CHARLOTTE—Kamala Harris is technically still on tour promoting 107 Days, her critically panned campaign memoir that came out almost seven months ago. Copies of the book adorn the stage at Ovens Auditorium, but no one wants to hear her rehash petty grievances from a lost election in what feels like the distant past. Maybe that explains the empty seats.

A lot has happened since early February, when Harris was originally scheduled to appear in Charlotte before canceling due to winter storms. There’s war in Iran and chaos in California—specifically the governor’s race Harris almost joined. Now she’s being urged to reconsider—filing deadlines notwithstanding—after the Democratic frontrunner, Eric Swalwell, quit the race and resigned from Congress amid allegations of sexual assault.

Harris doesn’t want to talk about that either, or say anything that might seem newsworthy. If she wanted to answer probing questions on the spot, she would have chosen a different moderator. Harris was joined on stage Wednesday by Brooklyn Decker, a former swimsuit model who publicly supported Harris’s campaign. She doesn’t even bother to ask if Harris is thinking about running for president again. That might ruin the vibe.

This is a therapy session, not a promotional event. Harris is just cashing checks, and doing her best to fill the hour. Decker serves up a series of softballs inviting her to denounce Donald Trump. Harris holds forth in her signature style—panicked college student midway through an oral report on a book she hasn’t read, stalling for time.

Whereas her potential 2028 rival Gavin Newsom might say something like, “Orange man poop,” Harris can’t help but ramble semi-coherently, even when Decker invites her to sound off on Trump’s ongoing feud with the pope. “Part of what we have always believed, we know that individuals are flawed—they’re all flawed—but we have a right to expect that an individual who is such a leader, at such a level would assume a responsibility—flawed though they may be, imperfect, though we all are, that they would assume some responsibility for moral leadership,” she explains, sort of.

If Harris has a coherent thought about the war in Iran, she declines to share it when prompted. She defaults to word salads and stale talking points, evoking memories of the campaign. “You look at what is happening with this administration on the issue of foreign affairs, and by extension, because anything that relates to our foreign affairs, at some point, directly or maybe a bit indirectly, relates to our national security,” Harris says. “I served as vice president of the United States. During that time, I met over 150 world leaders—presidents, prime ministers, chancellors, and kings.”

In a sign that Harris is not seriously considering another White House run, she declines to denounce (or even mention) the State of Israel. She’ll never survive a Democratic primary with that kind of attitude. Decker wonders if Trump started bombing Iran to distract from the Epstein files. Harris, not interested in taking the bait, says she doesn’t know. What she does know is that Trump “creates distractions to distract from the fact that he is incompetent and corrupt.” The crowd erupts in ecstasy. Now the healing can begin.

Harris is feeling good about the coming midterms, but not so good about all the “cheating” Republicans are doing to rig the results. People ask her all the time what gives her hope, and the answer is young people. That reminds her of freshman orientation, when volunteers handed out goodie bags with toothpaste and deodorant, among other things. “And the reason is because the companies know, let’s get them right now, because they’ll be committed to that product for the rest of their lives,” Harris cackles maniacally. “And I actually am. I won’t tell you the brand.” So begins a meandering diatribe about the alleged Republican plot to stop college students from voting, which is exactly like Jim Crow.

The former vice president boldly suggests, in her most sincere impression of a new age healer, that our politics would improve if we could all just get along. “We cannot give up on each other,” she says in response to a question about whether “truth is dead.” In soothing tones, she implores the audience to combat misinformation by educating their ignorant Republican friends in the fashion of a mother comforting a crying toddler.

Harris envisions a “project of civic renewal” that involves getting “back to a priority that we collectively are invested in and engaged in around building back up a sense of community and connection,” whatever that means. She remains the undisputed queen of using the most amount of words to say so little. We are almost out of time.

Decker reads a question from the audience. Jayla is a 24-year-old aspiring leader seeking advice for people like her “who are still learning to believe their own voice matters.” Harris leans forward in her therapist’s chair. She tells Jayla to stand up. To the surprise of at least one audience member, Jayla is a real person. The crowd goes wild, and Harris dispenses the pablum.

“Remember that, what you just heard, OK?” she tells the aspiring young leader. “You’ve got to remember that when you’re in any room and you have something to say, something to share, based on who you are, what you care about, your experiences. And you might feel like you’re the only one in the room who has those experiences, or those thoughts, or looks like you. I want you to hear that applause that you just heard.”

And that’s our time for today. The event concludes precisely 59 minutes after Harris walked on stage.

READ MORE: On the Couch With Kamala Harris

IT’S FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2026

Congrats on paying your taxes this week. The relevant authorities will surely put the money to good use. New York City residents, for example, will help fund the construction of a communist supermarket in Manhattan, aka The People’s Boondoggle. If all goes to plan, which it won’t, the store will be up and running by 2029. It will cost just $30 million to build, $20 million a year to operate, and will only marginally increase the existing budget deficit of $5.4 billion. For the same amount of money, Mamdani could bankroll a million free memberships to Costco, which is located a few blocks away and has already achieved the mayor’s stated goal of creating jobs and selling food at a discount.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE DEMOCRATS

Former Virginia lieutenant governor Justin Fairfax (D.) reportedly murdered his wife before killing himself in their home on Thursday. Once considered a rising star in the Democratic Party, Fairfax served alongside former governor Ralph “Coonman” Northam, who was briefly disgraced in 2019 after he admitted to wearing blackface and appearing in a racist yearbook photo. Democrats condemned Northam and urged him to step aside until Fairfax, who would have succeeded Northam, was credibly accused of sexual assault. Neither of them resigned, and Democrats just acted as if it never happened. In 2025, Northam joined the transition team advising Jay Jones, the newly elected attorney general of Virginia best known for fantasizing about murdering his political opponents and their children.

On the subject of credibly accused sex pests, Eric Swalwell resigned from Congress and dropped out of the California governor’s race amid allegations of sexual assault and other scummy behavior involving interns, young staffers, and unsolicited photos (or in-person displays) of his congressional member. We’re not even half-way through the year, and two of the most obnoxious members of Congress (Swalwell and Marjorie Taylor Greene) are gone. That’s not nothing.

The lurid accusations came as a surprise to no one—except Swalwell’s closest friends, who couldn’t believe the horrible things they were just hearing about for the first time. No one was more shocked than Sen. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.), Swalwell’s friend, former roommate, and shirtless camel buddy. Gallego, who served his nine-month pregnant wife with divorce papers and promptly started dating a 25-year-old lobbyist, would never knowingly associate with someone who treats women so poorly.

COUNTERPOINT: JOURNALISTS AREN’T THE REAL HEROES

Swalwell’s downfall was a “real testament to the power of investigative reporting,” according to CNN’s Brian Stelter, aka Humpty Dumpty. At the risk of disagreeing with such a reliably insightful media insider: No, it was not. Swalwell’s victims deserve credit for speaking out and going on the record, but this was part of a coordinated campaign by Democratic operatives to knock Swalwell out of the governor’s race. It was not the result of dogged journalists speaking truth to power.

According to Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo, at least one reporter at Politico was looking into the Swalwell rumors during his brief presidential run in 2019. Swalwell dropped out in July, just two days before the reporter was scheduled to interview him. “The energy disappeared to potentially take him out,” the strategist wrote. “He slithered back to his safe house seat.” The former staffer who accused Swalwell of raping her said she was assaulted in September 2019 and again in 2024. So much for the power of investigative journalism.

A cynical observer might point out that the Swalwell allegations emerged at a time when Democrats were at risk of losing the gubernatorial primary in California on June 2. The top two candidates, regardless of party, will advance to the general election. The crowded Democratic field meant that two Republicans running could place first and second. Swalwell’s timely exit gives Democrats some time to get their act together by coalescing around Tom Steyer, the environmentalist billionaire who wants to throw ICE agents in prison. (The alternatives are even worse.)

Other alleged acts of courageous journalism involving Democrats have followed a similar pattern. The “open secret” about Harvey Weinstein was “revealed” in October 2017—after Hillary Clinton lost. After the Hollywood rapist raised millions of dollars for her campaign. A local news reporter in Miami started looking into Clinton buddy Jeffrey Epstein around the same time because Trump’s labor secretary appointee, Alex Acosta, worked on the pedophile’s infamous plea deal in 2007. Journalists congratulated themselves again for their belated reporting on Joe Biden’s non-functioning brain, which suddenly appeared in 2024 after his disastrous debate performance made clear he could not win. They still get really offended if you suggest they were part of the cover-up. Bless their hearts.

Addendum: A real testament to the power of investigative reporting would be finding out what the f— is going on with 10 American scientists who mysteriously died or went missing since 2023. They all worked on sensitive defense or space-related projects. Even the best-case scenario doesn’t seem all that reassuring. Probably worth looking into.

THIS IS NORMAL (FOR A KENNEDY)

A number of Trump administration officials were in the news this week for the usual assortment of reasons. A forthcoming book about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed that the health secretary once castrated a dead raccoon on the side of a highway. He intended to “study them later.” Of all the possible reasons to cut the penis off an animal corpse, there are probably worse ones. Kennedy said the incident got him thinking about “how weird some of my family members have turned out to be,” which is less ironic than it sounds. It bears repeating that in the context of the Kennedy clan—that inexplicably beloved menagerie of Nantucket douche bros, bloated sex pests, and goon-faced Habsburgian freaks—RFK Jr. is boringly average.

In other administration news, senior FEMA official Gregg Phillips has been “directed to stop posting about teleporting.” Asked about Phillips’s history of describing his personal experience with teleportation, levitation, and other supernatural phenomena, President Donald Trump said it “sounds a little strange” but promised to look into it. “I don’t know anything about teleporting,” the leader of the free world told CNN. “But I’ll find out about it right now.”

In moments like these we are reminded to be thankful for the steady leadership of normal Americans such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—the fabulously wealthy and delightfully bitchy gay finance bro who lives in a giant pink house and is constantly threatening to beat up his rivals. He’s arguably one of the “best people” Trump has ever hired. Bessent, as you may recall, started and ended a war of words with Gavin Newsom in Davos by describing the California governor as “Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken.”

VARIOUS & SUNDRY

Remember the war with Iran? Peace talks are faltering, the United States is blockading the Strait of Hormuz, and the S&P 500 hit a record high this week, erasing its losses since the conflict began in late February. In other investment-related news, Allbirds—a shoe company that recently sold for $39 million after being valued at $4 billion—announced this week it would “pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure.” The company’s stock surged by 400%. On the one hand, a noted financial expert called this a sign that the AI frenzy has “gone too far.” On the other hand, it was Jim Cramer. Strong buy?

Big rack energy: Admiral Brad Cooper (left) is the CENTCOM commander who is leading the U.S. military effort in Iran. Check out the (medal) rack on him. On the right is Joe Biden’s former CENTCOM commander, General Kenneth McKenzie, who oversaw the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal after urging Biden not to do it.

Not dead yet: Sleepy Joe was back on the speaking circuit this week, and I’m not ashamed to say I miss the old Irish bastard. “Dnyininay [sic] got married in skinned ass [sic] after my first year in law school,” Biden said at the Syracuse University College of Law, where the former president famously claimed to have graduated in the “top half” of his class despite finishing 76th out of 85 students. Biden then called a black man up on stage because he looked like Barack Obama. At least that’s what it sounded like. The exact quote was: “Ayy, he, dunnis low kit [sic] Barack?”

Meanwhile, in Congress: Swalwell’s resignation will eventually lessen the putrid stench on Capitol Hill, but not yet. Votes were canceled Wednesday after a toilet exploded in the men’s restroom outside the House chamber, causing foul liquid to leak into the hallway and down through the ceiling below. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of folks. We hope Jamaal Bowman has a solid alibi.

PALATE CLEANSER (SFW)

Flight operations aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea.

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IT’S FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2026

What a week. The U.S. military celebrated the Easter holiday by pulling off one of the most audacious rescue missions in modern history by extracting two missing airmen whose plane was shot down over Iran. The second crewman was rescued after evading capture for almost 48 hours. Special forces pulled him out—on Easter Sunday—after landing at an improvised airstrip roughly an hour’s drive from Esfahan, the country’s third-largest city and a key hub for the Iranian nuclear program. U-S-A!

If that doesn’t make you proud to be an American heading into our 250th birthday party, nothing will. Naturally, some left-wing journalists were basically rooting for a “prisoner of war” scenario. Their hopes were dashed when the good guys prevailed. On the network formerly known as MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell complained that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s pledge to “leave no man behind” was insufficiently inclusive because it “could have been a woman they were trying to rescue.”

All told, you couldn’t script it any better. In a just world, the daring rescue would be promptly scripted for the big screen. Hollywood has a chance to make a film most Americans will actually want to see if the liberal elites in charge can dial back their Trump derangement for two seconds. In other words, don’t count on it.

Speaking of Trump, the president was in peak form at the White House Easter Egg Roll, where he celebrated the successful rescue operation with the Easter Bunny at his side glaring menacingly into the camera. Imagine the faces of the surviving regime officials in Iran, watching that in their underground bunkers while navigating what is surely a deeply unpleasant bathroom situation.

It was arguably the most haunting projection of American power ever recorded, and it came on the heels of several Easter-related displays of American impotence. On more than one occasion during his (nominal) presidency, Joe Biden had to be flagged down and returned to his wife’s care by a (far less menacing) Easter Bunny in a purple dress. We’ll never forget Biden’s inspiring message from what was (mercifully) his last year in office: “Say hello to oyster bunnies!”

Sleepy Joe was clearly on Trump’s mind as he mingled with children at the coloring table on the White House lawn. “I could sign autographs for you guys, and then tonight, you could sell them for $25,000 on eBay,” he told the tikes. “You know, Biden would use the autopen. He’d have an autopen, probably. You know, Joe Biden. He didn’t sign. He was incapable of signing his name, so they’d follow him around with this big machine. You know what it was called? An autopen!”

Peak form, indeed.

Alas, Trump’s impeccable aura seemed to fade days later when he announced a ceasefire deal with Iran hours after threatening to wipe out their “whole civilization.” It was arguably the most high-stakes embodiment of the drunk frat guy outside the bar telling his friends to “hold me back.” With negotiations set to kick off this weekend, no one agrees on what this deal will involve, or on whether or not the ceasefire has already been violated. All will be revealed on next week’s installment of The Apprentice: Persian Gulf. New episodes typically air a few hours before financial markets open on Monday morning.

We’ll see if Donny finds a way to wriggle out of this one. In the meantime, liberal journalists and so-called comedians who blasted Trump for his “threats to commit war crimes” are now mocking him for being too much of a “chicken” to follow through.

Bless their pious little hearts. People grieve in different ways, but all the sanctimonious outrage in the world could not put the Ayatollah together again—may he rest in pieces.

MAMDANI’S MINI-ME IN MICHIGAN

Abdul El-Sayed is vying to be the Zohran Mamdani of the 2026 midterms. The Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan checks all the boxes: disdain for Israel, sympathy for terrorism, and support for socialist policies that don’t work. Like Mamdani, he is a Muslim who is somewhat average-looking by the impoverished standards of Washington, D.C. He played club lacrosse at the University of Michigan, which speaks to the depraved nature of his character.

There’s just one small problem—literally. El-Sayed is almost certainly too short to serve in federal office. No one is ever going to take him seriously. The Israelis will laugh in his face, and while El-Sayed’s terrorist allies might initially enjoy watching him repeat their talking points on the Senate floor, they’ll definitely cringe when they see the size of the box required to get his head above the lectern.

These were among the findings of a Washington Free Beacon analysis of the brutal “height mogging” El-Sayed endured while campaigning alongside Hasan Piker, the terrorist-adjacent China apologist who is listed at 6’4”, according to a glowing profile in the New York Times. Our analysis concluded that Piker is actually two to eight inches shorter than advertised, which raised alarming questions about the accuracy of El-Sayed’s listed height of 5’9”—the same as Mamdani.

El-Sayed promoted the Free Beacon analysis in an attempt to diffuse the bombshell with self-deprecation. Crisis PR firms will often recommend this strategy, but El-Sayed doubled down by insisting—without evidence—that he is 5’9” “in shoes.” Sure. On stilts, maybe. The American people will see right through the candidate’s lies—and right over his little head. There’s a reason we haven’t had a sub-six-foot president since Jimmy Carter. He nearly destroyed the country. Supporting terrorism is bad. Being short is worse. That’s just the way it is.

THE NEW YORK TIMES, LADIES AND GENTLEMAN

The New York Times is enjoying an impressive hot streak. The paper’s output of late reads like a gonzo parody of the insular delusions of liberal elites. The Times clearly knows its audience, and appears to share its readers’ lack of self-awareness. Here are just a few examples:

• Published an article about why declining birthrates were a “good thing,” then highlighted several letters from readers who enthusiastically agreed. One gentleman from Montreal argued that having fewer kids—or none at all—was the “responsible choice” amid the twin crises of “climate change” and “rapacious capitalism.”

• Lamented the downfall of a “quiet restaurant worker” who rammed his truck into a Jewish preschool in Michigan after the would-be terrorist “lost family members” in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon. The Times eventually confirmed that one of those “family members” was a member of Hezbollah.

• Issued a correction after referring to NATO as the “North American Treaty Organization,” prompting many to recall the 2016 Times profile in which former Obama guru Ben Rhodes bragged about manipulating journalists who “literally know nothing.”

• Interviewed university graduates who fled abroad to avoid paying their student loans, including a 37-year-old who borrowed $65,000 to get a master’s degree in historic preservation before moving to Prague and defaulting because the $60-per-month repayment plan was too “psychologically burdensome.”

• Purported to uncover a new trend involving single, childless women who are throwing themselves lavish, wedding-themed blowouts to celebrate turning 40. “Instead of waiting for a partner to justify a celebration, women are using the moment as a declaration of empowerment and self-love,” the Times explained.

Last month, the Times’ chief film critic—a five-time Pulitzer finalist with a Ph.D. in cinema studies—gave a thumbs down review to Project Hail Mary, one of the most successful and universally beloved films in recent memory. It was a “bummer,” the expert wrote—not because the film was too sad, but because it wasn’t despairing enough about the “human-generated environmental catastrophe we’re facing.”

That review pairs nicely with a book review the Times published this week extolling the virtues of a Polish novel about a sect of pagan tree huggers—to put it mildly— who aim to “topple the patriarchy” by indulging in horticultural debauchery of the penetrative variety. The reviewer praises the novel’s literary translator for devising “an astonishing array of ways to describe a vagina,” and commends the author for crafting a worthwhile “parable” on “the necessity of radicalism.”

Take your pick.

PALATE CLEANSER

The WNBA season starts next month, and the vast majority of Americans are eager to tune in. The NCAA women’s championship game was not the best advertisement for women’s basketball, as the top-ranked team in the country, UCLA, blew out the second-ranked team, South Carolina, by a final score of 79-51. The Gamecocks went 2-15 from three-point range and 18-62 from the field, which isn’t very good or entertaining to watch.

That’s why so many people are excited about the return of Caitlin Clark, who missed a chunk of the 2025 season with a groin injury. She’ll try to lead the Indiana Fever to its first WNBA title since 2012 alongside Sophie Cunningham, who is also expected to return this season after recovering from a torn MCL. A recent report from Sports Illustrated suggests Cunningham is looking pretty healthy.

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IT’S GOOD FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2026

We open in Florida, where NASA launched three astronauts (and one Canadian interloper) into space to reiterate America’s rightful claim to the moon. The 10-day trip around the lunar body—the first of its kind since the Nixon administration—will set the stage for a return to the moon’s surface in 2028 and, ultimately, a permanent base. Most people agree that this was awesome. As one enthusiastic Florida kid told CNN: “We’re going back to the f—ing moon!” Meanwhile, a handful of insufferable scolds whined about colonialism and warned that an American moon base could “violate international law”—to which any reasonable person might respond with a combination of “shut the f— up” and “drill, baby, drill.”

Bottom line: The moon is ours; get over it. Don’t be insufferable; be Florida kid.

Crucial context: Remember Kamala Harris? Before losing the 2024 election, she served as vice president of the United States and chair of the National Space Council. Her tenure there went almost as well as her efforts to solve the immigration crisis. She hired a bunch of child actors to listen to her cackle about the vastness of the universe, but the actual space program suffered a series of delays and mishaps on the VP’s watch. Despite her numerous failures, Harris can take pride in her one true accomplishment: Convincing the intelligence community to investigate its use of “gender-biased language.”

Harris would have thrived in the Obama administration, when the head of NASA said the president’s “foremost” goal for the agency was to “reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering.” For example, one can easily imagine her yucking it up at a photo-op with Ahmed “Clock Boy” Mohamed.

For those too young or brain-damaged to remember, Ahmed was the Muslim teenager who got in trouble for bringing a “homemade clock” to school that looked like a bomb. Barack Obama promptly invited him to the White House for “Astronomy Night.” Ahmed made an appearance, but not before jetting off to Sudan to meet with President Omar al-Bashir, aka “The Butcher of Darfur.” Ahmed and his family fled to Qatar less than a week after meeting Obama, and filed several lawsuits seeking millions of dollars for emotional distress, all of which were dismissed.

Ah, those were days.

AFFLICTING THE AFFLICTED

Everyone knows by now that Democrats are pro-crime. They have been for years. It’s only recently that they’ve become radicalized in opposition to crime victims. This week, anti-victim advocates in Providence, R.I., succeeded in forcing the removal of a mural dedicated to Iryna Zarutska, the Ukrainian refugee in North Carolina who was randomly stabbed to death in August 2025. The city’s Democratic mayor called it “divisive,” while another local Democrat said the mural did not reflect the city’s “values,” and argued that removing it was the only way to ensure “every community member ... feels safe.”

Because the mural was part of a nationwide campaign partially funded by Elon Musk, most Democrats instinctively opposed it. They angrily disputed the notion that Iryna’s murder—at the hands of a career criminal who should have been in jail—was a tragedy worth mourning. Few, if any, stood and applauded when Donald Trump recognized Iryna’s parents at his State of the Union address and promised to “ensure justice” for their daughter. A similar mural of Iryna was vandalized in Chicago.

In Providence, aggrieved Democrats directed their outrage at the owners of the Dark Lady, a gay nightclub that agreed to host Iryna’s mural on their property. The owners fought back initially, insisting they were Democrats who opposed Donald Trump, and slammed the “deeply disturbing” criticism of what was supposed to be a “genuine act of kindness and remembrance.” The mural’s artist spoke out as well, urging critics to “put aside all of the political vitriol” and consider the fact that Iryna “was a human being with a mother and father, who are still with us and still grieving.”

Alas, the insufferable scolding worked. The club owners issued a groveling apology and reiterated their commitment to “fostering unity, safety, and care for all members of our community.” So there you have it. In certain quarters of the country, artwork memorializing a murdered refugee is officially a threat to public safety, and opposing Trump means refusing to acknowledge the innocent victims he has ever mentioned by name.

Meanwhile, in Fairfax County, Va., just beyond the nation’s capital, an illegal immigrant that local news outlets insist on calling a “Virginia dad” was arrested for killing his three-month-old daughter. One day earlier, a “38-year-old man” (also an illegal immigrant) was arrested for stabbing a man to death. The accused criminals will presumably be jailed alongside Abdul Jalloh, an illegal immigrant with more than 30 prior arrests who fatally stabbed a woman at a bus stop in February. Fortunately, no one has proposed putting up any murals of the victims, otherwise residents might start to feel unsafe.

VARIOUS & SUNDRY

Sympathy for the terrorist (sympathizers): Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Michigan, told campaign staffers last month that he didn’t want to discuss the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (may he rest in pieces) because a lot of his supporters were “sad” about the Iranian despot’s demise. According to audio obtained by the Free Beacon, El-Sayed said that if pushed to take a position, he would pivot to blaming Israel and calling Donald Trump a “pedophile.” Indeed, being mindful not to alienate pro-terrorism voters is just part of being an ambitious Democrat these days. El-Sayed will soon campaign alongside Hasan Piker, the left-wing influencer who said “America deserved 9/11.”

Lemon Party: After celebrating Ramadan with terrorist sympathizers last month, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani was heckled at a “hip” Passover event once described as “half postmodern religious ritual and half cabaret.” Among the featured guests were Don Lemon, the former CNN host, and Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, aka Hadassah Gold, who was the subject of the 2024 documentary Sabbath Queen, which followed the rabbi’s “epic journey” as a “drag-queen rebel” who “challenge[s] patriarchy and supremacy.”

Related: Don Lemon thinks he could be president of the United States, but suggested he would have a hard time running as an “independent,” so he would “probably have to become a Democrat.” Would he make a good president? Of course not. Would he have a decent shot at winning the Democratic nomination? Without question. Have you seen the field?

Social media is poison: Being online is bad for your brain. People who spend more than five hours a day on social media are less likely to agree that democracy is “the best form of government,” according to a recent Gallup survey. Taylor Lorenz, the once-respected journalist, spends an average of 17 hours a day online, which might explain her support for terrorism and the “joy” she felt when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down by “national hero” Luigi Mangione.

Inspiring Times: It took long enough, but we’re glad the New York Times has finally embraced the Stiles Section’s avant-garde approach to graphic design. The execution was terrible, and so was the accompanying article about all the “architects” who “say” and “warn” that Donald Trump’s ballroom expansion was poorly designed, which quotes a single architect who happens to serve on the preservation group suing to stop the ballroom’s construction. But it’s the thought that counts.

PALATE CLEANSER

Social media isn’t all bad. This week X introduced a new AI-enabled feature that automatically translates posts written in other languages. The result was an explosion of interactions between American and Japanese users who bonded over the mutual affinity for grilling meat, among other things. We just celebrated the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so it’s great to see our two cultures coming together like this to exchange ideas and learn new things.

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IT’S FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2026

In case you don’t think America is great, watch this video from MLB opening day at Oracle Park in San Francisco. The national anthem, a preposterously cool “smoke flag,” fireworks, and a flyover in one of America’s most liberal cities. We’re doing OK.

If you’re still not convinced, ask yourself the following question: Is there any other country on Earth where a quadruple amputee could inspire the masses by overcoming adversity to become a professional cornhole athlete and then be credibly accused of shooting a passenger in the car he was driving? Hell no. Oscar Pistorius is a chump compared with this guy.

And if you’re still on the fence, just think of all the money that Nancy Pelosi and others are making by betting on the war in Iran. If that doesn’t make you proud to be an American on the eve of our 250th birthday celebration, I don’t know what will.

TRAUMA IS THE NEW BLACK

Abdul El-Sayed, the far-left, terrorist-adjacent Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Michigan, recently boasted about doing “time” after getting arrested for blocking traffic at a protest in 2018. “I put my body on the line and took an arrest,” the candidate said last month. “And I didn’t take the politician’s arrest, where they, like, turn around and drop you off. No, I took the whole arrest. Did my time.”

Except he didn’t. According to police records, El-Sayed was taken by van to a detention center in Detroit, where he was issued a citation for disorderly conduct and released. He paid a $200 fine and the charges were dropped. The harrowing tale has been a central component of El-Sayed’s campaign pitch. In January, his former lawyer appeared in a campaign video praising El-Sayed for valiantly refusing her offer to get him a “better deal than the other protesters” because “solidarity … means everything to him.” He’s basically Nelson Mandela.

Democrats are bringing back the hardship Olympics in 2026 and beyond. Candidates across the country are asking their own lawyers how to get arrested on camera without suffering real consequences. Because many of the obvious White House hopefuls are white dudes, they’ve started to “lean into their childhood traumas,” per Axios. For Gavin Newsom, it’s dyslexia and a rich absent father who funded his entire career. For Josh Shapiro, it’s what he describes as, “at points, an unhappy childhood home.” For J.B. Pritzker, it’s becoming a billionaire orphan at 17 and combating fatphobia.

Pete Buttigieg is (allegedly) gay, but that’s not even considered a hardship these days. Neither is being a relentless nerd. If anything, waiting until your mid-30s to come out is kind of weird. Unfortunately, like every other kid who sat in the front of the class and raised their hand every single time the teacher asked a question, Buttigieg is temperamentally incapable of getting arrested for any reason, so he’ll just have to come up with a better story. Maybe he could suddenly remember the time he worked at McDonald’s over the summer? Eh. No one would believe that, either.

El-Sayed, the formerly incarcerated candidate, had a comfortable upbringing in a wealthy Detroit suburb. He still has a significant hardship advantage compared with the white women running against him. One of them, Mallory McMorrow, has discussed the trauma she endured after “becoming famous overnight” thanks to a viral anti-Republican rant. Meanwhile, El-Sayed booked two campaign appearances next month with Hasan Piker, the far-left, terrorist-adjacent influencer who recently returned from a slum safari in Cuba along with Ilhan Omar’s daughter and other anti-American activists. They painted murals, took farming lessons, and ranted about capitalism (and Israel, for some reason).

Because the hardship Olympics are a race to the bottom that favors the unhinged, Taylor Lorenz won gold in the poverty tourism event without even setting foot in Cuba. Rather than celebrate the junket junkies for promoting communism, the once-respected journalist scolded them for not wearing face masks in the middle of a pandemic. “Disease is a tool of genocide,” she lectured. “Pop a mask on. Disabled and immunocompromised people do it every day. Be [for real]!”

Bless her heart. The heart of a champion.

OLYMPIC-LEVEL INCOMPETENCE

Another week of stories about Democrats absolutely disgracing themselves as a party. Yes, Trump is unpopular, and Democrats are going to do well in the midterms. Bully for them, but Congress doesn’t actually do much governing—ask anyone who’s been to an airport lately. In the deep-blue states where Democrats are actually in charge and can basically do whatever they want, the results are beyond farcical.

California

• The University of Southern California abruptly canceled a gubernatorial debate following complaints about the lack of diversity among the candidates invited to participate. The non-white Democrats weren’t polling well enough to meet the threshold, and unless some of them drop out, there’s a real chance that the two Republican candidates will advance to a run-off after the open primary election in June. This leaves Democrats with an impossible choice: Ask the minority candidates to drop out and be accused of endorsing white supremacy, or accidentally elect a GOP governor. Good luck to all!

• The San Francisco public transit system, BART, is a dumpster fire of mismanagement and corruption that requires $400 million in annual subsidies to operate. Officials are threatening to shut down stations and cut back on service unless voters approve new tax hikes in November.

• Democrats in Los Angeles are getting ready to raise property taxes to address the backlog of streetlights in need of repair due to rampant copper wire theft.

• NASA announced plans to spend $20 billion over seven years to build a working base on the moon. Meanwhile, in California, the government expects to spend $37 billion to complete a high-speed rail line from Merced (pop. 90,000) to Bakersfield (pop. 419,000) that might—but almost certainly won’t—be operable by 2032, nearly a quarter-century after the project was approved.

• In a shocking display of tragically belated semi-competence, San Francisco school officials voted to let eighth-graders take algebra again, nearly a decade after scrapping the course in the name of “equity.” The goal was to give minority students more time to master basic math skills before moving on to algebra in high school. Instead, math scores fell across all demographics. The final vote—on reversing the blatantly unsuccessful policy—was 4-3.

Illinois

• Sheridan Gorman, an 18-year-old freshman at Loyola University, was shot and killed last week by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela in an act that some suspect was part of a gang initiation ritual. The suspected killer was caught entering the country and released by the Biden administration in 2023. A month later, he was arrested for shoplifting in Chicago—a sanctuary city that refuses to cooperate with ICE—and then released.

• Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson called Gorman’s murder a “terrible tragedy” and offered condolences to the victim’s family. He said this—I am not making this up—at an unveiling ceremony for the city’s new “Abolish ICE” snow plow. Chicago residents chose the name as part of a contest. Johnson promised to “double down” on his efforts to protect illegal immigrants from deportation. Gorman’s family accused the mayor of downplaying of the “preventable” killing.

• I promise I’m not making this up either. The Loyola student newspaper apologized for calling the alleged killer an “illegal immigrant,” saying it did not align with their values. The student journalists also apologized for using the word “immigrant” in the original headline, which now refers to the suspect as a “man.” The text has been updated to describe him as a “Rogers Park resident.”

• Still not making this up. Chicago Democrats voted to raise their hotel taxes in an effort to attract tourists. The new tax will fund a $50 million marketing campaign to combat the “negative narratives that surround our city,” Johnson said. Chicago will soon boast the highest hotel taxes in the country.

• Sure, raising taxes might inspire some people to visit Chicago. It might also help to actually do something about “negative narratives,” which aren’t really narratives if they’re true. From the Chicago Tribune this week: “Year’s first ‘teen takeover’ in downtown Chicago sees eight arrests, more curfew discussion.” Or, as the Daily Mail put it: “Nightmarish moment HUNDREDS of lawless teens overrun downtown Chicago on a quiet weeknight, amid reports of stores being looted and innocent pedestrians being maced.” Good luck to all!

THE MOST ANNOYING MAN ON EARTH

What follows is a (mercifully abbreviated) transcript of a recent conversation I had with my three-year-old toddler:

TODDLER: Who’s that?

ME: That’s the man who’s going to fix our internet.

TODDLER: The man?

ME: Yes.

TODDLER: What he’s doing?

ME: He’s fixing the internet.

TODDLER: He fix the internet?

ME: Yes.

TODDLER: Why he’s fixing it?

ME: Because it’s broken.

TODDLER: Why it’s broken?

ME: I don’t know, it stopped working.

TODDLER: The man he’s fixing it?

ME: Yes.

TODDLER: Why he’s a man?

ME: He just is.

TODDLER: Why?

This is my personal trauma. It’s why I got so triggered watching Tucker Carlson’s theatrically obnoxious response to a question about whether Israel has a “right to exist” during his recent interview with the Economist. Here is a (mercifully abbreviated) transcript:

ECONOMIST: Should [Israel] continue to exist?

TUCKER: … So my question to you would be, what does that mean?

ECONOMIST: Why don’t you answer my question? It’s a very simple question.

TUCKER: I don’t know what your question is. Are you asking does it have a right to exist or do I want it to exist? Do I seek its destruction?

…

ECONOMIST: So you’re in no sense a Zionist?

TUCKER: I don’t even know what that means. Why don’t you define the term and then I’ll tell you whether I am?

ECONOMIST: I just defined it.

TUCKER: What’s a Zionist?

…

ECONOMIST: [Does] the political state of Israel [have] the right to continue existing?

TUCKER: The right? Where does that right come from? What do you mean? These are, like, I’m not being a lawyer about it, I just want to know what you’re asking me.

ECONOMIST: You’re refusing to answer the question.

TUCKER: Because I don’t know what you’re asking me.

OK, buddy. Just go to your playroom and build a house for your ayatollah doll.

VARIOUS & SUNDRY

Meanwhile, in the U.K.: Three years after marrying, Meg Avon and her husband, the West Country waterway officially designated as the River Avon, are still keeping the romance flowing in the bedroom, er, riverbed.

Plumbing new depths: If Tucker Carlson is the world’s most annoying person, Jimmy Kimmel is a close second. The late-night host recently joked—if you can call it that—that we have “a plumber protecting us from terrorism now.” He was referring to Markwayne Mullin, the trailblazing Native American (not the fake Liz Warren kind) who was just confirmed as DHS secretary. At 20 years old, Mullin dropped out of college to run his family’s plumbing business when his father got sick. He was good at it; the business succeeded and grew.

So, no, unlike the foreign policy geniuses who ran the Obama and Biden administrations, he doesn’t have an Ivy League degree in terrorist negotiation—or any bachelor’s degree. The smug condescension from Kimmel and other pampered elites is nauseating, especially because there are few things that would improve the quality of our elected leaders more than forcing them to work as plumbers for a year.

What the f— is this? Yes, the river thing is weird, but Planned Parenthood just posted this on their Instagram account, and I have a lot of questions, but also very little interest in learning more.

PALATE CLEANSER

Enjoy this video of Rob Hopkins, a trans-identifying attorney with a background in “Feminist Studies and Chicano/a Studies,” reaping the consequences of they/them’s profoundly obnoxious behavior in an Oklahoma courtroom. You won’t regret watching the whole thing.

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IT’S FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 2026.

March Madness is finally here—a special time when the vast majority of Americans, who don’t agree on much these days, can come together for the singular purpose of hating Duke.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Donald Trump is having an incredible run. Neocon Don is off the leash and serving up peak-era Trump quotes like it’s 2016. He rattled off a hall-of-fame response in the Oval Office on Thursday after a Japanese reporter asked him why he didn’t give U.S. allies a heads-up before bombing Iran.

“We didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” Trump said while sitting next to the Japanese prime minister. “Who knows better about surprise than Japan? OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?”

There are three types of voters in this country: 1) people who like Trump and think he’s funny, 2) people who don’t like Trump but haven’t lost their ability to laugh when he says something amazing, and 3) miserable scolds.

WITH OPPONENTS LIKE THESE

Speaking of miserable scolds, Democrats are probably going to do well in the midterms. They should have no trouble winning back the House because their most loyal voters—wealthy white professionals with multiple degrees and a social media addiction—have been champing at the bit since Nov. 6, 2024. That’s just how it goes when your party loses the White House. Republicans aren’t nearly as fired up.

After losing to Trump a second time, Democrats briefly attempted to engage in some much-needed self-reflection, but those days are long gone. They’re back to their old ways; freak flags flying at full mast. When they do win back the House in November, they’ll be so pleased with themselves. Convinced that their insanity was justified all along, the 2028 primary will be a can’t-miss carnival of ideological excess. They might even bring back “Latinx” and invite a Hamas delegation to speak at the convention. I wish I was kidding.

To get a sense of how unconcerned Democrats are with winning back the normal American voters they lost in 2024, consider the following examples from the past week alone:

New York

• The Washington Free Beacon found more examples of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife and campaign adviser, Rama Duwaji, glorifying terrorism on social media. She was in her early 20s and late teens at the time, which her adoring fans regard as a compelling defense—because who among us didn’t experiment with bloodlust in college? Now in her late 20s, Duwaji has discovered more sophisticated ways to express her fondness for terrorists.

• In 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul told New Yorkers who supported her Republican opponent to “jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong.” More than a few took her advice. This week, as Mamdani was proposing new tax hikes, Hochul begged them to come back—specifically the rich ones. “I need people who are high net worth to support the generous social programs we have in our state,” she complained. “Our tax base has been eroded.”

• In related news, a $3.5 million public restroom project in Upper Manhattan—pitched as a quick and affordable alternative to conventional construction methods—is no closer to being built four years after winning approval from the city.

• A 21-year-old “part-time model” was released pending trial on a misdemeanor charge after punching a man who later died after collapsing on a subway platform. In addition to wooing people back with higher taxes, New York Democrats could try highlighting their equitable approach to criminal justice.

California

• Governor Gavin Newsom is taking heat for a wildlife overpass that has taken nearly four years to complete at a total cost of $114 million. It’s only a failure if you assume the goal was to build an overpass for wildlife to cross the freeway, as opposed to funneling millions in taxpayer dollars to environmental nonprofits that boast about “hiring Indigenous team members to help steward the plants that will vegetate the bridge.”

• California lawmakers acted swiftly to rename Cesar Chavez Day, an official state holiday since 2001, to “Farmworkers Day” after the late union leader was exposed as a serial sex pest. The New York Times “uncovered extensive evidence to support” the accusations of several women who said Chavez groomed them as children before molesting them as teenagers. Chavez joins a long list of once-revered Democratic icons to have their reputations sullied by credible accusations of sexual misconduct.

• The two GOP candidates for California governor are polling higher than their Democratic rivals in a crowded field. Per the state’s primary rules, the top two candidates (regardless of party) will proceed to a runoff. It probably won’t happen, but it’s hilarious to think that California could accidentally put a Republican in charge if all the Democratic mediocrities running refuse to drop out. The state’s voters are still a long way from embracing the wisdom of GOP candidate Chad Bianco’s campaign slogan: “Because I don’t want to move.”

Illinois

• Barack Obama is soliciting donations for his new presidential center—an aesthetic monstrosity that cost almost $1 billion. Valerie Jarrett’s $740,000 salary isn’t going to pay for itself. The first 1,000 Founding Members who fork over the recommended donation ($528 annually) will get a personalized thank-you card and access to an “exclusive playlist” curated by the man himself. Act now!

• Identity politics is weird. The Congressional Black Caucus is mad at Governor J.B. Pritzker for helping his lieutenant governor, a black woman, win a congressional primary over a different black woman the caucus was backing.

• Kat Abughazaleh, the 26-year-old narcoleptic, lost her congressional primary despite endorsements from Reps. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.). The winner, Evanston mayor Daniel Biss, prevailed after weathering one of the lamest #MeToo scandals in history. Bluesky libs were outraged after a woman revealed that she made out with Biss and briefly dated him more than two decades ago when she was 20 and he was her 28-year-old assistant professor at the University of Chicago. Correction: former assistant professor. That's it. That's the scandal.

Maine

• U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner said he was done apologizing for his Nazi tattoo, but he still regrets attacking rape victims on social media. In fairness, he was only 28 years old. The since-deleted posts were recently featured in an opponent’s campaign ad. Nevertheless, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) persisted in endorsing Platner this week, calling him the only Democrat with the “grit to go against the grain.” In sum: The insurgent “everyman” with several Nazi-related scandals and a history of denouncing his own voters as dumb racists was endorsed by the nagging Harvard professor who lied for years about being Native American. If that doesn’t epitomize the state of today’s Democratic Party, I don’t know what does.

Minnesota

• Democrats in the Minnesota House of Representatives unanimously opposed a bill that would require local authorities to notify ICE when illegal immigrants are arrested for violent crimes. Apart from releasing those criminals back into society over and over again until someone gets hurt or dies, what’s the worst that could happen?

Virginia

• A 41-year-old mother was stabbed to death at a bus stop last month in Fairfax. The perpetrator was an illegal immigrant with a history of violent behavior and more than 30 prior arrests. Local police practically begged the Democratic chief prosecutor’s office not to release him again—to no avail. Last week, an illegal immigrant student at Fairfax High School was charged with multiple counts of assault—but not sexual assault—after allegedly groping a dozen of his female classmates. ICE has issued a detainer request in order to deport him, but local law enforcement is refusing to cooperate.

Texas

• Democrats keep insisting James Talarico is a normal guy with a real shot at winning the U.S. Senate race. Evidence to the contrary keeps piling up. This week it was a video of Talarico speaking to supporters in 2022 while wearing a face mask. “To fight climate change, it is now existential that we try to reduce our meat consumption,” he told residents of America’s top beef-producing state. “I am proud to say that our campaign has officially become a non-meat campaign.” At this point, it wouldn’t be surprising if Talarico was on tape saying the Bible commands us to abstain from football, beer, and Ford F-150s.

VARIOUS & SUNDRY

Supremely progressive: Iran may have become the first country in history to be led by a gay amputee. The U.S. intelligence community has reportedly assessed that Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the dearly departed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is “probably gay.” The revelation comes amid reports that “one or two” of the younger Khamenei’s legs were amputated after he was severely injured last month in the U.S.-Israeli airstrike that killed his father. We can only hope he’s still alive, otherwise the International Criminal Court might try to prosecute it as a hate crime.

America has come a long way, but still has a long way to go when it comes to inclusive representation at the highest level. The closest we’ve ever come to a gay amputee president is Barack Obama, a suspected Muslim who fantasized about “making love to men” and was shockingly bad at sports despite having both of his legs.

Money for nothing: Being part of the woke cult sounds pretty nice. Sure, you’re miserable all the time, but if you complain long and hard enough about “equity” and “social justice,” there’s a chance you’ll get what you want, no matter how insane it is. The WNBA, a non-profitable subsidiary of the NBA, finally caved to the demands of its activist players and agreed to raise the league’s minimum salary from $66,000 to $300,000. The players had initially asked for a minimum salary of more than $530,000 as part of a proposal the league estimated would incur annual losses of $100 million. That’s more than double the $40 million in reported losses for 2024. Congrats to all!

Say what you want about the WNBA, but the league’s commitment to diversity is no joke. Last year’s draft, for example, saw an unprecedented number of attractive white women join the ranks of soon-to-be overpaid professionals. Representation matters!

PALATE CLEANSER

Bryana Holly, wife of actor Nicholas Hoult, spoke her truth on social media after some people allegedly made disparaging “comments” about the way her “chest” looked in the dress she wore to an Oscars after-party. Holly was instantly lauded for standing up to the alleged “body shamers,” who were allegedly “outraged” that her dress was struggling to contain her formidable mounds. Who are these people? They can’t be real, can they? In any event, Holly deserves credit for drawing attention to this important matter.

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IT’S FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2026.

This week marked the sixth anniversary of Tom Hanks testing positive for COVID-19. What happened next wasn’t entirely his fault, but he’s far from blameless. It’s March, and my three-year-old son is still requesting the “Hot Chocolate” song from The Polar Express—a vaudevillian pastiche of weapons-grade nasality “sung” by Hanks himself. I’ll forgive him eventually.

SPEAKING TRUTH TO NO ONE

Journalists are heroes, obviously. They risk their lives every day defending democracy on the front lines. They’ve earned the right to be respected and admired, but they still goof up from time to time. Mistakes happen, even in a prestigious industry dedicated to exposing “the truth” and fact-checking Republicans. Typos go unnoticed, dates get mixed up, children get defamed. Rioters setting fire to a city can be misidentified as “peaceful” protesters. Occasionally, an entire news network will make a series of false statements about a recent terror attack. In the heat of the moment, they might accidentally sympathize with the (alleged) terrorists—happens all the time to the best of us.

This is CNN.

The once-reputable network committed a handful of whoopsies while attempting to report on the failed bomb attack in New York City over the weekend. First they published a story describing the terror suspects, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, as frolicsome teens enjoying enjoying the effects of global warming before getting carried away and—in a moment of youthful exuberance—lofting some artisanal explosives into a crowd of anti-Muslim protesters. They did this while shouting “Allahu Akbar” and pledged allegiance to ISIS under questioning.

CNN revised the story, which was written by a Los Angeles-based correspondent (they/them) who attended Columbia Journalism School and majored in gender studies at the University of California, Berkeley. It failed to “reflect the gravity of the incident,” the network said, and violated their “editorial standards.” CNN media reporter and unofficial spokesman Brian Stelter praised his employers for “quickly” correcting the otherwise “solid” story, then returned to complaining about the conservative reporters asking questions at the Pentagon briefing.

Many were shocked to learn that CNN had standards and that those standards were at odds with the media’s longstanding tradition of valorizing (alleged) terrorists from marginalized communities who try to blow up people they don’t like. In fairness, it seemed as though no one at CNN knew whom the terror suspects were trying to blow up—probably because they were getting their news from CNN. The initial version(s) of the story about the whimsical scallywags said they’d been arrested for “throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home,” appearing to suggest the bomb-makers were participants in the protest and were targeting the Muslim mayor.

Hours later, CNN primetime host Abby Phillip referred to the “attempted terror attack against New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani,” while introducing a segment on Republicans who hate Muslims. Liberal commentator Ana Navarro, a guest on the show, also referenced the “attempt against Mayor Mamdani.” Phillip apologized the next day for her “inaccurate” wording and set the record straight by explaining that the mayor was not “specifically targeted” in the attack—whatever the hell that means.

Phillip didn’t write the line she mindlessly read off the teleprompter. It’s entirely plausible that whoever did (he/she/they/it) genuinely believed that Islamophobes had racistly attacked the Muslim mayor. Some liberals are still convinced that Charlie Kirk was shot by a Trump supporter (or Israeli assassin). Journalists are supposed to know better, but they are unusually susceptible to flubbing the facts on a story that threatens their worldview.

The offending prompter scribe probably heard Mamdani and his fellow Democrats rush to condemn the “vile displays of Islamophobia” from the protesters who had bombs thrown at them. They must not have seen the video of the (alleged) terrorist screaming “Allahu Akbar” as he chucked a flaming device over the head of a left-wing influencer with a bullhorn babbling about the benefits of mass immigration.

It was a scene straight out of your MAGA uncle’s fever dream—like the time a Muslim illegal immigrant in a sanctuary city firebombed a Holocaust survivor in front of a courthouse flying the trans-inclusive pride flag. CNN’s in-house “extremism” reporter would’ve covered it, but he was attending a UFO conference in the desert.

Hours after Phillip apologized, CNN senior reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere described Mamdani as a “target of political violence.” Many observers were left wondering what the f— was going on and whether it might be best to shut the whole thing down until we could figure that out. Dovere deleted the post and became the second CNN journalist (so far) to publicly apologize for spreading misinformation. Whoopsie!

Final thoughts: Bless their hearts. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer network, and just as Paramount is set to acquire CNN. The new owners will almost certainly clean house before folding it into CBS News. When that happens, feel free to ignore the shrieking about how American democracy will surely perish without CNN’s fearless truth-tellers manning the barricades.

What they’re saying: “They should give Bari Weiss access to napalm,” Dan Foster mused.

In the company of fiends: There is a certain logic to thinking the “ISIS-inspired” terrorists could have been targeting Mamdani, who is more of a Hamas guy. ISIS is a Salafi-jihadist group that views Hamas as a bunch of apostate hooligans who are insufficiently devoted to the global caliphate. This would assume the NYC suspects were hardened ideologues rather than dimwitted incels or Tucker Carlson fans—excuse the redundancy.

In any event, Mamdani has been celebrating Ramadan with Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia activist who said “we couldn’t avoid” slaughtering Jews on October 7, as well as Abdullah Akl, a Harvard grad who has publicly encouraged Hamas to “strike Tel Aviv.” He’s also been hanging out with his wife, Rama Duwaji, who liked a bunch of Instagram posts celebrating the October 7 attack—redefining “slay queen” for the next generation of Democratic leaders.

VARIOUS & SUNDRY

Chairman of the board: The Iranian regime anointed a new supreme leader this week. Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (may he rest in pieces), has never looked better. Congrats!

Silence is violence: Bluesky, the social media app exclusively for mentally ill liberals who are still obsessed with DEI nonsense like it’s 2020, is getting a new leader. CEO Jay Graber, a 35-year-old half-Asian woman, is stepping down and will be replaced by Toni Schneider, a venture capitalist white guy. What could go wrong? Good luck to all!

Rage, rage against the feeding of the troops: Journalists and other professional liberals lashed out after a watchdog report found that War Secretary Pete Hegseth spent a total of $24 million on lobster, steak, and crab legs in September of last year. Veterans and others who know anything about the military quickly pointed out that the Pentagon regularly buys nice food for troops deployed abroad—it’s a longstanding tradition. Nevertheless, the anti-Trump fanatics—who don’t know anything about the military and don’t care being wrong—kept piling on.

“No wonder Hegseth always looks miserable,” Seth Meyers chirped. “He’s 24/7 meat constipated.” CNN may soon have to air another apology after network contributor Paul Begala made a fool of himself. “Lobster tails?” he ranted, moronically. “While our troops are eating MREs?” Begala worked in the Clinton White House. Degenerate liar? Or just hopelessly incompetent and out of touch? Ladies and gentlemen, the Democrats.

Running for life: Congressman Jim Clyburn (D., S.C.) announced he was running for reelection this week. He’ll turn 86 in July, which is how old Joe Biden would have been after serving a second term as president. Clyburn isn’t even the oldest member of Congress; he barely cracks the top five. Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) is 92 and hasn’t ruled out another run in 2028. The betting markets have clearly forgotten that Joe Biden is still eligible to run again. Get those Kalshi wagers locked in now!

Honeymoon’s over: On a stroll through Manhattan, former president Bill Clinton (allegedly) tried to push his nominal wife, Hillary Rodham, into traffic and make it look like an accident. It didn’t work. You’ll never beat the master at her own game.

American greatness update: Yep, still great.

NFL free agency update: Jake Browning, the former backup quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals, signed a one-year deal with the Tampa Buccaneers, which means his fiancée Stephanie Niles will get to spend more time at the beach.

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IT’S FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2026.

DELUSIONS OF NORMALCY

Democratic elites are patting themselves on the back after state representative James Talarico (D.) defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D.) in the Texas Senate primary. The sassy black woman was “unelectable,” whereas Talarico is the new and improved Beto O’Rourke who will finally “turn Texas blue.” He’s normal, they insist, a tad suspiciously—just a typical 36-year-old confirmed bachelor with a master’s degree from Harvard and nothing to hide. He can relate to Trump voters.

Um, good luck with that. If Talarico is Democrats’ idea of a normal candidate who can transcend the party’s hard-earned reputation for clownish extremism, they are hopeless. First of all, just look at him. Talarico has the appearance, demeanor, and cloying charm of a sixth-grade class president giving an oral report for extra credit about picking up litter at the local park. This is Texas, for crying out loud. Football season starts in August. At some point, someone is going to throw a pigskin at him, and we’ll see how normal that plays out.

Even if he goes the Pete Buttigieg route and grows a relatable beard, it wouldn’t help. Talarico has a long history of expressing views most Americans would find insane, and invoking his Christian faith to assert the moral imperative of those views. Coastal liberals eat that shit up. Talarico will raise $100 million for the general election, but it seems unlikely that Texas voters will be receptive to being told they are bad Christians for opposing the following:

• Prisons should be abolished because “prison is violence.”

• White people spread the “virus of racism” wherever they go, and must take “dramatic actions to contain the spread.”

• Abortion clinics belong in federal courthouses and national parks because God loves abortion.

• Male athletes should participate in women’s sports because “some things are more important than perfectly fair competition.”

• There are “six” biological sexes according to “modern science.”

• It’s totally normal and not weird at all to refer to women as “our neighbors with uteruses,” and Latinos as the “Latinx community.”

This is just a sample of the crazy things Talarico said during the “peak woke” period of 2020-2021 after the death of George Floyd. Kamala Harris faced the same problem in 2024, and Democrats still haven’t come up with a better excuse than “it was a long time ago” and “everyone else was doing it.” Not everyone was doing it! Even most Democrats didn’t brag about being the first to “add pronouns” to their official business cards in 2021. Talarico went all in. Even the most benign explanation—he got caught up in the excitement of dismantling white supremacy and said all those things to impress the popular liberals—reflects poorly on his judgment and character to a degree that should be disqualifying.

Conclusion: The word “normal” doesn’t mean what Democrats think it means.

Addendum: It’s possible that Talarico has had a genuine change of heart. If he truly believed his own nonsense about the racism virus, he would have dropped out the minute Crockett entered the race. Black women are the “backbone” of the Democratic Party, representation matters, and so on. Nevertheless, he persisted, and now another black woman must endure the literal violence of unemployment, and millions of little black girls across this great country will grow up lacking the confidence to follow their dreams because a white man will always stand in their way.

What they’re saying: “A lot of black women who work in the Democratic Party, vote for Democrats, organize for Democrats, have always had a sense of this,” Tayhlor Coleman, a Texas-based political strategist and social media influencer, told Politico after the primary. “It’s a lot more apparent now: A lot of people in the Democratic Party want our labor, they do not want our leadership.”

What they’re also saying: “I hope the biggest lesson people take away from the Talarico-Crockett race is that the tactic of just baselessly accusing anyone who disagrees with you of being a bigot over and over and over in hopes you’ll cow everyone into submission is in its death throes,” wrote Armand Domalewski, a pro-Harris Democratic influencer. He was referring to Crockett and the “online army of cry bullies” that accused Talarico of diminishing black excellence.

You hate to see it—like watching your parents fight in a flaming dumpster.

Good luck to all!

BREAKING TRAD

Talarico is hardly the only ambitious Democrat struggling to be normal and approaching the challenge with the rigor and charm of a grad student explaining the thesis revisions he’s thinking about making. There’s the aforementioned Pete Buttigieg, another awkward nerd whom Democrats regard as a model for appealing to Republicans. He grew a beard to dampen the “running for student body president” vibe, but you just know he ran a focus group beforehand.

The Atlantic published a remarkable piece this week on Buttigieg’s attempt to “establish his normal-guy credentials” before inevitably running for president in 2028. At his new home in Michigan, Buttigieg is “doubling down on family”—his words—and immersing himself in the ordinary. Like all former candidates eager to lay low, he invited a reporter to follow his every move. He drops the kids off at camp, eats Cornish pastries, and patronizes mom-and-pop establishments. He has also “resurrected his Norwegian, a language he learned for fun,” and was tickled to discover that Brillebjørn the bear, the protagonist in the Norwegian children’s books he’s been reading his twins, has two moms.

A particularly amusing passage recounts the moment when the Atlantic reporter, in the course of documenting Buttigieg’s sojourn in the land of normal men, accidentally stumbled upon a normal man whose total disdain for politics (and bothersome journalists) is the epitome of American greatness:

Traverse City is remote from Washington politics. At a local bar, I asked an employee to name the city’s most famous resident, and he struggled to name anyone. “Madonna’s brother used to be a homeless guy here,” he said. I told him that a former secretary of transportation had moved to town six months ago, and instead of continuing the conversation he found urgent barkeeping tasks to attend to.

The ensuing paragraph describes the “never-ending succession of wholesomeness” at chez Buttigieg, and ends with a cringing display of dorkwad pedantry. “Papa got a axe for Christmas,” four-year-old Gus tells the journalist. “Technically,” Pete chimed in, “it is a splitting maul.”

Bless his heart.

In the run up to the 2020 Democratic primary, Barack Obama tried to talk his elderly vice president out of running. “You don’t have to do this, Joe, you really don’t,” he said in a calm, soothing voice. Someone needs to pull Pete aside and tell him the same thing—just to be on the record—before Buttigieg makes the wise and honorable decision to do what Biden did and tell the haters to go f— themselves.

Bottom line: Run, Pete, run!

FREAK ACCIDENTS

Graham Platner, like Tim Walz, is more idiot than nerd. They represent a different type of “normal” Democrat—the Carhartt communist. If Democrats want to win back the working-class white vote, Platner is their guy. Never mind that a recent poll found that he is far more popular with the trust-fund class. He has a beard and dresses like a slob! Of course he doesn’t hate Jews! What are you talking about? Sure, he rants about Israel all the time, and has been known to accidentally get a Nazi tattoo from time to time, or accidentally promote anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists and appears on their podcasts as a “longtime fan.” It could happen—and keep happening—to anybody.

Admit nothing, deny goose-stepping: The Washington Free Beacon got an exclusive look inside Platner’s crisis PR handbook. The campaign made a “defense guidance” packet instructing volunteers on how to respond to the candidate’s myriad Nazi-adjacent scandals. For example, if anyone asks about the time he wore the Nazi uniform to a child’s birthday, just tell them “the theme was Indiana Jones.” Plus, he was only 34 years old when it happened. Cut the guy some slack.

Everyman vibes: Jack Schlossberg, the Kennedy scion running for Congress as an “outsider,” reported no earned income in 2025 but holds as much as $32 million across a variety of trust funds and real estate portfolios, according to financial records. He continued to list himself as “political correspondent” for Vogue magazine despite not working there last year. Schlossberg is definitely not normal. Nancy Pelosi endorsed him anyway. She could teach him a thing or two about maximizing portfolio returns through well-timed trades.

REST IN PIECES

Iranians rejoiced after learning Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei perished in a U.S.-Israeli airstrike. Normal Americans were also pleased, but progressive activists and anti-Semites were inconsolable. Videos emerged of white liberals lecturing Iranians about oppression and telling them to “go back” to where they came from. The Washington Post found an Iranian at Howard University who opposed the bombing, but declined to mention that she was the founding member of an “Armed Queers” organization dedicated to “trans liberation,” and therefore need not be taken seriously.

Please keep Ben Rhodes in your thoughts and prayers.

Read the obituary: Rest in Pieces: Ali Khamenei, Demure Progressive Stalwart and ‘Black Lives Matter’ Ally Who Inspired Democrats and Academics, Bombed to Death at 86

Flashback: What I Saw in Iran

Final thoughts: God bless the women of Iran.

X: @AndrewStilesUSA

Email: stiles@freebeacon.com

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James Talarico pulled off what is sure to be a controversial upset on Tuesday, defeating Jasmine Crockett in the Texas Democratic Senate primary. It was a contest marred by bitter infighting. Talarico faced credible accusations of racism, but still prevailed thanks to a billionaire-funded, establishment-approved, and media-facilitated push to brand Crockett as “unelectable.” Many considered that code for black and proud.

Journalists and other Democratic elites fawned over Talarico, a state lawmaker with the looks and demeanor of a fifth-grade boy giving an oral report for extra credit. They adored his “aw shucks, why can’t we all just get along?” routine. In glowing profile after glowing profile, they marveled at his Christianity-themed rhetoric. (He once declared that “God is non-binary” while arguing that men should be allowed to compete in women’s sports.) Former president Barack Obama called him a “terrific, talented young man.” He was Beto O’Rourke 2.0—a new and improved version of the liberal darling who could “finally turn Texas blue” by appealing to normal Americans.

Meanwhile, a billionaire-funded super PAC linked to Talarico—who repeatedly assailed the influence of billionaire-funded super PACs—relentlessly attacked Crockett on the airwaves. The Lone Star Rising PAC, started by a longtime friend of Talarico just days before the candidate launched his Senate campaign, spent millions on negative ads against Crockett over the past few weeks. LinkedIn founder and Jeffrey Epstein pal Reid Hoffman was among the billionaires who bankrolled the super PAC, along with hedge fund titans Stephen Mandel and Mark Heising. The group also received millions via the same “dark money” networks Talarico had promised to ban via “anti-corruption” legislation.

Crockett’s late entry into the race threatened Talarico’s path to the nomination. The congresswoman had already established herself as a different kind of media darling—more politics-adjacent influencer than serious politician. The anti-Trump resistance couldn’t get enough of her sassy clapbacks and “Imma smack a bitch” mentality. She was good at raising money and going viral. But Democratic elites didn’t like her style, and insisted that Texas could turn blue in November—just not with Crockett on the ballot.

The billionaires, journalists, and party bigwigs did everything they could to sabotage Crockett in the closing stretch. Stephen Colbert, the former comedian, ginned up a phony scandal by falsely accusing Donald Trump and CBS News of shutting down his interview with Talarico. In reality, the network had simply advised Colbert that airing the interview could trigger federal rules mandating “equal time” for rival candidates—meaning Crockett. The ensuing outrage allowed Talarico to play the victim. He got tons of free exposure, and parlayed the “controversy” into a $2.5 million fundraising haul. In the final days before the election, journalists and other professional Democrats whined incessantly about how Crockett was mean to a reporter from the Atlantic.

The general election will give the billionaire-funded Democratic establishment a chance to prove it was all worth it to crush a black woman’s dreams. The party has a long history of backing white candidates over black rivals in U.S. Senate primaries, but those candidates rarely go on to win. Talarico will face the winner of a GOP runoff election in May between Texas attorney general Ken Paxton and the incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, as neither candidate secured the majority needed to win the nomination outright.

Here are the winners and losers from Tuesday night’s result in Texas:

Winner: White mediocrity, racism

Talarico, a mediocre white man, refused to apologize after committing racism against former Rep. Colin Allred (D., Texas). Furthermore, as Democrats have long established, it is racist to criticize a black woman or run against her in an election. Crockett was endorsed by Cardi B, Method Man, Kelly Rowland, and Kamala Harris. Talarico was endorsed by High School Democrats of America.

Loser: Kamala Harris

The former vice president defied the Democratic establishment by endorsing Crockett in the final week before Election Day. It was a risky bet that didn’t pan out, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t run again in 2028.

Winners: Billionaires, the Democratic elite

Teaming up to take down Crockett must have been almost as satisfying as knee-capping Bernie Sanders in 2020 and rigging the election for Joe Biden. Talarico owes it all to them. They own him now.

Losers: The media

Journalists keep insisting they are neutral arbiters who don’t take sides. They didn’t just take sides in this race; they fell in love. It’s so embarrassing. But it won’t be the last time.

READ MORE: Mess in Texas: Billionaire-Backed Talarico Shrugs Off Racism Scandal To Steal Senate Nod from Jasmine Crockett

Ali Khamenei, the “Black Lives Matter” advocate and long-serving supreme leader of Iran, was a guiding light to Democratic lawmakers, Ivy League professors, and other progressive ideologues who endorsed his intellectual appraisal of America’s evil and the treachery of Jews.

In darkness they must now persist.

The ayatollah died like a dog Saturday when his “secure” compound in central Tehran was caved in by several dozen of the biggest, most beautiful bombs ever made. Khamenei’s body, so austere and worldly, torn to shreds. His mangled face adorned with one of history’s most distinguished beards. His agile mind—inquisitive and playful—literally blown amidst the ashes of scholarly texts and quirky beach reads. A name crossed off the top of Uncle Sam’s list. The emphatic ring of Mother Freedom’s bell. It must have felt as if the whole wide world was raining down. Because it was.

“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social. He was 86.

The Iranian people cheered a tyrant’s demise and hoped for what could be. You could tell their joy was real and not the Kamala Harris kind. The ayatollah’s left-wing comrades sobbed like sloppy seventh graders. They shook their fists at mushroom clouds and wept for what had been. The revolution. The hostages. The oil nonsense. Decades of degenerate behavior and the targeting of American soldiers. The homespun hipster in his button-down shirt (also killed). The slow death of the Iranian economy, which even the Obama nuclear shake-down couldn’t stop.

They had to hand it to the supreme leader. Fans commended him for dying honorably—on his own terms, mid-resistance, cowering in a bunker, surrounded by his closest friends and military commanders. They touted his progressive bona fides—he understood that decolonization was more than vibes and essays. In May 2020, he penned an eloquent clapbackagainst white supremacy after the death of George Floyd. He never took Trump’s calls or laughed at a misogynistic joke, which in some ways made him even more of a winner than the USA men’s hockey team. He inspired a generation of Ivy League losers to hate Jews even more than they hate themselves.

Khamenei’s death was a crippling blow to America’s elite institutions, many of which had presumably shortlisted the supreme leader in their search for a commencement speaker. It was basically the last remaining option to forestall a shrieking walkout. Now what? The students and faculty who supported Iran’s proxy, Hamas, and its “anti-colonial insurgency,” are naturally devastated. Their terrorist allies have been crushed. They must endure the moral indignity of mourning a tyrant who murdered thousands and repressed millions. It remains to be seen which campus chapters of Feminist Fatties for Palestine will issue statements denouncing Iranian women for burning their hijabs. One can only marvel at the magnitude of self-absorption required to exist this way.

The terrorists’ allies in Congress were too distraught to pretend anymore. “This is who they are,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) huffed in response to the airstrikes that took out Khamenei. She was referring to the United States of America. Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D.) apologized—to all the Iranians dancing with delight in New York City. He was channeling former president Barack Obama, who never stopped hoping he would get the chance to bow submissively before His Eminence. On the bright side, Khamenei’s downfall could open up a lucrative new market for Michelle Obama’s fashion memoir.

The garment rending in the media was also a sight to behold. It’s been several years since the Washington Post was deservedly mocked for lamenting the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the “austere religious scholar” who pioneered the rise of ISIS. Many assumed they would be too embarrassed to do that again. Evidently not. The Post‘s obituary described Khamenei as an “avuncular figure” with a “bushy white beard and easy smile” who enjoyed classic Westerns and Les Misérables. Mehdi Hasan melted down in public. He was not alone.

Ben Rhodes, the former Obama aide who recently implored Iranians to “negotiate” with their oppressors, may never recover. He took Khamenei’s side in 2009 when the regime was shooting protesters in the streets, and bragged of manipulating halfwit journalists to rally support for the nuclear deal he crafted. Rhodes’s public comments in response to the supreme leader’s death reflected a profound anguish at the thought of not being invited to the funeral.

It is often said a man’s enemies reveal the content of his character. As far as Khamenei is concerned, the pathetic zeal of his admirers will supply the final judgment.

Rest in pieces, thug.

READ MORE: Ali Khamenei, Demure Progressive Stalwart and ‘Black Lives Matter’ Ally Who Inspired Democrats and Academics, Bombed to Death at 86

ROCK HILL, S.C.—Gavin Newsom, who is definitely running for president, is probably—inscrutably, appallingly—the early favorite to win the Democratic nomination in 2028. On a Monday night in South Carolina, several hundred angsty boomers have turned out to hear the greased-up California governor talk about his favorite subject: himself. The early primary state is one of the first stops on Newsom’s book tour for Young Man in a Hurry, his recently published “memoir of discovery.”

Newsom radiates smarm as he takes a seat next to Jaime Harrison, the former South Carolina congressman. Harrison parlayed a failed campaign against Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) in 2020—raising more than $100 million only to lose by 10 points—into the role of DNC chairman, where he oversaw the party’s crushing defeat in 2024 after standing by Joe Biden until the very end. He hosts a podcast now.

Harrison regrets nothing about his unyielding support for Sleepy Joe—a befuddled crank whose insistence on running for reelection arguably ensured Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Somewhat surprisingly for a Democrat who wants to be president, Newsom is on the same page. “I’ll never turn my back on Joe Biden,” he says before whipping the crowd into a frenzy by speed-shouting a list of Biden’s alleged accomplishments. Will this aggressive pro-Biden stance be sustainable in a Democratic primary? Probably not, which raises questions about the potentially career-ending secrets Dr. Jill Biden may have threatened to expose if Newsom doesn’t fall in line.

Alas, Newsom’s blind loyalty does not extend to Kamala Harris. She might run against him in 2028 (yes, queen, please do). Why not take the gloves off now? While recounting his early career in San Francisco politics, the governor reminds the audience that Harris got her start by sleeping with the city’s former mayor, Willie Brown. “You wouldn’t know Kamala Harris without Willie Brown,” says Newsom, who clawed his way to the top the old-fashioned way—by having a rich and powerful dad. It’s a polite way of saying Harris is a conniving whore. Accusation as confession, perhaps.

Newsom is slick on the stump. When he says the new memoir was born of an earnest compulsion to excavate his inner truth through self-reflection, it’s almost convincing. “It’s not the kind of book you’d write in politics to promote yourself,” he lies. The governor knows his privileged background is a liability, so he’s learned how to effortlessly recast his upbringing as a parable of perseverance. He explains how overcoming a disability (dyslexia) supercharged his empathy and forged his “entrepreneurial mindset.” Newsom lists off a few of the businesses he started after graduating college with a tenacious desire to “solve problems.” He does not mention that these (mostly wine-related) ventures were all funded by his dad’s friend, the billionaire oil scion Gordon Getty.

The crowd eats it up. They don’t really care about the book, which includes a lamentation about how California was “born in genocide.” They just want to see a Democrat who fights. Newsom explains how his disability and hardscrabble upbringing inspired him to take risks, and how this unwavering courage is “reflected” in his recent social media habits. The crowd goes wild at any mention of the governor’s edgy ALL CAPS outbursts aimed at Trump. The look on Newsom’s face when this happens should be the first image that appears under a Google search for “shit-eating grin.” He has a well-rehearsed paragraph of Obama-esque nonsense at the ready.

“We have got to call this out,” Newsom says, enunciating almost every syllable. “We have got to fight fire with fire. It’s all on the line, and we need to draw that line. And as we draw the line, yes, let’s also start drawing that circle where all of us can be repairers of the breach, in the spirit of Isaiah, as we move from resistance to renewal, and we’ll get there.” Bible reference? Check.

The audience could not agree more when Newsom says that “tabletop issues” and “plans” for addressing the “systemic problems of our time” are luxuries we can’t afford right now. Winning elections is the only thing that matters, and that’s going to require a candidate who isn’t afraid to call out Lindsey Graham for wearing “kneepads” to fellate the president—a candidate with the courage to sell $100 union-made kneepads in “Republican red” on his PAC website. A brave warrior with a dork-faced communications director who tells reporters to “fuck off.”

Toward the end of the event, Harrison finally asks a question that catches Newsom off guard. He invites the governor to make the case that South Carolina—with its historic ties to slavery and the Civil Rights Movement—should be the first state to vote in the 2028 Democratic primary. Whether due to his lack of a canned response, or the fact that Newsom would clearly prefer a whiter state to vote first, the governor starts riffing. “I was in Charleston,” he yucks. “You want a special place? I told them no one from California is allowed to visit it, because they will all leave.”

It’s funny because it’s true. Californians are fleeing in droves to red states with low taxes, affordable home prices, and a refreshing lack of feces. Perhaps Newsom would love to explain why—later, when he’s not too busy saving democracy.

The governor rambles semi-coherently to avoid answering the question. He boasts of quoting Martin Luther King Jr. as mayor of San Francisco in February 2004 when he started marrying same-sex couples before it was cool. He accuses Republicans of trying to “bring us back to a pre-1960s world,” whereas he just wants to bring back the 1960s because of how great the Kennedys were—or something. It’s hard to follow. “And so, look, you matter,” he says eventually. “And we need to care more.” For whatever reason, Newsom does not revive his awkward line—delivered days earlier in Atlanta—about how getting a 960 on his SAT made it easier for him to relate to black people.

The presidential election is still years away, but the skids are getting awfully greasy. Prepare accordingly.

READ MORE: Greasing Palmetto: Newsom Slut-Shames Harris, Previews Inevitable WH Run in South Carolina

Paramount is closer than ever to acquiring CNN parent company Warner Bros. after Netflix declined to raise its bid for the media conglomerate. That’s bad news for the failing network’s stable of overpaid hacks, many of whom will be first in line for layoffs (or drastic salary reductions) once the acquisition goes through. Not surprisingly, the Trump administration has already signaled its support for the move.

Larry Ellison, whose Paramount Skydance empire recently took control of CBS News, met with White House officials late last year to discuss potential changes at CNN, including the possibility of “axing” some of Donald Trump’s least favorite on-air personalities. The president is particularly disinclined toward Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar, according to the Guardian, but they aren’t the only partisan warriors with exorbitant salaries who might be targeted. Presumably some of the network’s most irritating contributors, like the former Obama official and Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Juliette Kayyem, will be the first to go. The mood at CNN is as expected. Staffers told their former colleague Oliver Darcy that the “panic ... is off the charts.”

What we’re hearing: Paramount’s acquisition would precipitate “brutal cuts” at CNN. The network employs production teams that are “super bloated” compared to Fox News and MS NOW; headcount could be slashed by as much as 70 percent. Many of the network’s so-called stars are earning huge paychecks far exceeding their market value. Former CNN boss Jeff Zucker was notorious for “buying loyalty” with reckless generosity. No wonder they all cried when he was forced out in 2021 for sleeping with a subordinate.

Cutting the dead weight won’t be easy, as many of these anchor contracts are guaranteed. If they’re let go before their contracts expire, CNN’s new owner would still have to pay out in full. Paramount could try to renegotiate contracts at a lower rate, and some of the “talent” would likely accept, given their negligible value on the free market. They will simply have to decide how badly they want to stay on television. Some will opt to leave and join their former colleague Jim Acosta on Substack interviewing Rosie O’Donnell and AI-generated dead people. If any of these anchors have been naughty enough to be fired for cause, Paramount will be more than happy to void their contracts.

Here’s a look at the so-called talent whose cushy gigs might not be around much longer.

Anderson Cooper: The privileged scion who pioneered the iconic “tight black shirt in disaster zone” style of journalism now imitated by ABC’s David Muir could be gearing up for early retirement. Cooper left his $2 million side gig at 60 Minutes earlier this month because he wanted to spend more time with his shirt off getting sloppy drunk with Andy Cohen with his kids.

Jake Tapper: The notorious hothead signed a new three-year contract in late 2024, so getting rid of him will be expensive. The 2020 Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year and former Democratic flack, best known for having dated Monica Lewinsky, will probably stick around until Anderson Cooper leaves because he has always wanted to be the highest-paid talking head on CNN (and wishes he had gone to Yale instead of Dartmouth). Yale grad Hunter Biden once challenged him to a fight; Tapper is lucky he didn’t accept.

Kaitlan Collins: The 33-year-old former fashion reporter frequently clashes with Trump, but is reportedly not very high on the president’s list of CNN hosts he wants fired. Maybe he missed her stellar breakdown of a 2024 Free Beacon report about Kamala Harris’s alleged summer job at McDonald’s that aged like milk.

Dana Bash: There’s a reason Kamala Harris, who is (justifiably) terrified of speaking off-script, chose Bash to conduct the first sit-down interview of her failed campaign in 2024. Among other things, Bash has lamented the lack of multimillion-dollar contracts in the WNBA, a money-losing enterprise. She is the ex-wife of former Obama adviser Jeremy Bash, and is also the ex-wife of her CNN colleague John King.

Erin Burnett: Once described as “hot” many years ago, the evening host offers a safe space for Democrats to deliver their talking points. Trump doesn’t like her, so she’ll probably be gone if the merger goes through.

Abby Phillip: Best known for hosting the show that Scott Jennings appears on, Phillips rose to prominence in 2020 thanks to her “powerful monologue” about how Joe Biden’s victory was a transformative event for black women. She routinely attempts to keep her panels in line by spouting dubious “facts” that in many cases turn out to be false.

Laura Coates: Non-white personalities are rare at CNN, and relatively underpaid and overlooked for promotions. The network could have made Coates its senior legal analyst in 2021, but opted to bring back Jeffrey Toobin—the infamous Zoom call masturbator—instead.

Wolf Blitzer: He’s been around since the 1990s, but earns a rookie salary. Paramount might let him stay if he agrees to read the teleprompter for free. He’s way too old to start a Substack.

John Berman: We’ve been told he’s a real person who works at CNN, but we’ve never heard of him. Based on looks alone, this “John Berman” would attract a fair value of approximately $0 on the open market.

Brian Stelter: The so-called media expert, who courageously corrects the president’s spelling errors, has already taken a massive pay cut to rejoin the network. CNN fired him in 2022 for his obnoxious anti-Trump antics, including his relentless promotion of criminal grifter Michael Avenatti. Stelter said this week that Paramount CEO David Ellison’s expressed desire for “news that is balanced and fact-based ... sure sounds a lot like CNN’s mission.” Mission? Perhaps. Demonstrated behavior? Not so much.

Brianna Keilar: If Trump finds her annoying, she probably is.

Kasie Hunt: We thought she still worked for MSNBC. But what’s the difference?

READ MORE: Bloodbath Imminent: CNN’s Overpaid Hacks on Alert as Paramount Set To Acquire Failing Network’s Parent Company

It’s Friday, February 27, 2026.

Normal people agree: It’s good to be an American.

Alas, everyone can’t be normal.

MEDALS OF DISHONOR

America desperately needed a unifying cultural moment, an excuse to indulge in patriotic joy. We finally got one when the USA men’s hockey team beat Canada to win an Olympic gold medal for the first time since the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980. About 26 million Americans saw Jack Hughes score the game-winning goal in overtime, a massive number by present-day standards. That’s roughly half the viewing audience for the Friends finale in 2004—before the smartphones and social media, when people still watched television, talked to their neighbors, and had actual friends, long before the show’s creator was forced to apologize for the lack of diversity and donate $4 million to her alma mater’s African studies department.

We needed this, and we couldn’t have it because the most obnoxious people on the planet—journalists and other overeducated liberal psychopaths obsessed with politics—insisted on ruining it. The men’s hockey team was instantly condemned by shrieking lunatics for pausing their victory celebration to take a call from President Donald Trump and accepting his invitation to the White House. And as far as we can tell, the miserable dorks were also mad that the players—most of them in their twenties and several beers deep—did not immediately hiss, blow whistles, bang saucepans, or kneel in protest when Trump joked about being impeached if he didn’t invite the women’s team, which also won gold. They were subsequently condemned for supporting “the troops” and saying they’re “proud to be an American.”

It wasn’t just random online freaks. Journalists at “reputable” publications suffered public meltdowns raising serious questions about their sanity. The New York Times. The Atlantic. USA Today, for crying out loud. “I choose to believe that many of [the male players] are embarrassed,” wrote Chuck Todd, former host of Meet the Press on NBC. So-called sports reporters—who spent the last few weeks badgering U.S. athletes to apologize for representing their country—scolded the Olympic champions for having “utterly failed to meet the cultural moment.” A hockey reporter Ian Kennedy (He/Him) said he was still waiting for the male players to “apologize for laughing.” Apologize. For laughing.

Someone is failing utterly in this moment, but it’s not Team USA. The journos doth project too much. It has never occurred to them that they might be the villains in this story.

Not to be outdone by their credentialed counterparts, the online freaks eagerly debased themselves by attacking children. When the NHL posted a photo of Dylan Strome, a Canadian who didn’t go to the Olympics, playing with his two-year-old daughter, they bombarded Strome’s family with what his wife called “some of the most vile and disgusting things I have ever read in my life.”

Conclusion: These people are not well, and should have their internet access taken away until we can figure out what’s going on—for their own good, as well as ours.

COUNTERPOINT: YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIKE GETTING PISSED ON

Democrats know the hockey freakout makes them look bad because their voters are the ones behaving disgracefully. Joe Scarborough and other professional partisans have politely urged their supporters to “stop making this an issue.” It’s grimly amusing, the earnestness with which they have implored the shrieking liberals to be normal. It’s like lecturing the drug-addled homeless man taking a dump on the subway about the importance of self-care.

Speaking of which, it was a busy week for “sensible” liberals begging their radical allies to shut up. A lively debate ensued after a woman in Manhattan posted about how her husband was traumatized after a homeless woman peed all over his crowded subway car. There was no shortage of left-wing freaks chiming in to denounce the husband for being a coddled little bitch. “Toughen up,” they said. Anyone suggesting public spaces should not be used as toilets was accused of bigotry towards the insane. It would be more amusing if New York City hadn’t just voted to put these people in charge of the government.

On Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers heckled Donald Trump at the State of Union for insisting the “first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” They refused to stand for the victims of violent crime. Many of them didn’t even stand or cheer for the USA men’s hockey team. The New York Times fact-checked Trump’s claim about Team USA goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, who endured 42 shots on goal during the gold medal Game. Trump said 46. “This is exaggerated,” the Times wrote.

Conclusion: Even if you don’t love Trump, it’s OK to be glad that Democrats aren’t in charge right now. The 250th anniversary would be excruciating on their watch—a tedious parade of self-flagellation topped off by another awful poem by Amanda Gorman. It would be even worse than listening to Kamala Harris speak for over an hour as Democrats hooted and hollered at her invited guests:

• Bronwyn Dustworm-Feathercloud, a two-spirit member of the Nacotchtank tribe, rightful sovereigns of the occupied lands on which our nation’s capital now stands, soaked in the blood of colonial genocide.

• Karen Attiah, the beefcake columnist fired by the Washington Post for daring to speak the truth about America following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a “white man that espoused violence.”

• Nasrallah Zayyad, the 6-year-old child of a Hezbollah freedom fighter killed in Israel’s pager attack in 2024.

• Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo, the black Hollywood actors who survived a shocking n-word outburst from a man with Tourette syndrome at the British Academy Film Awards.

• Ginsburg Alice Tompkins, a 17-year-old private school student from Maryland who successfully lobbied local officials to block a resident-backed petition to remove homeless encampments from neighborhood playgrounds.

• Dr. Giles Fletcher, a sociology professor who declined to cooperate with police after undocumented youths with ties to organized group-based delinquency set his mistress on fire.

DEMOCRATS NEVER LIE

Gavin Newsom is already running for president, touring early primary states while plugging his new memoir. Newsom, a rich white guy from a privileged background whose entire career was bankrolled by a billionaire, has been playing up his alleged dyslexia. He talks about how overcoming a disability and struggling with academics has helped him relate to marginalized communities. “I’m like you,” he told Andre Dickens, the black mayor of Atlanta. “I’m a 960 SAT guy.”

Some of Newsom’s critics, of which there are many, noticed that the governor’s description in his book of being diagnosed as “learning disabled” is at odds with previous accounts in which Newsom claimed he was “diagnosed with dyslexia.” Not a huge discrepancy, but when award-winning journalist Susan Crabtree reached out asking for clarification, Newsom’s communications director told her to “fuck off.” Neera Tanden, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, praised the contemptuous response to “wingnut trolls.” Politico wrote a dismissive piece about “truther culture.”

If you didn’t already suspect that Newsom was lying, this is a glaring red flag. It’s how Democrats and their hired guns (and supportive journalists) always respond when they’ve been caught lying. Many of them urged the Washington Free Beacon to f— off after we reported on the bizarre lack of evidence that Kamala Harris actually worked at McDonald’s. Wes Moore’s communications director slammed the Free Beacon‘s “weird” “obsession” with pointing out that many of Moore’s claims do not hold up to basic scrutiny. Most reporters weren’t interested in looking into Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, but the ones who did were dismissed as MAGA trolls and threatened with physical violence—by Biden himself.

Conclusion: Just because a Democrat says it doesn’t mean it’s true.

WEATHER, OR NOT

More than four Winter Olympics have passed since the New York Times published a op-ed contemplating “the end of snow” and other catastrophes brought on by climate change. This week the Times provided an update of sorts: “Record Snowfall Slams New England and Leaves New York City Snarled.” What’s to blame for snow’s unlikely comeback? Climate change, obviously. That’s what so great about being a doomsaying climate scold— being wrong is just further evidence that you were right all along.

BACK ON THE MARKET

Alexandra Daddario and her husband, Andrew Form, are getting divorced after three years of marriage.

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No one thought it could happen, but Donald Trump believed. The president performed a miracle on Tuesday by compelling Democrats to stand and cheer for their country during his State of the Union address—by praising the USA women’s hockey team and inviting them to the White House.

Trump began with a classically Trumpian assessment of “what should be” his third term as president while looking ahead to the 250th anniversary of America’s independence. “Our country is winning again,” he said. “In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it. People are asking me, ‘Please, please, please Mr. President, we’re winning too much. We can’t take it anymore. We’re not used to winning in our country. Until you came along, we’re just always losing, but now we’re winning too much.’ And I say, ‘No, no, no. You’re going to win again. You’re going to win big. You’re going to win bigger than ever.’”

To drive home the point, Trump introduced the members of the USA men’s hockey team—who have become the focus of an insane internet controversy due to their failure to clap back at Trump. A handful of psychotic liberals have denounced the players for failing to lecture the president about inclusive equity when they were several beers deep during a raucous locker room celebration after beating Canada in the Gold Medal Game. (No, they’re not joking.)

The male hockey stars strolled into the gallery wearing their medals and basked in the enthusiastic chants of “USA!” The nearby press corps looked on in silence, but even some Democrats joined half-heartedly. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen them get up,” Trump quipped before also praising the USA women’s hockey team for winning Olympic gold. That got almost every Democrat on their feet. At least they could agree on something.

The rest of the speech went more or less as expected. Liberals denounced the “grotesque” spectacle and compared it to a “Klan rally.” The New York Times published a preemptive fact check. Democrats pouted and jeered when Trump described his administration’s efforts to crack down on their priorities—illegal immigration, crime, DEI programs, and Palestinian terrorism, among others. Rep. Al Green (D., Texas), the elderly crank thrown out of last year’s address to Congress for shouting and waving his can, was ejected within minutes for holding a sign that read, “Black People Aren’t Apes.” The way he was holding it, at times, with his hand covering an “A,” it read, “Black People Rent Apes.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) looked as though she was about to burst into tears or commit a violent crime. She shrieked intermittently along with her seatmate, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), who sported a “Fuck ICE” pin. They weren’t the only ones who ignored the advice of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.), who had urged Democrats to engage in “silent defiance.” Some opted to skip the speech and attend a sad alternative rally outside in the cold. “There are probably 75 people in this crowd, and I would say 35 of them are reporters,” the Daily Wire reported. Former MSNBC anchor Joy Reid attempted to sing at one point. It did not go well.

Trump was relatively disciplined throughout. He mostly stuck to the script rather than engage the hecklers, depriving them of the attention they craved. He took a long pause and milked the moment after inviting lawmakers to stand if they agreed that “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” Democrats stayed in their seats, obviously. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” he scolded.

Democrats stayed silent as Trump introduced Sage Blair, a young woman from Virginia who became embroiled in a lengthy legal dispute after school officials encouraged her to gender transition at age 14 without the consent of her parents. “These people are crazy, I’m telling you,” Trump said as Democrats declined to endorse his call to make sure it would never happen again.

Trump’s other guests were even more deserving of applause than the USA hockey team, but that didn’t stop Democrats from resisting with silence. They didn’t stand when the president addressed the parents of Iryna Zarutska, the 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee murdered on public transit by a “deranged monster” in Charlotte, N.C. They moped silently as Republicans cheered for Dalilah Coleman, a 7-year-old who overcame life-altering injuries from a car wreck caused by an illegal immigrant driving a semi-truck with a California license.

Trump vowed to uphold the “strong” state of the union by finding new ways to implement tariffs, which he credited with helping the stock market reach record highs on his watch. He slammed last week’s “unfortunate ruling” by the Supreme Court that limited his power to enact trade policy and predicted that his tariffs could eventually bring in enough money to “substantially replace” the income tax system. CNN’s top fact checker, Daniel Dale, posted frantically throughout the night.

Democratic heckles continued as Trump laid out his priorities for the coming months. He urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act, which would impose ID requirements for voting and other election reforms. Trump even chided his handsome pal, Zohran Mamdani, for requiring multiple forms of ID to shovel snow in New York City, but no ID to cast a ballot. “The only way they can get elected is to cheat, and we’re gonna stop it,” Trump said.

The president began by introducing the gold-medal winning hockey team and ended on a note of great patriotic feeling, too. He brought the house down by awarding Congressional Medals of Honor to one member of the Greatest Generation and one of Gen Z: retired Navy captain Royce Williams, a 100-year-old veteran of the Korean War, and Chief Warrant Officer Eric Slover, a helicopter pilot wounded in the operation to abduct Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. He also expressed frustration about being prohibited from giving himself the medal, which he has always wanted. “If they ever open up that law, I will be with you someday,” he told the recipients.

Finally, Trump warned the “terrible people” running Iran to abandon their “sinister ambitions” or face devastating consequences. Alas, he neglected to strike the regime during his speech as many had hoped.

Melania looked gorgeous as always, and Barron mogged.

READ MORE: Pride and Petulance: Trump Touts American Triumph as Democrats Seethe

It’s Friday, February 20, 2026

Quinn Hughes scored the game-winning goal in overtime to defeat Sweden and put the U.S. Olympic hockey team through to the semifinals. Credit to NBC News for asking a normal question about sports without immediately inviting the hero of the hour to denounce his country. Such is the bar for journalists these days, especially the “sports” ones who insist on making everything about politics—at least until a Democrat is president again.

“USA flags all over the place. You could hear the chants. What’s that atmosphere like?” the NBC reporter said. Credit to Hughes for giving a normal response. “I love the U.S.,” he said after putting the Swedes in their place. “It’s the greatest country in the world, so I’m happy to represent it here with these guys, and it’s really special.”

He’s right, obviously. America is the best country and deserves to be loved. Yes, it’s annoying when our Olympic athletes run their mouths about how “conflicted” they feel about representing the U.S. on the global stage. But no one cares what they think. Let’s not lose sight of the real villains here—all the preening journalists who are still mad about being bad at sports in high school. They’re almost as loathsome as Eileen Gu, the American-born ski dancer who gets paid to shill for Red China.

Communism could never make this:

Crucial context: Hughes is rumored to be dating Olivia Bonn, a semi-professional model and influencer.

Obama’s balls just got a little safer: Jesse Jackson, the self-promoting activist who pioneered the art of lurking behind the podium at press conferences and appearing on television during moments of national strife, died this week. He was 13 months older than Joe Biden. Among other things, Jackson was known for failing to conceal his jealousy in response to Barack Obama’s historic success in 2008. During one of his many televised appearances throughout the campaign, Jackson ran his mouth next to a live microphone and scolded Obama for “talking down” to black people. He even threatened to “cut his nuts off.”

Donald Trump praised Jackson as a “force of nature” who never got the credit he deserved for helping to elect “Barack Hussein Obama, a man who Jesse could not stand.” As a consequence of Jackson’s death, the Washington Free Beacon has lowered our official Obama Castration Threat Level from “High” (Orange) to “Elevated” (Yellow). Thank you for your attention to this matter!

As far as epitaphs go, it would be hard to find one more fitting than Marion Barry’s assessment of Jackson back in 1990—days before the D.C. mayor’s arrest on federal drug charges: “Jesse don’t want to run nothing but his mouth.” Truer words may have never been spoken by a disgraced crackhead, although Hunter Biden’s stirring condemnation of the Pod Save America bros—"Four white millionaires ... dining out on their association with Barack Obama from 16 years ago, living in Beverly fucking Hills"—is certainly in the running.

Jackson never found success in Democratic politics, but he will likely be remembered as a man ahead of his time. For example, he was denouncing Israel and yucking it up with Palestinian terrorists back in 1979—long before it was cool. At the rate things are going, future generations of Democratic presidential candidates will have more in common with Jesse Jackson than they do with the man he longed to neuter.

Speaking of Obama: His presidential center is almost finished, but still ugly as hell. It is expected to open later this year, almost a decade after he left office, for a total cost of just under a billion dollars—roughly three times the initial budget. The hideous structure is a fitting tribute to his colossal ego and the oblivious elitism that defined his presidency and fueled the rise of Donald Trump.

Justice for Jasmine: The Democratic establishment appears to have colluded with Stephen Colbert to concoct a conspiracy involving the Trump administration, CBS News, and total fascism. Colbert accused the network of banning his interview with James Talarico, a Democrat (obviously) who is running for U.S. Senate in Texas against congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. CBS didn’t ban anything. They just advised Colbert that federal “equal-time” rules meant that Colbert would likely have to interview Crockett as well. He declined—for reasons that can only be described as racism.

Talarico, a white baby-faced dweeb who once said “God is non-binary,” raised millions of dollars on the back of the phony scandal. Crockett, a pioneering woman of color, was told to stay in her place. Democrats really don’t want her to win the nomination, and it’s hardly the first time the party has gone out of its way to boost a boring white candidate over a black challenger with sass. In any other context, Democrats would describe what they are doing as “whiteness manifest“ or “literal violence” akin to “Jim Crow 6.0” or whatever version they’re up to now.

Stay safe, Jasmine!

This is what autocracy looks like: Do we live in America, or the Islamic Republic of Iran? Colbert’s buddy Jimmy Kimmel, who has also been victimized by fascist censorship, was somehow granted permission to appear at a Democratic fundraiser in Hollywood next month—but there’s a catch. Top-tier tickets cost just $310,100. Before Trump seized power and canceled democracy, Kimmel was headlining Democratic fundraisers with tickets as high as $500,000. That sound you hear? It’s darkness descending.

Speaking of Iran: Trump might be gearing up to drop some more big, beautiful bombs on the (actually) tyrannical regime. The prediction market Kalshi suggests there is a roughly 50 percent chance that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will be out of power by September, which seems a tad low for an 86-year-old who probably doesn’t get a lot of sunlight these days. Either way, it’s important to hear both sides. An exceedingly confident Iranian general said this week that the United States had already been “defeated” and “won’t be able to do a damn thing” militarily because of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and America’s looming wars against Canada and Mexico. Good luck to all!

Checking in on Gen Z: It turns out that Varis Gilaj, the Arizona State “frat leader” who brutally framemogged Clavicular—and proceeded to epically auramog the looksmaxxing influencer on a live stream with his foid—isn’t even in a fraternity. He was fraudmaxxing this whole time! No update yet on whether Varis was able to avoid a humiliating mog-off with Androgenic, the bonesmashmaxxing TeraChad from Australia. Stay tuned!

Related: Taylor Lorenz covers Gen Z but is technically a Baby Boomer. We’re not entirely sure how old she is. In any event, she was busted for plagiarism this week, which seems rather quaint compared to celebrating murder. As always, we hope she gets the help she needs and the attention she craves.

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Only death could silence Jesse Jackson. The relentlessly self-promoting culture warrior—who famously threatened to castrate Barack Obama during the 2008 election—finally fell quiet on Tuesday. He was 13 months older than Joe Biden.

Jackson parlayed his brief proximity to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into a semi-notable career as an omnipresent activist, political candidate, and opportunist. He never achieved success at the ballot box—failing twice to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988—but ultimately prevailed on the battlefield of ideas. Four decades later, Jackson’s brand of race-obsessed, Israel-hating grievance politics has entrenched itself as the Democratic Party’s prevailing orthodoxy.

Possessed of a messianic narcissism that alienated friends and foes alike, Jackson pioneered the art of hanging around the podium at press conferences and getting himself on camera in moments of national controversy. He stopped running for office in 1988, but never stopped sounding off. As Marion Barry, the former mayor of Washington, D.C., once said: “Jesse don’t want to run nothing but his mouth.” Truer words have never been spoken by a disgraced crackhead—with the possible exception of Hunter Biden’s eloquent condemnation of the Pod Save America bros.

Running his mouth routinely got Jackson into trouble—but also generated headlines—in a way most modern Democrats would appreciate. After meeting with Palestinian terror boss Yasser Arafat in 1979, he described support for Israel as a “poisonous weed that is choking Judaism.” Shortly after launching his first presidential campaign, Jackson used the derogatory term “Hymietown” to describe New York City’s Jewish population. In 1991, he helped his perennial frenemy, the formerly obese Rev. Al Sharpton, inflame tensions during the Crown Heights riot—the worst outburst of anti-Semitic violence in modern American history.

Jackson was eager to take credit for Barack Obama's success in the 2008 Democratic primary, but also struggled to contain his raging jealousy. One month after Hillary Clinton conceded the race, Jackson inevitably disgraced himself when a live microphone caught him lashing out at Obama for "talking down" to black people. "I want to cut his nuts off," Jackson said between takes during one of his many television appearances throughout the campaign. In a post mourning Jackson's death, President Donald Trump praised the iconic activist for his thankless effort to elect "Barack Hussein Obama, a man who Jesse could not stand."

Boasting close friendships with iconic figures such as Ted Kennedy, Michael Jackson, and Bill Cosby, Jackson fathered at least six children, including a daughter in 1999 after having an affair with one of his employees. His most notable son, Jesse Jackson Jr., served nine terms in the House of Representatives before resigning in 2012 to serve a 30-month sentence in federal prison for misusing campaign funds to the tune of $750,000.

Days after then-president Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter in 2024, Jackson formally requested a pardon for Jesse Jr. Biden (hilariously) denied the request while granting pardons or commutations to a motley array of drug lords, Ponzi schemers, and corrupt officials—including a Pennsylvania judge who accepted $2 million in illegal kickbacks for funneling juveniles to for-profit detention centers. Undeterred, Jesse Jr. is now running to represent his old seat in this year’s midterms.

Jackson Sr., meanwhile, leaves behind a complicated political legacy that has influenced the direction of both major parties. Donald Trump took over the Republican Party and won (at least) two national elections by embracing Jackson’s bombastic style and empathy for low-income, low-education Americans—what Jackson called the “disrespected” and “despised” segments of society. Democrats, on the other hand, have adopted Jackson’s hatred of Israel and obsession with racial grievance while transforming themselves into a party of overeducated elites.

As much as Jackson’s style of politics has come to dominate the Democratic Party, his old-school radicalism has been supplanted in some cases by the “warmth of collectivism” and other trendier alternatives. He helped popularize the term African American in an effort to promote cultural heritage. It is rarely used these days in favor of “people of color,” which is viewed as more progressive for reasons no normal person would understand. Jackson’s memorable rallying cry throughout the 1980s—”keep hope alive”—seems almost quaint today amid the doomsaying revenge porn rhetoric from similarly ambitious Democrats in 2026.

A chilling thought: He might be missed.

READ MORE: Jesse Jackson, Activist Who Threatened To Castrate Barack Obama, Dead at 84

You’ve probably never heard of James Cox “Fergie” Chambers Jr., but that’s OK. There isn’t much to know that can’t be gleaned from a cursory description or even photos of his “edgy” tattoos glorifying communist tyrants. Have you ever wondered what would happen if the most annoying person you know won the lottery? Fergie Chambers is what.

Chambers, 40, inherited a nine-figure fortune from his family’s business empire, Cox Enterprises. He uses it to sustain a cushy lifestyle while he incessantly rails against the evils of bourgeois capitalism and (obviously) the Jews. He is constantly denouncing his own family—longtime patrons of the Democratic Party who want nothing to do with him. Each year he devotes a small fraction of his vast wealth to various left-wing projects—a Marxist commune for listless hipsters here, a gang of anti-Semitic vandals there.

For some reason, Chambers is the subject of a new documentary, All About the Money, by Irish filmmaker Sinéad O’Shea. It debuted last week at the Sundance Film Festival, where rich protesters and even richer celebrities joined forces to denounce ICE. In front of the camera, Chambers is exactly as expected. He’s an ill-tempered nut job who loves to talk about himself. He rants nonsensically about politics with the confidence of a stoned college freshman. Think Hunter Biden, minus the charisma and zeal for a good time. He’s a car crash you’d slow down to gawk at, but you wouldn’t stop to help.

“All of the spaces in this country are totally dominated by reactionary culture,” Chambers says at one point about his plan to start a martial arts studio exclusively for communist revolutionaries. When the documentary crew started following him, Chambers was in the process of launching this gym for the freeloading residents of his marijuana compound in rural Massachusetts. They hosted study sessions on urban guerrilla warfare in between jiu-jitsu classes. Some of them like watching football on TV, but feel guilty about supporting capitalism. The struggle is real.

The film opens years later on an entirely different scene. Chambers is holed up in a lavish hotel suite in Ireland. He smokes out the window and laments the state of his investment in a pro-Hamas soccer team in Tunisia, where he fled to escape criminal charges and converted to Islam. The commune has fizzled, the gym has shut down, and several of his comrades were jailed for vandalizing an Israeli defense contractor’s offices after the Oct. 7 attack. He’s even richer than he was before—thanks to his capitalist investment portfolio—but just as bored.

All About the Money follows Chambers on his inevitable path to nowhere in particular. Hamas incites the action by slaughtering Jews and inspiring Western leftists to protest Israel. Chambers springs to life like a dog bounding after a tennis ball. To channel his support for the “glorious” terrorists, Chambers starts funding Palestine Action US, a radical activist group that condones murder. He plays a role in the group’s attack on Elbit Systems, the Israel-based defense firm, then runs away to avoid the consequences. One of his female serfs was not so lucky, and the limits of Chambers’s generosity are tested. She’s packing a bag for jail; he’s thinking about going back to school to study religion.

The film is not a fawning portrayal. That would be impossible. It is a portrait of a wayward scion, but not much else. O’Shea asks some sensible questions off camera, but rarely challenges Chambers’s worldview from an interesting perspective. She shares his disdain for Israel, having pledged last year to boycott Israeli film companies “implicated in genocide & apartheid against the Palestinian people.” At a Q&A following the Sundance screening, O’Shea said that Chambers, who openly supports terrorism, was “probably having less of a negative impact than an awful lot of billionaires.”

O’Shea was clearly eager to convey a meaningful point about the all-corrupting influence of money—that even rich communists can be corrupted by capitalist privilege. The film’s soundtrack is dark, ominous, and sinister. Evil must be lurking somewhere close. At the Q&A, O’Shea said she admired Chambers for his lack of discretion compared to other semi-billionaires, as though his willingness to appear in a documentary about himself was a bold political statement rather than a symptom of his grandiose self-regard. There are plenty of narcissists who don’t have trust funds.

In what is supposed to be a powerful moment of self-reflection, O’Shea invites Chambers to agree with her premise—that people should fear him because he’s rich. Chambers doesn’t hesitate. Of course people should fear him, he says. He’s an “extremely wealthy member of the white American bourgeoisie.” How brave! How refreshing! Most normal viewers would agree he should be feared—because he’s crazy.

The mystique wears thin in Ireland, where Chambers pretends to be embarrassed by the opulence of his hotel. He has called the film crew back because he “wanted to talk,” and proceeds to recount his tormented childhood, being raped in an insane asylum, whoring himself out for drugs. “I have wondered if maybe [this] could be seen to distract from things you’ve said and done,” she tells him, disappointed.

What’s left is the story of a disturbed man with pallets of cash that keep him from ever hitting rock bottom hard enough to seek help. Does it give us any broad insight into the failings of capitalism? Not really. O’Shea was kind enough to let Chambers watch the film before its debut at Sundance. He wasn’t a fan. The film concludes with an end card explaining that Chambers “offered to cover the film’s production budget plus a cash payment to the film’s director to prevent it being screened.”

Clearly, she wasn’t afraid to say no.

READ MORE: Das Kapital Gains

It’s Friday, February 13, 2026

Rest in peace, John Ekdahl—one of the only people on the planet who ever posted anything worth reading on social media. He would have found it grimly amusing that Hillary Clinton, of all people, managed to outlive him—thanks in no small part to her precision-engineered exoskeleton suits and military-grade steroid regimen, which she eventually shared with Joe Biden as part of a secret multilateral transaction to expedite the “suicide” of Jeffrey Epstein.

John’s tireless research and self-taught medical expertise were instrumental in shaping the Washington Free Beacon’s award-snubbed reporting on Hillary’s acute health challenges and the sophisticated measures she deployed to conceal them. He was among the first to notice the old person’s walker that Hillary used to steady herself on the cover of People magazine in 2014. We started a semi-regular podcast segment to discuss our medical findings and exoskeleton theories. We endured relentless condemnation from partisan hacks who refused to “follow the science.”

The world is a less tolerable place without him.

Related: Philippe Gaulier also died this week. He was best known as the charismatic French clown interviewed by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton in the first episode of Gutsy, their poorly reviewed Apple TV+ series about “trailblazing women.” Here’s a snippet of their delightful conversation.

Hillary: “Philippe, what’s the difference for a woman in comedy than a man in comedy? Can they do the same thing?”

French clown [preposterous French accent]: “Comedy is OK, but clown is more difficult.”

Hillary: “Yes!”

French clown: “Because if you are young boy, you can hold your costume is completely dirty. Your mother still love you.”

Hillary: “Mmmm.”

It’s even funnier when you consider the fact that Hillary thought she would be president someday.

Super Bowl recap: Glad the Patriots lost, but I refuse to have an opinion about a rapper named “Bad Bunny.” Life’s too short. Also, California sucks. Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold got a $178,000 bonus for winning the Super Bowl, but because California taxes pro athletes for merely setting foot in the state, he now owes $249,000 to Gavin Newsom’s treasury, where it will be instantly incinerated. Newsom recently bragged about completing all the “prep work” on California’s high-speed rail project. They are finally (almost) ready to start laying track. It only took them 18 years and $15 billion to get there. Hell of a thing to be proud of.

Winter Olympics recap: You do not, under any circumstances, gotta hand it to the ChiComs. MS NOW host Nicolle Wallace and others praised the courage of the U.S. athletes who denounced Donald Trump at the Olympics this week. That includes Eileen Gu, the American-born Stanford student competing for China. She freely criticizes the United States and is often encouraged to do so by so-called sports journalists. She has not expressed any disapproving opinions about China’s government, which recently sentenced a pro-democracy activist, Jimmy Lai, to 20 years in prison for sedition. That would require actual courage.

Journalists are the worst: Americans don’t agree on much these days, but on this they are nearly unanimous. A recent Pew survey found that just 6 percent of Americans had a “great deal of confidence” in journalists to “act in the best interests of the public.” Almost 60 percent said they had either no confidence or “not too much,” which seems shockingly low, but still—something to keep in mind amid the chorus of lamentations over the Washington Post layoffs and the broader, inexorable decline of legacy media outlets.

Speaking of which, CNN has lost nearly two-thirds of its primetime audience since 2016. After averaging about 1.3 million viewers at the dawn of the Trump era, the network’s primetime slate is struggling to pull in half a million. As per usual, the vast majority of these viewers were past or nearing retirement age. That doesn’t bode well for CNN’s long-term viability, but for now it gives the nursing staff something to put on in the common room while they clean the bed pans.

There are numerous examples from this week alone of the mainstream media beclowning themselves and torching what’s left of their credibility.

Axios: Posted (then deleted) a headline about how violent crime was falling in major cities “despite Trump’s crackdown rhetoric.”

New Yorker: Suggested that by expressing support for “personal liberties and free markets,” Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos had “exhorted” the paper’s opinion section to “cheerlead for … Trumpism.”

Washington Post: The supposedly indispensable sports section kicked off its Super Bowl coverage with an ode to Colin Kaepernick, describing him (without evidence) as “the most relevant figure” heading into the big game. The article quoted no fewer than four university professors who specialize in social justice issues.

CBS News: One of the network’s producers, Alicia Hastey, sent a lengthy farewell note after taking a buyout. A New York Times reporter called it a “bombshell,” but most normal Americans would regard it as an angsty screed. (Yes, of course she quoted Walter Cronkite.) The producer complained that, under Bari Weiss’s tyrannical rule, some stories may be “evaluated not just on their journalistic merit” but also on their adherence to certain “ideological expectations.” You know, the sort of thing that has never happened before at a mainstream news outlet. Former CBS anchor Dan Rather, for example, would never let ideology supersede his journalistic integrity. Neither would the CBS editors who approved this headline praising Joe Biden’s “grandfatherly appeal” as an “asset.” It was published 10 months after the president attempted to converse with a dead woman.

Various and sundry: Numerous outlets are refusing to misgender the mentally ill “female” who defied gender norms and made history as perhaps the first Canadian “woman” to commit a mass shooting. Police in Canada, who have been known to perform land acknowledgments at press conferences, invented a new word—“gunperson”—to describe the killer.

Wall Street Journal: The paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning auto critic, Dan Neil, opened his thumbs-down review of the new Ford F-250 pickup with a remarkable display of sneering condescension. He compared Americans who enjoy large gas-powered trucks to Hermann Göring, the Nazi commander and Gestapo founder whose “martial flamboyance” fueled speculation that he was secretly gay. No, we’re not kidding.

It reminded us of one of John Ekdahl’s most infamous tweets, in which he merely asked if journalists personally knew anyone who owns a pickup truck. They didn’t, obviously, but that didn’t stop them from acting offended.

Clever subhead TK: Primary voters in Texas appear poised to nominate Jasmine Crockett for U.S. Senate. Recent polling shows the long-mouthed congresswoman with a sizable lead over James Talarico, the baby-faced Bible expert who thinks Jesus is pro-choice and God is non-binary. Crockett may win despite barely trying. She’s been outspent almost 20-to-1 on political ads and doesn’t appear to have a campaign manager, NOTUS reports. The most memorable thing she’s done so far is amplify shameless accusations of racism against her opponent.

With several weeks to go before the election, Crockett finally outlined a platform on her campaign website. It was almost certainly written by a child using AI. The section of health insurance boasted of providing full coverage for “prescription medications and therapiesWrite out your bullet points here. Anything from a sentence to a paragraph works.” Her latest campaign ad, exclusively obtained by the Free Beacon, is even shoddier.

Not so shocking turn of events: Turns out the founder of “Hot Girls for Zohran” is a schlubby dude named Kaif Gilani who has a history of denouncing Israel (for murdering JFK, among other things) and sympathizing with Hamas. Who would’ve thought?

Accidental self-reflection of the week: Nick Fuentes, the anti-Semitic influencer, incel provocateur, and “Nazi twink,” recently went clubbing with a group of other far-right freaks. The video footage was so depressing it almost made us feel bad for Hitler. This week Fuentes made a compelling point about his so-called movement, and we couldn’t help but agree. “The [white nationalist] movement has just been captured by losers and idiots,” he said. “I f—ing hate these people.” At this rate, he’s going to have a better chance at winning the 2028 Democratic nomination than Pete Buttigieg.

Palate cleanser: France beat the United States at ice dancing, which should never happen—but it’s ice dancing, so who cares? In any event, one could plausibly argue that the French duo—Laurence Fournier Beaudry and her male partner—deserved to win. Congrats to all who participated!

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It’s Friday, February 6, 2026

We regret to inform you that the celebrities are at it again. Gen-Z pop star Billie Eilish made headlines at the Grammys by—get this—denouncing a Republican administration. “No one is illegal on stolen land,” the multimillionaire proclaimed with unyielding courage. “F— ICE is all I want to say.” Eilish owns a $3 million gated mansion in Los Angeles that sits on the ancestral lands of the Tongva tribe, whose members said the singer has yet to reach out to discuss the return of their stolen property. Given that Eilish’s award for Best Song was administered on stolen land, in recognition of a song she recorded on stolen land, it doesn’t seem fair for her to keep that, either. As a wise man once said: “You didn’t build that.”

Eilish wasn’t the only celeb brave enough to speak out against immigration enforcement. Music producer Jack Antonoff wore an “ICE Out” pin on his leather jacket, but does not seem to have considered the possibility that someone would ask him to explain what it means. “This is terrible, you know?” he said in response to a Variety reporter’s softball question. “It’s time to—for every reason you could imagine, I would think. But, um, yeah, I’m a bit speechless trying to even talk about it... I don’t know, it’s just a really good time for, uh, people to come together and figure out how to move through this.”

It brings to mind Ricky Gervais’s timeless advice at the 2020 Golden Globes: “If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a political platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg.”

Crucial context: Antonoff’s rambling nonsense notwithstanding, he still deserves credit for orchestrating one of the greatest relationship upgrades of all time. He started dating his wife—actress Margaret Qualley, daughter of Andie MacDowell—in 2021, less than four years after breaking up with his longtime girlfriend Lena Dunham. Congrats!

You have got to be f—ing joking: It really is starting to feel like 2020 all over again. Black country singer Shaboozey also caused a stir while accepting an award at the Grammys. After making history and finally realizing a lifelong dream, the singer was forced to issue a statement in response to online lunatics who denounced him for saying “immigrants built this country” during Black History Month. No, we are not making this up. “To be clear, I know and believe that we—Black people, have also built this country,” he said. “My words were never intended to dismiss that truth.” Alas, Shaboozey neglected to mention the contribution of Native Americans or affirm that nothing can truly be “built” on colonized land. Get it together, man.

Speaking of 2020: Here’s a real example of something Joe Biden’s digital team wanted him to tweet from the official campaign account after George Floyd’s death, according to a former aide. The extent to which the Democratic Party is run by internet-addicted theater kids is widely known, but still underappreciated.

Democracy exhumed, murdered again: The Washington Post laid off a third of its staff this week in an effort to stop losing $100 million a year. Journalists flooded their social media feeds with heartbreaking lamentations and accusations of fascist cruelty. Former Post reporter Ashley Parker fought back tears while hugging a stranger on the D.C. Metro; she was still coming to terms with the “murder” she had witnessed. New York Times columnist Nikole Hannah-Jones offered a stark assessment. “We are in the midst of a racial reckoning,” she wrote. “This one purging all the gains of the former and then some.” She was referring to 2020 (obvi).

Many recalled democracy’s prior death in 2024, when the paper’s owner—Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—ended the (pointless) practice of endorsing presidential candidates. It died again in 2025 after Bezos spoke out in support of “personal liberties” and “free markets.” Now it’s even deader. In the meantime, our esteemed journalists—noble guardians of the pillars of unvarnished truth—should be just fine. If America’s coal miners and factory workers can learn to code and get retrained to build solar panels or mop the floors at AI data centers, there’s hope for everyone. Good luck to all!

Jim Crow 4.0 (on steroids): Democrats are really doing this again. They’re denouncing Republicans for trying to pass wildly popular voter ID requirements. More than 80 percent of Americans—including 71 percent of Democrats—support the measure. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has once again accused the GOP of pushing “Jim Crow-type laws” to advance their racist agenda. So, let’s recap:

• Jim Crow 1.0 (1877-1965): A system of legally codified racial segregation, often backed by violence, and laws restricting the rights of black Americans to vote.

• Jim Crow 2.0, aka “Jim Crow on steroids,” aka “Jim Eagle” (2021): The state of Georgia passed a law expanding access to early voting and rolling back emergency measures implemented at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Black turnout surged as a result.

• Jim Crow 3.0 (2023): The state of Florida refused to accept an AP African American studies course that it considered rife with progressive ideology and superfluous sections on “queer theory,” among other things.

• Jim Crow 4.0 (2026): Republicans want to pass a law mandating ID requirements for voting nationwide, which the vast majority of Americans support.

These are not serious people. There’s a reason they keep losing to Donald Trump.

Speaking of unserious people: Former CNN host Don Lemon was arrested last week for tagging along with a group of anti-ICE protesters who stormed a church in Minneapolis. Lemon’s new YouTube channel is going gangbusters as a result (in case the Washington Post needs ideas for how to thrive in this media environment). Lemon’s defenders have even less shame than the man himself. Most of them just compared it to slavery. Joy Behar, co-host of The View, went even further. She said arresting Lemon was akin to arresting an American journalist for taking pictures of Nazi concentration camps. Seriously.

The warmth of collectivism: Here’s a list of things New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani has managed to accomplish in recent days while his city remained covered in snow and garbage:

• Launch a “Global Oppression Working Group” to highlight the “genocide” in Gaza.

• Source a customized Carhartt jacket to wear at press conferences.

• Celebrate World Hijab Day to honor the “powerful symbol of devotion.”

• Promote the city’s hotline offering free legal support to Haitian immigrants.

• Visit a man in the hospital who was shot by police after charging at an officer with a knife.

The tender embrace of suicidal empathy: New York was nice while it lasted.

Related: Read Aaron Sibarium’s report about how the Democrats in Prince George’s County, Md., let a drug-infested homeless encampment destroy a local condo complex and made life miserable for its residents. In the name of being “compassionate,” county officials are suing to evict condo owners who complain about the squalor—most of them poor and non-white—while local police refuse to get involved to avoid “criminalizing the unhoused.” It’s insane.

Speaking of Democrats: The Epstein files aren’t doing them any favors.

Super Bowl scouting report: The big game is this weekend. As with most athletic contests, it’ll most likely come down to who can score the most points. That said, one should never discount the role that WAGs (wives and girlfriends) play in propelling their respective teams to victory. Go Seahawks!

Natalie Lock (Seattle QB Drew Lock’s wife)

Mackenzie Mae Cole (Seattle WR Jake Bobo’s fiancée)

X: @AndrewStilesUSA

Email: stiles@freebeacon.com

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It’s Friday, January 30, 2026

It’s been almost a week since Alex Pretti was killed by Border Patrol agents. It feels like several months. The dystopian madness feels unending, and the ever-increasing prevalence of AI makes everything worse. Fortunately, we can all take comfort in the fact that this life-changing technology is being engineered by the same people who assured us that social media and smartphones would make the world a better place.

Within days of his death, protesters and media outlets—including the network formerly known as MSNBC—began sharing a photo of Pretti that had been digitally altered to make him appear more attractive and clean-cut. Then another “AI-enhanced” image started making the rounds of Pretti being shot by a Border Patrol agent whose partner was missing a head. Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) displayed it on the Senate floor.

Journalists and other professional Democrats were characteristically nuanced in response. Minnesota governor Tim Walz (D.) compared the unrest in his state to the Battle of Fort Sumter. You know, the battle that sparked the U.S. Civil War after a group of rogue states revolted against the duly elected president, tried to nullify federal law, and demanded the removal of Union troops from their territory.

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman compared ICE agents to Hamas terrorists, an idea that presumably came to him while sharing a helicopter taxi with a whip-smart Chinese diplomat on the way to a climate conference in Doha. Elliot Forhan, a Democrat running for attorney general in Ohio, announced he was going to “kill Donald Trump” by securing a capital conviction resulting in his execution.

Most distressingly of all, the Washington Post reported that the moderator of r/catbongos, the Reddit forum dedicated to “videos of people playing their cats like drums,” proclaimed that anyone who supported Trump or ICE “even slightly” was no longer welcome in the online community. The moderators of r/divorcedpuzzlefreaks and r/breadstapledtotrees have yet to weigh in.

In a related development, Zohran Mamdani said he plans to become a cat owner.

By the way: Does anyone in Minneapolis have a job, children to look after, or anything better to do? Is the entire population getting by on welfare fraud? Since ICE arrived earlier this month, the rogue city has fielded an army of guerrilla activists, furnished them with whistles, and trained them to obstruct federal law enforcement officers by behaving obnoxiously. They operate under the command of Will Stancil, a 40-year-old manchild with four university degrees, a beat-up Honda Fit, and no discernible occupation.

You gotta hand it to the Nazis: You don’t, actually. But that has been the driving message of the liberal backlash to the immigration enforcement operation (itself a backlash to years of Democratic non-enforcement). “Do not compare ICE or Border Patrol agents to the Nazis,” Stephen Colbert said on his soon-to-be-canceled comedy show. “That’s an unfair comparison. The Nazis were willing to show their faces.” Sure. That and the total body count, among other things. If ICE wasn’t so lazy and undisciplined, they could be halfway to (checks notes) 40 million by now.

To be fair, not all liberals think that deporting illegal immigrants is worse than what the Nazis did. Most of them will concede, however grudgingly, that Trump is merely as bad as Adolf Hitler. Jake Tapper interviewed a Minnesota activist who insisted that ICE agents were operating “concentration camps,” but eventually conceded that the Trump administration was not “putting people into ovens—yet.” Another reason the comparison is unfair, LOL.

Lesbian tech bro Kara Swisher and NYU professor Scott Galloway gabbed on their podcast about the similarities between Trump officials and the Nazi regime. Swisher said that White House adviser Stephen Miller will “go down in history as evil,” and compared him to Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS terror squads that carried out the Holocaust. Galloway argued for “something equivalent to the Nuremberg trials,” where 10 Nazi officials were executed by hanging. These comments recall the unfathomable courage of all the German elites who publicly denounced Nazi leaders at the height of World War II. The comparisons are striking.

Reminder: We are 1 year and 9 days into Trump’s second term. Things have not gotten as stupid as they are going to get.

Speaking of (actual) Nazis: Kelly Neumann, a prominent Democratic fundraiser in Michigan, is under fire for a 2024 Facebook post honoring her grandfather on Veterans Day. It wouldn’t have caused such an uproar but for the fact that her grandfather, Albert Neumann, served in Hitler’s Wehrmacht before fleeing to Brazil after the war. “He was one of the first people in my life that accepted me as gay when I was nervous and scared,” Neumann wrote. “His story is a true testament that people can change and love indeed can win.”

Neumann, a successful “slip-and-fall” attorney who co-chairs the finance committees for U.S. Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow and gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson, is currently recruiting plaintiffs for lawsuits against ICE.

Never gonna happen: Pete Buttigieg will never be president. Trust us, we were right about Hillary Clinton. According to a recent poll from Echelon Insights, the sentient boat shoe is still pulling a goose egg with black voters. Zero percent. That’s a recipe for disaster in the Democratic primary, especially given the likelihood that South Carolina will be the first state to vote in 2028. On the bright side, it’s not any worse than Buttigieg’s poll numbers from 2020, when he consistently won a “statistically insignificant” share of the black vote. He’s gonna need a miracle at this rate.

A happy ending: This week marked the 47th anniversary of Nelson Rockefeller’s death. The oil scion, affectionately known as “Rocky,” served as governor of New York and as vice president of the United States under Gerald Ford. He died at age 70 after suffering a heart attack in the company of his 25-year-old aide, Megan Marshack. A man for all eternity.

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