Chris Newq

Thank you, @RepJeffries, for doubling down on stupid. Truly. I did not think it was physically possible to say less with more words, but here you are -- a man of relentless achievement. I want to be clear about something before I continue: I do not fully blame you for this post. I mean that. You are not the architect here. You are the instrument. The Democratic machine needed a high-visibility face to walk out and read the approved statement with conviction, and you were the one they pointed at. You are the windsock. The party provides the wind. You just face whichever direction they need you to face today. It is not personal. It is just your function. The blatherskite on the marquee while the real decisions happen somewhere you probably are not invited. But since your name is on the statement, your name gets the response. So. Let us go. "CORRUPT SUPREME COURT DECISION." A 6-3 decision applying the 14th Amendment -- the one Republicans passed in 1868 over Democratic opposition, while your party was busy arguing that Black Americans were property -- is now "corrupt." Because it went a way you did not prefer. Somewhere out there is a tree tirelessly producing oxygen so you can say things like that out loud. It is owed an apology. A formal, written apology. Possibly flowers. The Court in Louisiana v. Callais applied a precedent established in Shaw v. Reno in 1993. Thirty-two years old. Nobody repealed it. The ruling says you cannot make race the PREDOMINANT factor in drawing a district without meeting strict scrutiny. The same Equal Protection standard applies to EVERYONE. Every voice. Equally. Which is, I believe, what your statement claims to want -- until it applies to everyone, at which point it becomes "corrupt." The wheel is spinning but the hamster has absolutely left the building. "THE UNFETTERED RIGHT TO VOTE." Now, I want to pause on "unfettered." Because you are using that word to mean "without verification." And that is a remarkable position from a man who required photo ID for his own congressional town halls. I checked. It is documented. The same @RepJeffries who calls voter ID "voter suppression" at the podium was handing out lanyards only to people who could prove who they were at his own events. If brains were dynamite, that level of self-awareness couldn't blow its nose. "REPUBLICAN EXTREMISTS HAVE EMBRACED VOTER SUPPRESSION AND RACIAL GERRYMANDERING." Let me tell you about the history of gerrymandering, Congressman, since your elevator appears to be stuck between floors on this particular topic. The word "gerrymander" was coined in 1812. Named after Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party -- Thomas Jefferson's party, your party's direct ancestor. He drew a state senate district so contorted to deny Federalists their seats that a Boston cartoonist said it looked like a salamander. Gerry plus salamander. Gerrymander. Two hundred and fourteen years later, your party allies in Virginia are attempting to redraw that state's congressional map from 6-to-5 to 10-to-1 in a state that votes roughly 50/50. Barack Obama filmed advertisements for it. Democrats outspent opponents on the referendum three to one. You are the party that INVENTED it, is STILL DOING IT right now, in 2026, and is standing at a microphone calling the other side extremists for it. That is not a logical fallacy. That is a personality trait. Quinn's Law Number Two, recited for the class: if you want to know what liberals are up to, pay attention to what they accuse conservatives of doing. Set. Your. Watch. Now about your own voting record, since we are here. You voted 29 times for a clean Continuing Resolution. Then on vote number 30, the IDENTICAL document became "a partisan bill gutting healthcare." You could not find the same position twice with a map and a flashlight. Your belt demonstrably does not go through all the loops on this one. You voted to let ACA COVID subsidies expire. Twice. 2021. 2022. Zero Republican votes wrote those subsidies. Zero Republican votes set the expiration date. Democrats built the sunset clause and then blamed Republicans when the sun set. You know who does that? Someone who, in a battle of wits, arrives completely unarmed. "THE EXTREMISTS NEED TO CHEAT TO WIN." I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and cough up a more coherent statement than that. Let me ask the three-question test I give every politician making claims about legislation: Which of the following is true about your statement today? One: you did not read the actual ruling and are simply performing the talking points your leadership handed you on the way to the microphone. Two: you read it but lack the legal comprehension to understand what the Equal Protection Clause has said since 1993. Or three: you understand it perfectly and are deliberately deceiving the people who sent you to Congress. Pick one, Congressman. Those are the only doors. There is no fourth option. "WE WILL NOT REST UNTIL THE JOHN R. LEWIS VOTING RIGHTS ADVANCEMENT ACT IS THE LAW OF THE LAND." I want to address this specifically because invoking John Lewis's name while your party draws a 10-to-1 map in Virginia is the most spectacular species of audacity I have encountered outside of a parody account. John Lewis marched for equal access to the ballot. Not for racial sorting. Not for the right of one party to pack voters by color into engineered districts that serve the party's electoral interests. He marched so that every American of every background could participate in a FAIR process. What your party is doing in Virginia is not honoring John Lewis. It is using his name as camouflage. And while I have you: 76% of Black Americans support voter ID. Not 76% of conservatives. Not 76% of Republicans. BLACK AMERICANS. 80% of Hispanic Americans. 80% of white Americans. The Carter-Baker Commission -- bipartisan, Jimmy Carter himself commissioned it in 2005 -- listed voter ID as recommendation number ONE. When you say voter ID is voter suppression, you are telling 76% of Black Americans that their own opinion about protecting their own vote is wrong. That is not advocacy. That is condescension with a press release attached. You are the human version of a 404 error on a question that had a clear answer thirty years ago. Here is what you have NOT said a word about, for the record: Thirty-two murders across all five New York City boroughs in early 2026. Your constituent-adjacent body count. Zero posts. But a Supreme Court ruling that applies Equal Protection equally to everyone generates a formal press release within the hour. "All foam, no beer" does not begin to cover what I am watching. One last thing, since I am a science teacher and I do like completeness. You said "the era of voter suppression in America." You are standing in the party that filibustered the Civil Rights Act for 75 calendar days. You are standing in the party whose senator Robert Byrd -- KKK recruiter, 150-man chapter founder, "conscience of the Senate" as your colleagues called him -- led a 14-hour filibuster against it on the Senate floor. You are standing in the party that ran paramilitary organizations -- the Klan, the White League, the Red Shirts -- that lynched Black voters at polling places and burned Black Republican precincts to suppress votes for nearly a hundred years. Your party INVENTED the era you are claiming to be ending. That is not a partisan attack. That is the Congressional Record. I do not fully blame you, Congressman. I said that at the top and I meant it. You are a man of limited intellectual horsepower being asked to carry very heavy rhetorical freight. The machine chose you for this role. You serve the function the machine requires. The pilgarlic on the poster while the real architects stay off camera. But since your name is on the statement, your name goes on the receipt too. @JoJoFromJerz @TheYoungTurks @catturd2 @GuntherEagleman -- I just need you all to witness that @RepJeffries called racial Equal Protection enforcement "corruption" while his party is literally drawing a 10-to-1 map in Virginia this week. Donating his brain to science before he was done with it. IF you agree: LIKE this post so the algorithm shows it to people who need to read it. SHARE this. COMMENT below -- which part of @RepJeffries' statement was the most weapons-grade stupid? The "corruption" claim, the gerrymandering accusation from the party that invented gerrymandering, or the voter ID rhetoric that 76% of Black Americans disagree with? Tell me. And if you want MORE of this -- the data, the history, the science, the stories -- JOIN Bski's Classroom community on X or YouTube. But what do I know -- I am only a science teacher who apparently spent more time reading Louisiana v. Callais, the 14th Amendment, and @RepJeffries' own voting record than @RepJeffries did before issuing a statement calling the Constitution corrupt. #MAGA #Veterans #Trump

Elon Musk avait dit un truc qui m'avait marqué sur l'allocation de ressources. En substance : passé un certain niveau de richesse, l'argent n'est plus de la consommation, c'est de l'allocation de capital. Cette phrase change tout. L'économie, dans le fond, c'est juste un problème d'allocation. Tu as des ressources finies et des usages infinis. Qui décide où va quoi ? Imagine une cour de récré. 100 enfants, des paquets de cartes Pokémon distribués au hasard. Tu laisses faire. Très vite, un ordre émerge. Les bons joueurs accumulent les cartes rares, les collectionneurs trient, les négociateurs trouvent des deals. Personne n'a planifié. Et pourtant chaque carte finit dans les mains de celui qui en tire le plus de valeur. Le système maximise le bonheur total de la cour. C'est ça, la main invisible. Maintenant fais entrer la maîtresse. Elle trouve ça injuste. Léo a 50 cartes, Tom en a 3. Elle confisque, redistribue, impose l'égalité. Trois effets immédiats. Les bons joueurs arrêtent de jouer, à quoi bon. Les mauvais n'ont plus de raison de progresser, ils auront leur part. Les échanges s'effondrent. La cour est égale, et morte. Elle a maximisé l'égalité, elle a détruit le bonheur. Le problème de la maîtresse, c'est qu'elle ne peut pas avoir l'information que la cour avait collectivement. C'est le problème du calcul économique de Mises, formulé en 1920. L'URSS a essayé de le résoudre pendant 70 ans avec le Gosplan. Résultat : pénuries, queues, effondrement. Pas parce que les Soviétiques étaient bêtes, parce que le problème est mathématiquement insoluble en mode centralisé. Quand Musk a 200 milliards, il ne les consomme pas, il les alloue. SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, xAI. Chaque dollar est un pari sur le futur. Et lui a un track record. PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX. Il a démontré qu'il sait identifier des problèmes immenses et y allouer des ressources avec un rendement spectaculaire. L'État aussi a un track record. Hôpitaux qui s'effondrent, éducation qui décline, dette qui explose, services publics qui se dégradent malgré des budgets en hausse constante. Le marché identifie les bons allocateurs, la politique identifie les bons communicants. Le profit n'est pas une finalité, c'est un signal. Il dit : tu as alloué des ressources rares vers un usage que les gens valorisent suffisamment pour payer. Plus le profit est gros, plus la création de valeur est grande. Quand Starlink est rentable, ça veut dire que des millions de gens dans des zones rurales ont enfin internet. Quand un ministère est en déficit, ça veut dire qu'il consomme plus qu'il ne produit. L'un crée, l'autre détruit, et on appelle ça redistribution. Dans nos sociétés il y a deux catégories d'acteurs. Les entrepreneurs et les bureaucrates. L'entrepreneur prend un risque personnel pour identifier un problème, mobiliser des ressources, créer une solution. S'il se trompe il perd. S'il a raison, ses clients gagnent, ses employés gagnent, ses fournisseurs gagnent, l'État collecte des impôts. Il est la cellule de base du progrès humain. Le bureaucrate ne prend aucun risque personnel. Son salaire est garanti. Au mieux il maintient une rente existante. Au pire il la détruit par excès de réglementation, mauvaise allocation forcée, incitations perverses qui découragent ceux qui produisent. Mais dans aucun cas il ne crée. Regarde les 50 dernières années. iPhone, internet civil, SpaceX, Tesla, Google, Amazon, Stripe, mRNA, ChatGPT. Toutes des inventions privées, portées par des entrepreneurs, financées par du capital risque. Pas un seul ministère n'a inventé quoi que ce soit qui ait changé ta vie au quotidien. La France est devenue le laboratoire mondial de la dérive bureaucratique. 57% du PIB en dépenses publiques, record absolu. Une administration tentaculaire, une fiscalité qui pénalise la création de richesse. Résultat : décrochage face aux États-Unis, à l'Allemagne, à la Suisse. Fuite des cerveaux. Désindustrialisation. Dette qui explose. Et le pire c'est que la mauvaise allocation s'auto-renforce. Plus l'État prélève, moins les entrepreneurs créent. Moins ils créent, moins il y a de base fiscale. Plus l'État s'endette et taxe. Boucle de rétroaction négative parfaite. La maîtresse pense qu'elle aide, et chaque année la cour produit moins. Dans nos sociétés, ce sont les entrepreneurs, toujours, qui font avancer la civilisation. Les bureaucrates au mieux maintiennent une rente, au pire la détruisent. Aucune société n'a jamais progressé en taxant ses créateurs pour subventionner ses gestionnaires. La question n'est jamais qui a combien. C'est qui alloue le mieux la prochaine unité de ressource pour maximiser le futur de l'humanité. La réponse depuis 200 ans n'a jamais changé. Ce ne sont pas les fonctionnaires.

They arrested the President of the United States of America 4X, charged him 91X, indicted him 4X, spied on his campaign, sabotaged his first term, jailed his supporters, raided his private residence, censored him, gagged him, tried to bankrupt him, and attempted to remove him from state ballots. When all of that failed they tried to assassinate him not once but four times. And they go on national television to talk about how we need to vote for them to save democracy.

@clayharbs82 Fucking steal!

DILLON THIENEMAN How we feeling about the pick Chicago? #DaBears #Bears

Steak n Shake announces the hiring of its first Chief MAHA Officer. Michael Boes joins SnS in this new executive role, dedicated to advancing nutritional integrity, ingredient transparency, and the healthiness of our products. The move marks a major step in the Company’s efforts to restore the original spirit of American fast food: food that is simple, real, and delicious. “Customers should never have to choose between taste and health,” Boes says. “When restaurants commit to both, they serve better food and they build lasting trust.” Steak n Shake believes that burgers, fries, and shakes should be made from real ingredients families know and love.

The pope isn't political. He just criticizes national sovereignty, wants open borders, advocates taxation on wealth, takes money from governments for immigration services, criticizes national leaders, and meets with Democrat strategists. But he's not political.

@DustinWalper @ValstadShip This looks incredible. What PLC platform are you using to drive this? Looks like fanuc from a robotic perspective. Glad this is starting to take off in major industries that need this overhaul

We've never published this entire video before, but... what the hell. This is our vision for the shipyard of the future. This is how we fight back against China's shipbuilding dominance. This is how we produce 10x more in a single shipyard. From raw steel in to a full set of panels out, ready for erection. All autonomous. Every crane move, every assembly step, every weld... controlled by software we're building from the ground up. Our roadmap will see us build every part of this as modular, inexpensive cells that stretch standard industrial robots to their payload & reach limits. Cells we can build in months instead of years. We're starting in Austin, shipping out panel kits that accelerate the shipbuilding process for America's over-stretched and labor-starved shipyards. Then we'll deploy systems like this all over the country to accelerate production of everything from tank barges to tankers to unmanned surface vessels. It's possible to do this in America. I know because we're doing it. And because it must be done. Time to Accelerate American Shipbuilding.

Admiral McRaven: "If you can't do the little things right, you'll never do the big things right" "Basic SEAL training is six months of long, torturous runs in the soft sand, midnight swims in the cold water off San Diego, days without sleep, and always being cold, wet, and miserable. It is six months of being constantly harassed by professionally trained warriors who seek to find the weak of mind and body and eliminate them. But the training also seeks to find those who can lead in an environment of constant stress, chaos, failure, and hardship." Here are the 10 lessons: 1. Make your bed. "Every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed ridiculous, particularly since we were aspiring to be real warriors. But if you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and encourage you to do another task, and another. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right." 2. Find someone to help you paddle. "Every day your boat crew paddles through the surf. In winter, the surf can get 8 to 10 feet high. It is exceedingly difficult to paddle unless everyone digs in. Every paddle must be synchronized. Everyone must exert equal effort or the boat will turn against the wave. You can't change the world alone; you will need some help." 3. Measure a person by the size of their heart. "The best boat crew we had was made up of the little guys, the 'munchkin crew.' No one was over 5'5". They out-paddled, out-ran, and out-swam all the other boat crews. SEAL training was a great equalizer. Nothing mattered but your will to succeed. Not your color, not your ethnic background, not your education, not your social status." 4. Get over being a sugar cookie. "No matter how much effort you put into starching your hat or pressing your uniform, it just wasn't good enough. For failing inspection, you had to run into the surf fully clothed, then roll around on the beach until every part of your body was covered with sand. The effect was known as a 'sugar cookie.' Some students couldn't accept that all their efforts were in vain. Those students didn't make it through training. Sometimes, no matter how well you prepare or perform, you still end up as a sugar cookie. It's just the way life is sometimes." 5. Don't be afraid of the circuses. "A 'circus' was two hours of additional calisthenics designed to wear you down, break your spirit, force you to quit. But an interesting thing happened to those who were constantly on the list. Over time, those students got stronger and stronger. The pain of the circuses built inner strength and physical resiliency. Life is filled with circuses. You will fail. You will likely fail often. It will be painful. It will be discouraging. At times it will test you to your very core." 6. Sometimes you have to slide head first. "The most challenging obstacle was the slide for life, a 200-foot rope between two towers. The record had stood for years. Until one day, a student decided to go down head first. Instead of inching his way down, he mounted the top of the rope and thrust himself forward. It was dangerous, seemingly foolish, fraught with risk. But he broke the record. Sometimes you have to take risks." 7. Don't back down from the sharks. "The waters off San Clemente are a breeding ground for great white sharks. We were taught that if a shark begins to circle your position, stand your ground. Do not swim away. Do not act afraid. And if the shark darts towards you, summon all your strength and punch him in the snout. There are a lot of sharks in the world. If you hope to complete the swim, you will have to deal with them." 8. Be your best in the darkest moments. "To be successful in your mission, you have to swim under the ship and find the keel, the centerline and the deepest part of the ship. But the keel is also the darkest part, where you cannot see your hand in front of your face. Every SEAL knows that at the darkest moment of the mission is the time when you must be calm, when you must be composed, when all your tactical skills, physical power, and inner strength must be brought to bear." 9. Start singing when you're up to your neck in mud. "During Hell Week, we were ordered into the mud flats. The mud consumed each man until there was nothing visible but our heads. The instructors said we could leave if only five men would quit. It was still over eight hours until the sun came up. And then, one voice began to echo through the night, one voice raised in song. Terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm. One voice became two, and two became three, and before long everyone was singing. Somehow the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little tamer, and the dawn not so far away." 10. Don't ever, ever ring the bell. "In SEAL training, there is a brass bell that hangs in the center of the compound. All you have to do to quit is ring the bell. Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5 o'clock. Ring the bell and you no longer have to be in the freezing cold swims. All you have to do is ring the bell to get out. If you want to change the world, don't ever, ever ring the bell." Admiral McRaven concludes: "Start each day with a task completed. Find someone to help you through life. Respect everyone. Know that life is not fair and that you will fail often. But if you take some risks, step up when the times are toughest, face down the bullies, lift up the downtrodden, and never, ever give up, the next generation will live in a world far better than the one we have today."

Hello Senator Thune, Let's expose what you're really doing with "reconciliation." You announced it yesterday, eleven months after the House passed the SAVE America Act. You're not trying to pass this bill. You're trying to kill it in a way you can blame on process. Here's how we know: Reconciliation requires the Senate parliamentarian to rule that provisions are "budgetary." Citizenship verification is not budgetary. Photo ID mandates are not budgetary. The parliamentarian will gut the bill. Then you'll shrug and say "we tried." We see through you. Meanwhile, you WON'T use the tools that actually work: Rule XIX limits each senator to two speeches per legislative day. Keep the Senate in continuous session, file cloture daily, and the filibuster exhausts in ~12-20 days. You dismissed it as "complicated." Because if you tried and succeeded, you'd have to actually pass the bill. Harry Reid nuked the filibuster in 2013 when he wanted results. Mitch McConnell changed Senate rules THREE times and canceled the August recess. Chuck Schumer used reconciliation within months on a 50-50 Senate. You have 53 seats. You've changed nothing, canceled nothing, and waited eleven months. Now let's talk donors: • Goldman Sachs: $150K to you - top H-1B user • Google: $75K - lobbies against E-Verify • Meta: $72.5K - Zuckerberg's FWD[.]us pushes mass immigration • Wells Fargo: $90K - banks undocumented immigrants Same corporations sponsor Punchbowl News, where you sit for "Fly Out Days" which nobody watches except Congress staffers and K Street lobbyists who pays premium bucks for legislative intelligence. Their reporter then telegraphs to the audience the SAVE Act "will ultimately fail." Corporate money flows to you AND to the outlet that frames your inaction as inevitable. We see the loop. You called grassroots anger a "paid influencer ecosystem." YOU are the paid influencer. You take the wrong side of a 80% issue because you are indistinguishable from a K Street mouthpiece, and an ineffective one to boot who won't bend the rules to get anything passed. What we want: 1. Force a real talking filibuster. 2. Stop hiding behind process. 3. Pass the SAVE America Act. YOU will become the reason that we will have our butts kicked in midterms. Not Candace Owens, not Nick Fuentes, not anyone else. You and you alone, and all because you want to make the 200 or so viewers of Punchbowl Fly Out Days happy. You're living in a K Street information bubble, addicted to the comforts and praises of lobbyists masquerading as journalists. You mistake the steak and martini dinners you get invited to as your own constituents. You are not "moderate." The SAVE America Act has 98% support among Republicans. Name one other thing that has 98% support. You are an extreme minority who prides himself on being a calm leader, when in reality you are well in the running for the most ineffective Majority leader of all time. Prove me wrong. Do the bare modicum of effort. Not symbolic. Actual effort. Cancel the recess. Get SAVE America Act passed.

@chitrader @ChicagosMayor Didn't think it was possible to get worse than Beetlejuice, but here we are!

Our mayor is a pile of garbage @ChicagosMayor

@highrunning247 😁

like + reply for a lil surprise in your dms ;)

@EsotericCD This is incredible.

Long ago, someone took a cassette tape of Alvin & Chipmunks pop covers, slowed it down to 1/8th speed, and revealed the most important goth-postpunk album ever recorded. Gone for many years, it's back on YouTube again. You must hear this landmark: youtube.com/watch?v=CSqnbm…

"I’m asking you to hold the line. Not because the President is infallible... he’s not, nobody is... but because the logic is sound. You cannot build a fortress of peace on a foundation of unresolved threats. You have to clear the ground first. That’s what’s happening." The question you have to ask... the honest question, not the Tucker question, not the Marjorie question, the real question... is this... Could Donald Trump have achieved a permanent, lasting America First posture... the real doctrine, the thing we all voted for... without first clearing the board of the existential threats that previous administrations allowed to metastasize for decades? The answer is no. And everybody who is being honest with themselves knows it’s no Let me take you through it, because the details matter. They always matter with this President. He doesn’t do anything by accident. People think he’s impulsive... the media loves that narrative, “Trump is impulsive, Trump is chaotic”... but look at the timeline. Look at how this actually played out. Venezuela: The Western Hemisphere First Trump didn’t wake up one morning and decide to grab Maduro. This was months in the making. Years, actually, if you go back to his first term, when the Justice Department indicted Maduro on narco-terrorism charges in March 2020. Nobody did anything about it then. The indictment just sat there. Biden recognized the opposition candidate Edmundo González as the legitimate president after the stolen 2024 election, and then did absolutely nothing about it. Nothing. Just a statement. Trump came back and started squeezing. Designated Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on Day One. Designated the Cartel of the Suns... which Maduro basically ran... as an FTO in July. Started a maritime blockade of sanctioned oil tankers in December 2025. And the whole time, by the way, he was offering Maduro off-ramps. Multiple off-ramps. Rubio was negotiating. There were back channels through Qatar. The Rodríguez siblings... Delcy and Jorge... were apparently trying to work out a deal where Maduro would go into exile. But Maduro wouldn’t go. He thought he could wait it out. He was wrong. January 2, 2026... the operation launched. Special forces went in under cover of night. Army Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover flew the lead Chinook into Maduro’s military fortress. Eighty-three people died, including thirty-two Cuban soldiers who were stationed there... and by the way, what were Cuban soldiers doing in Venezuela? Think about that. Cuban soldiers protecting a Venezuelan dictator. That tells you everything about the network that had to be broken. Maduro is now in federal custody in New York. Delcy Rodríguez is the interim president, cooperating with our government. We’re marketing Venezuelan oil on global markets. The largest proven oil reserves on the planet... three hundred billion barrels, bigger than Saudi Arabia... are no longer being used to fund narco-terrorism and Cuban communism. They’re being used to benefit the American people and the Venezuelan people. Now. Was that regime change? Technically? Yes. But here’s the critical difference... and this is what separates what Trump did from what Bush did in Iraq, what Obama did in Libya, what the whole rotten establishment has done for twenty-five years. Trump did not invade Venezuela. He did not send a hundred and fifty thousand troops. He did not dissolve the Venezuelan state. He did not fire every government employee and disband the security forces like Paul Bremer did in Iraq, which was the single stupidest decision in the history of American foreign policy, by the way. Single stupidest decision. Created ISIS. Created the entire insurgency. Because they took a million armed, trained men, humiliated them, and set them loose with nothing to do but fight. Trump did the opposite. He took the head. Left the body. Made a deal with the body. That’s not nation-building. That’s not a forever war. That’s a surgical correction of a threat that had been allowed to fester for over two decades. Get in, remove the problem, arrange the pieces, get out. The Venezuelan state is still functioning. The military is still intact. The oil is flowing. And America is no longer dealing with a hostile narco-state in its own backyard. We’re not building schools in Caracas. We’re not training a Venezuelan national police force. We’re not spending a trillion dollars over ten years trying to turn Venezuela into Vermont. We’re leaving. That is the doctrine. But you can’t leave a problem you haven’t solved. Iran: The Nuclear Sword of Damocles Iran is the harder case, and I’ll be straight with you... it’s the one that bothers people the most, and I understand why. Because Iran looks like exactly what we said we wouldn’t do. It looks like Iraq 2003. It looks like the neocons got what they always wanted. John Bolton is happy. Bill Kristol is happy. When John Bolton and Bill Kristol are happy about something you did, you should be nervous. I get it. But Iran is not Iraq, and here is why. Iraq in 2003 was a contained threat. Saddam didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. The intelligence was either wrong or fabricated. The threat was manufactured to justify a war that certain people in Washington wanted for ideological reasons that had nothing to do with American security. The entire premise was a lie. Iran in 2025-2026 was an uncontained, accelerating, existential threat. This is not debatable. After Biden let the JCPOA collapse without replacing it with anything... because Biden couldn’t negotiate his way out of a parking garage... Iran was enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade levels. The IAEA confirmed it. Four hundred kilograms of uranium enriched to sixty percent. They were, by every credible estimate, within weeks of breakout capability. The regime was simultaneously funding Hamas... which carried out October 7, the worst massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust... funding Hezbollah, funding the Houthis who were attacking global shipping in the Red Sea, and funding proxy wars across the entire Middle East. Trump tried diplomacy first. And this is the part that everyone who’s screaming “betrayal” conveniently forgets. He wrote a letter to Khamenei in March 2025 offering negotiations. He sent Steve Witkoff to Oman for multiple rounds of talks. Five rounds of talks. Five. Khamenei wouldn’t take the deal. They were offered sanctions relief, normalization, the whole package... in exchange for dismantling the nuclear program. They said no. They kept enriching. So in June 2025, during the Twelve-Day War with Israel, Trump sent B-2 bombers... seven of them, flying eighteen hours straight from Missouri... and dropped bunker-buster bombs on Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The three main enrichment sites. Obliterated. Set the program back years. And then he said... “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE.” And what did Iran do? They tried to rebuild. They kicked out the IAEA inspectors. They refused to let anyone verify what happened to their uranium stockpiles. They kept developing missiles. The regime... Khamenei specifically... made the calculation that he could outlast Trump, rebuild the program, and eventually get the bomb anyway. That calculation ended on February 28, 2026, when a precision strike killed Khamenei at his own residence during a meeting of senior officials. Gone. The defense minister, the IRGC commander, the secretary of the Security Council... all gone. Forty-eight senior leaders taken out, according to the President. And in the streets of Tehran... this is the part the media doesn’t want to show you... people were celebrating. Dancing. Cheering. Because the Iranian people have been hostages of this regime since 1979, and they know exactly what it is. The cost of war is horrific and anyone who pretends there’s a way to do this without innocent people dying is lying to you. This President didn’t lie about it. He said, in his own address, “The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties... that often happens in war.” He’s telling you the truth. The question isn’t whether people will die. People were already dying... under the regime, in the protests the regime crushed by killing over seven thousand people in January alone. The question is whether the outcome justifies the cost. And the outcome... the permanent elimination of the Iranian nuclear threat, the destruction of the world’s number one state sponsor of terror, the liberation of eighty-eight million people from a medieval theocracy... is worth it. It has to be. Because the alternative was a nuclear-armed Iran, and a nuclear-armed Iran means the end of everything we’re trying to build. Cuba: Gravity Does the Work Cuba is the proof that the doctrine works even when you don’t fire a shot. Nobody invaded Cuba. Nobody bombed Havana. Trump simply cut the lifeline. When Maduro fell, the Venezuelan oil that kept Cuba alive disappeared. When Trump signed the executive order on January 29 threatening tariffs on any country that sells oil to Cuba, Mexico... which supplied forty-four percent of Cuba’s oil... suspended shipments. Russia called the situation “truly critical” but hasn’t sent a tanker. China made sympathetic noises but hasn’t delivered fuel. And now Cuba is collapsing under its own weight. Eighty-nine percent of families in extreme poverty. Schools suspended. Hospitals losing power. Airlines canceling flights because there’s no jet fuel. The regime can’t even run garbage trucks. This is what sixty-seven years of communism looks like when nobody’s willing to subsidize it anymore. Trump’s approach? “Make a deal before it’s too late.” He’s talking to people inside the Cuban system... including, reportedly, Raúl Castro’s grandson. Rubio, who understands Cuba better than anyone in government, is leading the effort. The terms haven’t been made public, but the logic is obvious... open the economy, release political prisoners, hold elections, or watch the lights go out for good. No Marines. No occupation. Just leverage, applied from a position of absolute economic dominance, and the patience to let gravity do what gravity does. So here is where it all comes together. Here is the part where you have to step back and look at the board... the whole board, not just the square you’re standing on. Before January 2025, the Western Hemisphere contained a hostile narco-state with the world’s largest oil reserves, a communist holdout that served as a forward base for Russian and Chinese influence ninety miles from Florida, and a Middle Eastern theocracy with an active nuclear weapons program that was funding terror organizations across three continents. Those were not theoretical threats. They were active, operational, escalating threats that any future president... of either party... would have had to deal with eventually. The question was never whether to deal with them. The question was how. And the twenty-five-year answer from the foreign policy establishment... sanctions that didn’t work, diplomacy that got played, nation-building that wasted trillions, forever wars that killed thousands... had been tried and had failed catastrophically. Iraq proved it. Afghanistan proved it. Libya proved it. What Trump has done in sixty days... Maduro captured, Khamenei killed, Cuba strangled into negotiation... is not a betrayal of the America First doctrine. It is the precondition for the doctrine. It’s the thing that has to happen once so that it never has to happen again. Think of it this way. If you inherit a house with a flooded basement, a collapsing roof, and a gas leak, you don’t get to say “I’m a low-maintenance homeowner” and sit on the porch. You have to fix the emergencies first. Rip out the pipes. Replace the roof. Seal the gas line. It’s expensive. It’s messy. People are going to say “I thought you said this would be a quiet house.” And you say... “It will be. After I fix the things that are about to kill us.” That’s what the second term has been. Emergency triage on a world that was handed to this President in a state of active decay. Not by accident, not by fate, but by the deliberate incompetence of everyone who came before. The Trump Doctrine... the real, permanent version... is still coming. And it will look exactly like what you voted for. No permanent troop deployments in Caracas. No American military governor in Tehran. No nation-building, no democracy-exporting, no trillion-dollar reconstruction funds. Get in. Fix the emergency. Arrange cooperative locals to run things in a direction that doesn’t threaten America. Get out. Venezuela is already on that track. The oil deal was signed within days of Maduro’s capture. Delcy Rodríguez is cooperating. American companies are investing. The troops are not staying. Iran is going to be harder and take longer... there’s active combat right now, this weekend, as you’re reading this. Three Americans are dead. More will follow, the President himself said so. But the objective is not to occupy Iran. The objective is to break the regime’s capacity to threaten the United States and its allies, support whatever transition the Iranian people choose... and they’re already in the streets, they’ve been in the streets since December... and then leave. This is not Afghanistan. There will not be twenty years of patrols in Isfahan. There will not be a democratic transition monitored by USAID consultants who’ve never been outside the Green Zone. There will be a broken regime, a liberated population, and an American exit. Cuba will fold without a single American boot on the ground. It’s already happening. And when it’s done... when the threats that took decades to build have been eliminated in months... the doctrine takes hold. Not as a slogan on a hat. Not as a campaign promise that sounds good in a rally and dissolves on contact with reality. As an actual, operational, strategic posture that future presidents will inherit and maintain, because the conditions that required intervention will no longer exist. No Iranian nuclear program to contain. No Venezuelan narco-pipeline to interdict. No Cuban forward base to monitor. No justification for the next generation of neocons to drag us into the next Iraq. That’s the vision. That’s what the second term is building toward. And I know it’s painful right now. I know three families are grieving tonight. I know more will grieve before this is over. And I know it looks, from the outside, like everything we were promised has been broken. But I’m asking you to hold the line. Not because the President is infallible... he’s not, nobody is... but because the logic is sound. You cannot build a fortress of peace on a foundation of unresolved threats. You have to clear the ground first. That’s what’s happening. It’s ugly and it’s costly and it was never going to look the way anyone wanted it to look. But the house will be clean. And then we maintain it. And then... finally, for the first time in a generation... we stop sending our kids to die in countries that hate us. That’s the Trump Doctrine. Not the opening act. The final destination. And we’re almost there.

If your position at The Washington Post was recently eliminated, please consider applying to write for The Babylon Bee. We are seeking applicants experienced in writing fictional content presented in the tone and style of a legitimate news organization.

If you have high blood pressure, you may want to stop reading now! I'm about to show you how the federal government has been ROBBING you blind for your entire working life, and the numbers are going to make you absolutely FURIOUS. Meet "Average Joe." He's not a CEO. He's not a trust fund baby. He's the guy who earned exactly the AVERAGE American salary for his age every single year of his working life. Started working at 18 in 1981, making $3,233 that year. Worked his way up like everyone else. By 2024, he was making $88,291 - right at the national average for someone his age. Joe did everything right. He showed up. He worked. He played by the rules. For 46 years, the government FORCED Joe and his employers to pay into Social Security. Every paycheck - 6.2% from Joe, 6.2% from his employer. That's 12.4% of EVERYTHING Joe ever earned, taken before he could even touch it. Joe's TOTAL contributions over his lifetime: $249,642 Here's what makes my blood boil. That money doesn't sit in an account with Joe's name on it. It doesn't collect interest. It doesn't grow. The MOMENT they take it from Joe's check, THEY SPEND IT on current retirees. Joe's "retirement fund" is nothing but an IOU - a promise that future workers will pay for HIM someday. That's not a retirement plan. That's a PONZI SCHEME. Paying earlier investors with money from newer investors. Bernie Madoff went to prison for this. The federal government made it mandatory. So what does Joe GET for his $249,642? At 67, Joe collects about $2,163/month. If he lives 18 years (average life expectancy), he'll receive roughly $467,208 total. "See? He gets back more than he put in!" Oh really? Let me show you what Joe SHOULD have had. I ran the EXACT same numbers through a TSP (Thrift Savings Plan) invested in an S&P 500 index fund - the same option the MILITARY uses. Same contributions. Joe's 6.2% plus his employer's 6.2%. Invested in the market. Dividends reinvested. Using ACTUAL historical returns from 1981-2026 - including the 2008 crash, 2022 downturn, every bad year. JOE'S TSP BALANCE AT RETIREMENT: $2,551,938 Yes, count the digits again, two commas. I'll wait while you pick your jaw up off the floor. TWO AND A HALF MILLION DOLLARS. From the same money the government took and WASTED. Using the conservative 4% withdrawal rule, Joe could pull $8,506 EVERY SINGLE MONTH - that's nearly FOUR TIMES what Social Security pays. And his balance would likely KEEP GROWING. But here's what REALLY gets me. When Joe dies, Social Security pays his family NOTHING. His wife? His kids? His grandkids? ZERO. 46 years of contributions vanish like they never existed. But the TSP? His family inherits over $2.5 MILLION. Every single working-class American should have GENERATIONAL WEALTH. Your kids should inherit something. Your grandkids should have a head start. But the government is BLOCKING you from building that wealth by forcing you into Social Security instead of letting you invest YOUR money in YOUR account. You want a better life for your kids. The government surely does NOT. They want your children starting from zero, just like you did. They want every generation dependent on government checks instead of family wealth. They want control. THE ROBBERY IN BLACK AND WHITE: SOCIAL SECURITY: Joe contributes $249,642 Joe MIGHT collect $467,208 (if he lives long enough) Joe's family inherits $0 Joe's kids start from ZERO TSP (S&P 500): Joe contributes $249,642 Balance grows to $2,551,938 Joe collects $102,078/year ($8,506/month) Joe's family inherits MILLIONS Joe's kids get a REAL head start The government stole over TWO MILLION DOLLARS from Average Joe. Not a billionaire. Not a CEO. Just a regular guy who worked his whole life and trusted the system. And they stole his children's inheritance too. And you know what really burns? Congress EXEMPTED THEMSELVES from Social Security. They get their own cushy pension. The people who FORCE you into this disaster made absolutely sure THEY don't have to participate in it. Their kids inherit plenty. President Bush tried to fix this in 2005 with personal retirement accounts. Democrats called it "destroying Social Security." Translation: they wanted to keep the scam running. They NEED you dependent on that government check. They NEED your kids dependent too. The Army already figured this out. The Blended Retirement System lets service members invest in TSP accounts. If it's good enough for our troops, why isn't it good enough for every American worker? Quinn's First Law: "Liberalism always generates the exact opposite of its stated intent." Social Security was supposed to provide retirement SECURITY. Instead, it's the greatest wealth transfer AWAY from working Americans in history - and it ensures working-class families NEVER build generational wealth. This is why they fight against financial literacy in schools. They don't want you running these numbers. They need you ignorant and dependent. Generation after generation. But what do I know? I'm just a science teacher who can actually do math and isn't afraid to show you that the government has been running a legal Ponzi scheme on American workers since 1935 - and stealing your children's future in the process. Feel free to share this with everyone you know. They deserve to see exactly how badly they're being robbed.

@AJA_Cortes Just sent you a DM.

AMERICAN CREATINE UPDATE: Yes, it's 100% happening The project will be challenging, but we've got the team and will make it happen This is an industrialization journey at heart. We can and we shall. If you'd like to be a part of this, send me a DM

Probably because you have NO CLUE what any of that means, Senator Warren. How do I know this? YOUR VOTING RECORD shows exactly how clueless you are about these issues. Let's start with prescription drugs, shall we? YOU VOTED FOR THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, which gave a WINDFALL to prescription drug companies. Since Obamacare's rollout in 2014, the SEVEN LARGEST HEALTH INSURERS have TRIPLED their revenues from $511 BILLION to $1.5 TRILLION in 2024. Your party received MILLIONS in contributions from these same pharmaceutical and insurance companies - Kamala Harris alone took $8.6 MILLION from pharma and $6.3 MILLION from insurance companies during the 2023-2024 cycle. You want to know about corruption in politics? Look in the mirror, Senator! YOU and YOUR COLLEAGUES are literally funded by the industries you claim to regulate. Bob Casey took $625K from pharma, Jon Tester took $576K, and the list goes on. Then you have the audacity to complain about "dark money" while your party rakes in TENS OF MILLIONS from the very corporations profiting from the system YOU CREATED? Here's what's particularly rich - YOU VOTED TO END THE ACA COVID SUBSIDIES through the American Rescue Plan Act (2021) and Inflation Reduction Act (2022). Not a single Republican voted to end those subsidies, but YOUR PARTY did. Now you're complaining about healthcare costs rising? YOU DID THIS! You made these subsidies TEMPORARY while handing massive profits to insurance companies and pharmaceutical giants. And gun legislation? You want "sensible gun laws" while supporting policies that create CRIMINAL PROTECTION ZONES where law-abiding citizens are disarmed and criminals do whatever they want without confrontation. You punish people who follow the law while criminals ignore every regulation you pass. How's that working out in Democrat-run cities with the strictest gun control and the HIGHEST crime rates? Let me educate you on something called ECONOMICS since you clearly missed that class at Harvard. The reason we don't have "low-cost electricity" is because YOUR PARTY keeps pushing regulations that DESTROY energy independence, shut down coal plants, block pipelines, and drive up costs through Green New Deal nonsense. We had ENERGY INDEPENDENCE under Trump with LOW PRICES, but your administration reversed all of that! This perfectly demonstrates QUINN'S FIRST LAW OF LIBERALISM: "Liberalism always generates the exact opposite of its stated intent." You claim to want affordable healthcare and prescription drugs, but your policies CREATE the monopolistic system that drives up prices. You claim to want safer communities, but your gun policies DISARM victims while protecting criminals. You claim to want clean energy, but your regulations make electricity UNAFFORDABLE. Want to fix prescription drug prices? How about BANNING DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER DRUG ADVERTISING like every other developed country except New Zealand? How about requiring TRANSPARENT DRUG PRICING so patients can actually comparison shop? How about allowing INTERNATIONAL REFERENCE PRICING or importation from FDA-approved countries? But no - you'd rather keep taking pharmaceutical money while pretending to fight for the little guy. Here's what really grinds my gears, Senator: you constantly demand MORE GOVERNMENT SPENDING on social programs while 50,000 COMBAT-WOUNDED VETERANS are being robbed of their EARNED RETIREMENT through the broken concurrent receipt system. The MAJOR RICHARD STAR ACT would cost $10 BILLION over ten years - less than what you WASTE in a single month on bureaucratic bloat - but you can't find the votes to pass it because YOU'RE TOO BUSY FUNDING EVERY OTHER SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP! These are veterans who were MEDICALLY RETIRED before completing 20 years of service due to COMBAT INJURIES. They EARNED both their retirement pay AND their disability compensation - this isn't "double dipping," it's receiving what they were PROMISED when they signed up to defend this country. But apparently keeping campaign donors happy matters more than keeping promises to wounded warriors. You want to get "dark money out of politics"? START WITH YOUR OWN PARTY! Stop taking millions from the pharmaceutical and insurance industries you claim to regulate. Stop blocking DOGE from eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse in federal spending. What exactly are you trying to HIDE from taxpayer oversight? The real corruption, Senator, is pretending to champion the working class while YOUR POLICIES create dependency, drive up costs, and enrich the very corporations you claim to fight against. You're not fighting corruption - YOU ARE THE CORRUPTION! But what do I know? I'm just someone who actually understands how free markets work, who reads voting records instead of campaign slogans, and who recognizes blatant hypocrisy when a senator takes millions from Big Pharma while complaining about prescription drug costs.

Sharing an update — the search will continue tomorrow. For those able to help, details are below. Please keep my friend and her family in your prayers:

@MrZackMorris @YouTube Banger!

Out of Touch (Club Version) youtu.be/LkYVwwj5wyc?si… via @YouTube

@DannyParkins You're a Vince Gilligan guy. Watch Pluribus on Apple. Peaky Blinders and Gangs of London should be must watch. Some outside the box, low key amazing shows. Banshee, Animal Kingdom.

What should my next show be? Among shows I’ve seen and liked/loved: The Wire (GOAT) Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Curb, Game of Thrones, The Shield, Shrinking, Ted Lasso, Oz, Platonic, Nobody Wants This, Ozark, The Americans, Homeland, Shameless, Billions.