Pepe Silvia

BREAKING: The Senate just passed the legislation allowing the devastation of the Boundary Waters. The motion passed 50-49, and now goes to Donald Trump’s desk. The way Republicans passed this bill that prevents future administrations from issuing protections for Superior National Forest, so this pristine land will be exploited in perpetuity unless Congress intervenes to reverse this decision. The state of Minnesota can still block the Chilean mining corporation from operating in Superior National Forest and protect the Boundary Waters from pollution.

Cash for Clunkers destroyed 690,000 functional vehicles in 2009, creating an artificial scarcity that rippled through used car markets for over a decade. The Obama administration sold this $3 billion program as environmental salvation and economic stimulus, but any free market economist could predict the real outcome: massive wealth destruction disguised as progress. The program forced dealers to pour sodium silicate into engines, permanently destroying cars that poor families could have afforded. Politicians eliminated the bottom tier of the used car market overnight. Suddenly, a reliable $3,000 Honda Civic became a $7,000 Honda Civic (if you could find one). The supposed beneficiaries — working-class Americans who needed affordable transportation — got priced out entirely. Government intervention always creates unseen victims, and Cash for Clunkers delivered them by the millions. Single mothers, college students, and minimum-wage workers watched their mobility options vanish as used car prices soared 30% between 2009 and 2014. The environmental gains proved negligible too: most clunkers averaged 15-17 MPG while replacements hit 24-25 MPG. Destroying half a million cars to improve average fuel economy by 8 MPG represents the kind of central planning that would give Soviet bureaucrats a hard-on. The wealth destruction extended beyond sticker prices. Higher transportation costs forced people into longer payment terms, creating a debt cycle that persists today. Cash for Clunkers normalized 84-month auto loans, turning cars from depreciating assets into multi-year financial anchors. Bureaucrats congratulated themselves for moving inventory off dealer lots while condemning an entire generation to transportation poverty.

The Senate is about to vote on handing a national forest over to a foreign corporation. A Chilean mining company wants to develop a copper mine upstream from the Boundary Waters, a pristine wilderness. The GOP has to choose between a foreign corporation and their constituents.

If you travelled 100 years ago into the past and visited an elite school for boys run by men you wouldn’t find male teachers with an abundance of patience and understanding for male students. You’d find a hardass with a cane beating them until they sat down and shut up.

What trump feeds sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier vs what he feeds his rich friends at Mar-a-Lago.

Battery died in my car. Called a mobile repair business. This is what they quoted me for replacement. What do you guys think?

The world you grew up in no longer exists.

Wernher von Braun, director of NASA's Marchall Space Flight Center, at his office in Huntsville, Alabama 1965.

🇬🇧 We asked Brits where the UK ranks vs US states in income per person. Average answer: 7th. Wealthier than 43 states. The reality: 51st. Dead last. Below Mississippi. Below Arkansas. Below every single US state. 🧵