California Lawmakers Introduce The “Stop Nick Shirley Act” It would appear that independent journalist Nick Shirley’s expose on medical subsidies fraud in California, largely perpetrated by immigrants, was more devastating to Democrats than anyone could have guessed.  After making waves in Minneapolis by revealing rampant daycare fraud run by Somali migrants feeding on millions in government subsidies (and likely funneling some […]

New York Versus The Nuns: The Dominican Sisters Face Penalties For Refusing To Yield On Religious Values Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org, New York has been a godsend for gun rights in passing a series of unconstitutional limits on Second Amendment rights only to result in major adverse rulings. It may soon do the same for the free exercise of religion. New York is now going head-to-head with a group of Dominican […]

Masters Prize Money Soars To Record High: Here’s What Golfers Actually Earned The 2026 Masters delivered golf’s richest payday yet, with a record-shattering $22.5 million purse at Augusta National. This year’s champion, Rory McIlroy, scored a career-highlight $4.5 million, the largest winner’s share in tournament history, as the total prize fund rose $1.5 million from last year and a remarkable $7.5 million since 2022, […]

Hong Kong And The Quiet Rewiring Of The Dollar System Authored by Peter C. Earle, Ph.D, Hong Kong’s decision to move forward with its first stablecoin issuer licenses may prove to be about far more than digital payments. With HSBC and a Standard Chartered-led venture among the first approved issuers under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s new framework, the city is placing major regulated banks at the center of the next phase […]

Federal Judge Dismisses Trump’s Defamation Lawsuit Against The Wall Street Journal Over Epstein Birthday Letter Report A federal judge in Miami dismissed President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal (and related defendants including its parent company Dow Jones and Rupert Murdoch) on April 13, 2026, ruling that the complaint failed to adequately plead the “actual malice” standard required for […]

Biden FDA Knew About COVID Vaccine Stroke Risk And Kept Americans In The Dark Senate investigators spent months reviewing roughly 2,000 pages of federal records. What they found is damning. FDA and CDC officials under the Biden administration identified a significant stroke risk tied to Pfizer’s COVID-19 bivalent booster in seniors – and never breathed a word to the public. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), chairman of the Senate’s […]

The Case Against Public-Sector Unions Authored by Aaron White via RealClearPolicy, America’s public-sector unions have a problem they can’t explain away: Workers are leaving. Ask a public employee when they joined their union and most couldn’t tell you. Because they didn’t join. The dues just started coming out of their check. That’s not a membership, and for decades nobody told workers they could opt out. That […]

Swalwell Admits “Mistakes”, Plans To Resign From Congress Summary (in reverse chronological order) Eric Swalwell’s California governor campaign collapsed after sexual assault allegations. Former staffer alleged harassment plus two assaults while she was intoxicated. Four women total have accused Swalwell of sexual misconduct. Swalwell denies all claims as false and politically motivated. Major Democratic allies withdrew […]

YouTube Removes Pro-Iran Channel Producing Anti-Trump Videos Via Middle East Eye Google, the owners of YouTube, has removed a channel on the platform belonging to a pro-Iran group producing Lego-themed videos mocking Donald Trump. “Upon review, we’ve terminated the channel for violating our Spam, deceptive practices and scams policies,” a YouTube spokesperson told Middle East Eye. “YouTube doesn’t allow spam, scams, or other […]

Pope Leo Says ‘I Am Not Afraid Of Trump’ – Amid War Of Words Over Iran Conflict An open public clash between the Pope and President Trump was perhaps bound to happen given the Vatican’s increasingly vocal criticism and condemnation of US military action in the Middle East. The Vatican has been consistently anti-war especially going back to the Iraq invasion and US occupation under the Bush administration.  While recent years and […]

Welcome To The Theater Of The Absurd Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, The real world no longer matters, what matters is the performance on stage. Welcome to the Theater of the Absurd. In the present era, all the world is a stage and everything is a performance on that stage: welcome to the Theater of the Absurd, a Hollywood set fabricated of cardboard and plaster made to look like gold leaf and marble columns, […]

Buried For 7 Years: Declassified Transcripts Blow Up Trump Impeachment Story In a long-awaited release that sent ripples through Washington on Monday, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) has declassified closed-door 2019 transcripts from briefings with then-Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson. The documents, withheld from the public for over seven years, reveal critical details […]

‘Door Is Not Closed’: Mediators Still Press For Iran Deal After US Demanded 20-Year Halt To Nuclear Program There’s currently some consensus among international reports that the weekend US-Iran peace talks in Pakistan fundamentally broke down over the nuclear issue. The question of Iran’s enriched uranium has at times over the course of the war taken a front seat and at other times a back seat when it comes to Washington’s evolving […]

As The Worms Turn… Authored by James Howard Kunstler, “They’re holed up in a bank demanding three large pizzas, a helicopter, and a personal phone call from Sydney Sweeney…” – Greg Gutfeld on Iran’s negotiating position The Russians have a phrase for it: negotiation-incapable (ne peregovorosposobny). That is what the Iran delegation demonstrated during a long day of talks with the US team over the weekend in Islamabad. […]

As US Initiates Blockade Of Hormuz, Trump Warns Any Iranian Ships Coming Near Will Be ‘Eliminated’ Summary US pressed Iran to stop all Iranian enrichment for 20 years, after which Iran countered less than ten years, at which point the weekend negotiations broke down (Axios). Still, mediators say ‘door not closed’ on pursuit of an agreement. Iran’s military says the US blockade on Gulf ports, now in effect, is an “illegal” […]

The Strait Of Hormuz Crisis Exposes A Fatal Flaw In Economic Thinking Authored by Kurt Cobb via Resource Insights, Even a 4–5% loss in global energy supply could translate into a comparable drop in economic activity due to energy’s central role in all production. Disruptions in oil and LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz are already removing a significant share of global energy, with cascading impacts across […]

Bank Lobby Fires Back At White House, Saying Stablecoin Study Ignores Community Bank Threat Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com, The American Bankers Association is warning that the White House’s latest stablecoin study is asking the wrong question and underestimating the threat to community banks. On April 8, the Council of Economic Advisers released a 21‑page paper modeling what happens if payment […]

Navy’s Green Laundry Initiative Weakened A $15 Billion Carrier Authored by Mike Fredenburg via The Epoch Times, The $15 billion USS Ford was forced to cut short its deployment due to a 30-hour laundry fire that did millions of dollars in damage. And it has been revealed that even while it remained on station in the Gulf, Ford could not generate combat sorties for two days due to the raging 30-hour laundry fire that drove some 600 […]

Oil Tanker Going To China Forced To Reverse Course Before Crossing Hormuz Under US Blockade One day after a burst of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, when according to Bloomberg 19 ships crossed in either direction while Trump said that as many as 34 ships crossed the waterway on Sunday, shipping through Hormuz slumped back down again Monday, reversing Sunday’s jump, as caution mounted ahead of a US naval blockade. After 19 […]

Bernstein Says Bitcoin Market Already Priced In Quantum Risk Authored by Zoltan Vardai via CoinTelegraph.com, Bernstein said Monday that Bitcoin’s selloff has already priced in much of the market’s fear around quantum computing, arguing that the threat is real but still manageable rather than an immediate existential risk. Bitcoin’s (BTC) near 50% drawdown from its $126,198 all-time high in October 2025 is proof that the […]

US Property Taxes Rose 3 Percent On Average In 2025, Outpacing Inflation Authored by Rob Sabo via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Property taxes are rising across the United States and, on average, have outpaced inflation. Homeowners in 2025 paid a total of $396.8 billion in property taxes on more than 89.6 million single-family homes, a 3.7 percent increase from 2024, an April 9 report by real estate property data provider […]

Mapping The Hormuz Blockade: At Least 15 US Navy Ships Are In Place President Trump is once again engaged in a high risk bet in hopes that Iran will buckle to US demands after failed initial truce talks in Pakistan. The blockade now in effect as of Monday seeks to starve Iran of $200 million in daily oil revenues. The Wall Street Journal has newly detailed that more 15 American warships are now in place to support the operation, […]

Half Of US Data Centers Scheduled To Start In 2026, Will Be Canceled Or Delayed Just over two years ago, we first penned our views on “The Next AI Trade”, which looked beyond the hyperscalers and the data centers supporting the AI revolution, and instead focused on the energy and logistical needs that would be so very critical in allowing the US to dominate China in the existential race to first reach Artificial General Intelligence […]

Federal Court Strikes Down 158-Year-Old Home Distilling Ban Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), A federal appeals court on April 10 declared a nearly 158-year-old ban on home distilling to be unconstitutional, ruling that the ban was an unnecessary and improper means for Congress to exercise its power to tax. A judge’s gavel rests on top of a desk in a courtroom in Miami on Feb. 3, 2009. Joe Raedle/Getty […]

Taiwan Helium Imports Rapidly Shift From Qatar To U.S. As Global Energy Flows Are Rewired We’ve been tracking the global rewiring of energy flows from the start, including identifying who stands to emerge as the net beneficiary of the U.S.-Iran conflict and the resulting disruption across the Gulf theater. Early in the conflict, we cited energy research firm Criterion, which noted that Qatar had been dethroned as the “LNG king” as […]