men in female sports is so indefensible, especially due to the safety issues, that I can foresee a time soon when the demonic forces will relent on the matter. However, this alone won’t solve the problem of gender ideology, which affects women more than men — the opposite dynamic of the sports travesty. People like Jenner want to call us “fringe” for not believing in trans ideology while making the entire civilization fight over protecting female sports, but the data we have demonstrates this is a much broader social contagion rooted more in the attack on femininity than attention-seeking men entering women’s sports. Take a look at this earth-shattering survey from Gallup published earlier this spring: A few inconvenient observations are in order. First, transgenderism has emerged unmistakably in recent generations, with other sexual identities exploding from a tiny baseline, especially among Gen Z. Anyone who believes that God created a genetic glitch around 2000-2005 is beyond credulous. The reality is that social contagion, normalized by the very behavior Jenner seeks to showcase to a conservative audience, drives these trends. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that without social media, such numbers would not exist. Second, the social contagion appears exponentially more pronounced among females. Currently, 28.5% of all Gen Z females identify with a sexual cosplay that won’t lead to procreation, nearly three times the rate of males. It’s clear that self-identified “bisexuals” drive much of this trend, indicating that a generation of girls is being raised to be more confused about their femininity than boys are about their masculinity. Additionally, contrary to the sports-centric narrative of transgenderism, the prevalence of self-identified transgender individuals among Gen Z women is more than double that of males. Throughout history, far more men than women engaged in gay relationships, but now that dynamic has completely flipped. Among the small cohort of the “silent generation” with same-sex attraction, gays outnumbered lesbians three to one. Jump to Gen Z, and 2.8% of men identify as gay while 5.4% of women identify as lesbian. Again, young women are much more frequently confused into thinking they are men than the other way around. This confusion is the legacy of feminism and its war on femininity. Third, sexual confusion was much more pronounced among men in earlier generations, but today, it’s far more prevalent among women. This shift is not mysterious. Before the rise of feminist gender-bending, sexual confusion primarily affected men. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why men have a higher prevalence of certain sexual behaviors. Also, note that after the initial jump after World War II, the prevalence of self-described “gay men” has remained relatively flat. The confusion clearly lies on the female side, a result of years of inculcating women with masculine energy and convincing them they are essentially men with only a few superficial physical differences. Feminism has fostered an entire generation of self-identified bisexuals, with the most extreme elements even rejecting the few obvious gender differences and calling themselves transgender. The battle we face extends far beyond keeping men out of female sports. We must confront the entire phenomenon of gender-bending, whether it involves pronouns, drag shows, extreme co-ed culture, or other disruptions of societal norms. However, the GOP noticeably removed all of this from its platform, focusing the entire transgender issue solely on female sports. It is truly demonic, unfair, and unsafe for men to ruin years of training for female athletes. But a society can survive without female — or even male — sports. What a society cannot survive is an entire generation of females who don’t even know what it means to be a woman. The vivid, grotesque images of men beating women in combat sports should motivate us to banish men from stealing womanhood entirely. To get there, we must make womanhood and femininity great again among women, reclaiming those godly ordained virtues from the clutches of feminists.

The Biden-Harris administration has created an immigration crisis that appears to be, at worst, irreversible and, at best, an unprecedented, monumental challenge for a future administration. Shutting down the southern and northern borders would be just the first step toward repairing the damage caused over the past few years. Even with the borders secure, millions of illegal aliens who underwent abbreviated vetting processes and made unverified asylum claims would still remain in the country long after the Biden-Harris administration passes the torch to the next administration. The sheer number of immigrants in the country already raises some troubling questions. First, is the problem too colossal to solve? If it is not unsolvable, what efforts would any attempt to solve it require? And how long would those efforts take? ‘One goal of the Biden mass illegal migration was to establish facts on the ground that would make it physically or politically impossible for the next Republican or Clinton-type Democrat to ever undo.’ While border security experts agree that the problem can be solved, they told Blaze News that doing so would require several important steps: first, a change to an administration that is actually dedicated to safeguarding national security. Second, this hypothetical future administration must roll out a comprehensive, whole-of-government strategy to undo years of mass unlawful immigration by reprioritizing efforts to locate, detain, and deport illegal aliens residing in the U.S. How we got here To understand how to turn the ship around, we must first realize the steps — and there were many — the Biden-Harris administration took to manufacture the crisis in the first place. Over the past few years, more than 7 million illegal immigrants entered the U.S., and those numbers only include individuals whom the federal government knows about and not the millions of unknown and unidentified gotaways that snuck into the interior of the country without any vetting whatsoever. Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation, told Blaze News, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, as the old saying goes. One goal of the Biden mass illegal migration was to establish facts on the ground that would make it physically or politically impossible for the next Republican or Clinton-type Democrat to ever undo." From day one of the Biden-Harris administration, policies the former Trump administration put in place to curb illegal entries and fortify national security were immediately stripped away. In fact, within Democrat President Joe Biden's first year in office, he took nearly 300 executive actions related to immigration, including immediately halting the construction of the southern border wall, despite American taxpayers already having paid for the materials. Biden also vowed to preserve the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that prevents those who arrived in the U.S. as children from being deported while also extending work authorization. Additionally, he expanded Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelan nationals, blocking deportations and providing work permits for these individuals. Biden's Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has admitted that the administration has focused on expanding so-called "lawful pathways" for foreign nationals seeking to relocate to the U.S., all the while claiming its efforts will crack down on illegal crossings. Frankly, there is no evidence that the administration ever sought to prevent illegal immigration; instead, the evidence suggests it merely aimed to redefine "illegal." One good example of this phenomenon was a border executive order, 89 FR 48487 - Securing the Border, which limited the definition of unlawful crossings to individuals who attempt to sneak into the country in between ports of entry. The order did not apply to unaccompanied children, illegal aliens who are "determined to be a victim of a severe form of trafficking," or illegal aliens who "present[] at a port of entry pursuant to a pre-scheduled time and place." In other words, this order did not impact those who applied for an appointment at a port of entry through the administration's CBP One app to claim asylum. Instead, the administration's app worked to expedite the entry process. ‘Many are going to abscond and do their best to disappear.’ And these executive actions are just the tip of the iceberg in the Biden-Harris administration's effort to establish programs that acted as magnets, ushering in millions of illegal aliens. All of these efforts had the effect of speeding up the ability of foreign nationals to enter the interior of the country while significantly reducing the number of illegal aliens eligible for arrest and deportation. Add it all up, and you get a crisis, which is what we have now. Redirect existing funding In order to execute the massive pro-illegal-immigration shift facilitated by the Biden-Harris administration, the federal government has pumped billions into non-governmental organizations tasked with providing shelter, accommodations, and humanitarian services to unlawful aliens. A report published earlier this year by the Free Press pointed out that the top three most prominent NGOs — Global Refuge, Southwest Key Programs, and Endeavors Inc. — grew their profits from $597 million in 2019 to $2 billion in 2022, with numbers for 2023 not yet released. Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection resources remain too strained to keep up with the increase of foreign nationals requesting asylum at ports of entry and entering the country. While it will undoubtedly be an expensive undertaking to provide ICE, CBP, and local governments with the resources needed to begin to reverse course, these efforts could be funded by redirecting dollars away from the NGOs, many of which seem to be making the problem worse. Hankinson told Blaze News that undoing the open-borders crisis "could be paid for using the billions Biden tries to appropriate for NGOs to assist illegal immigration; contributions to U.N. organizations that facilitate illegal U.S.-bound migration; and grants via FEMA and other channels to U.S. organizations that pay for their travel, lodging, and other expenses once inside the country." Since 2020, Global Refuge, Southwest Key Programs, and Endeavors Inc. have received nearly $7 billion in federal funding. For comparison, ICE's fiscal year 2024 budget is roughly $8.7 billion to support more than 22,000 positions split between several operational directorates, including Homeland Security Investigations, Enforcement and Removal Operations, Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, and Management and Administration. Meanwhile, the Biden-Harris administration has attempted to allocate up to $1.4 trillion for wiping out student loan debt for borrowers. Those efforts have faced a number of legal challenges but, if approved, would pass all of "the costs on to the taxpayers," Hankinson stated. He noted that money "alone would more than fund every necessary part of a comprehensive strategy to return control to the border and the rule of law." Liberal policies get in ICE's way Many of the illegal aliens granted passage into the country under the current administration were released on their own recognizance, without tracking devices, while they await years-out court dates to review the validity of their asylum claims. Some fled to sanctuary jurisdictions that openly defied ICE's detainer requests to further dodge any future deportation efforts. While ICE, which is tasked with tracking illegal immigrants released into the U.S., already has the tools it needs to remove individuals unlawfully in the country, its hands have been largely tied by the current administration and sanctuary policies, which were created as part of the "abolish ICE" movement, in liberal cities across the nation. ‘Congress would have to give significant investment and support for ICE, which has been sidelined and demoralized under Biden.’ Jon Feere, director of investigations with the Center for Immigration Studies, told Blaze News, "Any illegal alien released into the United States with a court date is, in theory, being tracked by ICE and can be called into an ICE office whenever the agency wants to talk. I suspect there are many individuals that ICE officers are monitoring as closely as they can. Still, many are going to abscond and do their best to disappear — whether they have GPS monitoring or not." According to the American Immigration Council, there are roughly 11 million "undocumented" individuals residing in the U.S., and approximately 1.19 million of them have "final orders of removal." However, in some cases, they have been able to remain in the country because federal immigration officials are not certain of their location. Hankinson told Blaze News that an efficient first step for ICE would be to remove the over a million illegal aliens currently in the country who already have final order removals. "The 450,000 of them with criminal convictions and the 200,000 more with outstanding warrants or charges would be a good start," Hankinson stated. Many of these individuals who are subject to removal from the country have fled to cities like New York City, Chicago, and Denver, which have sanctuary policies that shield illegal aliens, including those who have committed additional crimes in the U.S., from federal immigration officials. Local law enforcement agencies in these sanctuary jurisdictions are prohibited from honoring ICE's detainer requests, which ask local authorities to hold the individual up to 48 hours after their release date to allow ICE agents to complete a safe transfer to federal custody. In the instances when the detainer requests are ignored, federal immigration officials are not even alerted when an illegal alien who has been convicted of a local crime is released from custody. An ICE spokesperson previously told Blaze News that policies restricting cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration officers "threaten public safety." Without these regulations overturned, ICE is — and will continue to be — forced to "expend additional resources and search within neighborhoods to reapprehend these criminals at increased risk to the public and our officers." It is significantly more cost-effective for ICE to place a detainer request and execute a transfer while the illegal alien is still in local custody. Additionally, it is much safer for the officers involved. "When two officers can go to the jail, it's a secure environment," John Fabbricatore, a retired ICE Denver field office director and current Republican congressional candidate for Colorado's 6th District, previously told Blaze News. "But when you go to a home, or you pull someone over in a car, they are in the community," he continued. "And now you have the potential as you go to pull someone over, they flee, they crash into somebody else. Or you go to a home where they have access to firearms. Or you arrest them in front of their house in a neighborhood where maybe their neighbors are on their side, and they come out and now there's a big riot." Another major problem facing ICE agents is that the whereabouts of many of the unlawful immigrants in the country are unknown to federal authorities. In such cases, and with these sanctuary policies still in place, Feere told Blaze News that ICE agents will likely be forced to "conduct many city-by-city operations." He noted that it would benefit the agency if a future administration helped to increase its resources to support more officers and detention beds. The federal government has also worked against ICE's efforts to prioritize the removal of illegal aliens who have committed crimes in the U.S. by moving to shut down its largest detainment center. A next administration seeking to untie the hands of ICE agents and accelerate mass removals would require additional detention bed space. Hankinson told Blaze News, "Congress would have to give significant investment and support for ICE, which has been sidelined and demoralized under Biden. It would require tough dealing with 'sanctuary' states, cities, and towns, who should lose all federal funding if they refuse to allow law enforcement to enforce laws. These days, locating someone isn't as hard as it was in 1986 — the last big amnesty. Everyone has a phone and social media presence." Empowering states and local jurisdictions The Biden-Harris administration has fought tooth and nail to prevent states like Texas and Arizona from securing the southern border in ways the federal government has neglected to do for the past few years. The administration lodged lawsuits against Texas for placing buoy barriers in the Rio Grande and installing concertina wire along the state's Eagle Pass border. The federal government also pushed Arizona leaders to remove shipping containers placed along gaps in the unfinished border wall. As a result of the current administration's relentless dedication to wide open borders, states around the nation — not just those in the southwest — are dealing with the fallout of a manufactured illegal immigration crisis. The increase in unlawful residents has had a direct financial impact on local public education, health care, and law enforcement resources. However, there are many ways that state legislators and officials can seek to curb these issues. Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, stated during a March episode of "Parsing Immigration Policy," "Illegal immigration is a huge unfunded mandate on the states because it's the state and local communities that bear the brunt of uncontrolled illegal immigration." "It's important that states try to take action on illegal immigration not only to push back on what is happening at the federal level and the Biden administration's deliberate border crisis that they've instigated, but also because even if we do get to a point with a new administration that wants to enforce immigration laws and regain control of the border, the federal government can't fix this problem on their own," she continued. "They really need cooperation from state and local governments." Vaughan noted that the most obvious place for states to start is by passing laws that impact public safety. She said that anti-smuggling laws, sentencing enhancements on illegal aliens, and prosecuting identity theft can go a long way in deterring unlawful immigration. Vaughan explained that while some illegal immigrants have received work authorization from the Biden-Harris administration, many have not and are, therefore, utilizing fake identification to secure employment. A crackdown on identity theft could flush out this problem. One of the most effective ways states can assist the federal government in rooting out unlawful immigration would be to pass laws preventing local jurisdictions from enacting sanctuary policies. Such legislation would ensure that local law enforcement agencies — particularly those in liberal enclaves of red states — would not be prevented from cooperating with ICE agents. ‘This will require a whole-of-government approach and every federal agency that touches the immigration issue.’ Arguably, the most common reason foreign nationals flock to the U.S. is for work opportunities. According to Pew Research Center, the number of illegal immigrants in the workforce grew from 7.4 million in 2019 to 8.3 million in 2022. A Committee on Education & the Workforce report estimated that the number was close to 8.8 million in 2023. States seeking to drive out unlawful immigrants can turn off this magnet by adopting rules directed at businesses and recruiters who employ illegal aliens, such as requiring employers to use verification systems, like E-Verify, to check work authorization status prior to hiring. Vaughan noted that states must diligently perform checks and implement consequences for businesses that violate these rules to ensure the most effective results. Final thoughts It is not unlikely that some Democratic leaders are hoping that the current presidential administration has produced a crisis so massive in scale that the opposition finds it inconceivable and far too laborious and costly even to attempt to reverse. This is further evidenced by the fact that many liberal politicians are proposing mass amnesty programs instead of supporting efforts to locate, detain, and deport unlawful immigrants currently residing in the country. For a new administration seeking to shut down the border and secure the nation, it will take an enormous coordinated effort, but it can be done, according to Feere. He told Blaze News, "This will require a whole-of-government approach, and every federal agency that touches the immigration issue — from the State Department to the Social Security Administration — will have a role to play, as will the states." "Would it be done soon? No," Hankinson told Blaze News. "In four years or eight? Unlikely. But it must be started, or we abandon the rule of law and concede that the executive can rule without regard for Congress or the judiciary."

The new administration budget would shift money away from securing infrastructure the administration itself once deemed vital to ‘diversity and equity priorities.’

When money from Jewish sources helps the Left, it’s good; when money from Jewish sources hurts the Left, it’s bad.

M. Night Shyamalan’s latest moral distraction.

Exempting tip income from taxation is little more than political pandering, and ineffective pandering at that.

Has Harris abandoned her previous positions against fracking and natural gas, or does she maintain them? New Mexico residents would like to know.

Users choose Google because they like it, not because default agreements prevent them from switching to another search engine.

During Tuesday's Made by Google event, Google unveiled four new phones, two smartwatch models, and a new pair of wireless earbuds. Artificial intelligence was at the center of the event, with Google unveiling new Gemini features for the Pixel 9, Pixel Watch 3, and Pixel Buds Pro 2. I'm a longtime iPhone and Apple Watch user, and I have to say I was impressed with some of Google's announcements. I'm also a little jealous that I can't have similar features on my Apple products. In what follows, I'll highlight the new Pixel features I want to see on my Apple hardware. Continue reading... The post 5 new Pixel 9 and Pixel Watch 3 features I want on the iPhone and Apple Watch appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: $699 Apple Watch Ultra 2, self-bagging trash can, $349 Dyson V8 Plus vacuum, more Today’s deals: $299 Apple Watch Series 9, $50 off PS5, $200 off PSVR, $100 Hoover carpet cleaner, more Today’s deals: $229 iPad, $300 off Samsung foldables (last chance), $20 label maker, HP laptop sale, more Today’s deals: $248 Sony XM5 earbuds, $180 Roomba, $13 Anker fast chargers, $19 Roku streamer, more