Brian T. Kennedy: Why Attack Iran Now?

Exactly the question I wanted answered.

DHS Urges Fairfax Co. Not to Release Criminal Illegal Alien

A predator / sexual assailant.

Insert standard rant about how this is no longer a normal set of legitimate political disagreements.

York: Uncertainty about Iran War Aims

I think the burning question is: Why now?

Seems that part of the answer has to be: mass murder against their own people. Part of the case is moral, of course. Part of it is: the people they're murdering are the core of the opposition faction. If we ever want the Iranian regime to go away, we have to prevent the elimination of the opposition.

Look, I don't know whether this is smart or not.

Personally, I think I'd rather Trump focus on our dire domestic situation--focus on rolling back the advances of the Woketarian left.

But Iran is getting stronger and stronger conventionally speaking. It's dedicated to getting a nuke. It's the world's number one sponsor of terrorism. And it's run by theocratic lunatics. And it's been basically waging war against us for 50 years. This may be the best opportunity we'll have to do this.

But I just don't know what to think.

The Left is Stealing from Your IRA

I hope there's a wave of lawsuits over this.

I'm sure TIAA is terrible on this score.

The left is implacable. Relentless. It finds every chink in armor, exploits every loophole, finds ever way to screw the system and advance its cultish ends.

As much as the right pisses me off, it's just not as insidious.

British Heroes to be Dropped from Bank Notes in Favor of More "Inclusive" Wildlife

Death by a thousand stupid cuts.

Trump Fatigue

Is it 2028 yet?

More on VA Dems' Lunatic Gun Bills

They seem to have included some bills that are so insane that Spanberger will pretty much have to refuse to sign them. I expect she'll sign the merely insane ones--e.g. the "assault weapons" ban. But this one almost seems to have been passed just to give her something to veto so she can keep claiming to be a centrist with something resembling a straight face, and so that maybe the bills she signs might seem less nuts:

SB 727, Senator Jones, bans the carry of 1) a semi-automatic centerfire rifle or pistol that has a fixed magazine that holds more than 10 rounds or 2) a semi-automatic centerfire rifle or pistol that accepts a detachable magazine of any size and has any of a variety of cosmetic features or 3) a semi-automatic shotgun with a fixed magazine that holds more than 7 rounds of the longest ammunition for which it is chambered or has a detachable magazine of any size, with any of a variety of cosmetic features, on or about a person on a public street, road, alley, sidewalk, public right-of-way, in a park, or in any place open to the public. There is an exception for carrying to/from a place of purchase or repair or a shooting range.

Dan McLaughlin: Don't Burn Down Our Fortifications by Getting Rid of the Filibuster

AGREED

Critical Drinker: Buffy Reboot [Wisely] Cancelled

Agreed.

JQ and I both freakin' loved Buffy. But the Kuzui reboot idea sounded just catastrophically terrible. And the recently-abandoned sequel didn't sound a lot better. As the Drinker notes: without Whedon, there is no hope of success. I've heard the stories, and, yes, he sounds like a bad person. And the accounts of this from the cast sound very credible to me--FWTW. But--again, as the Drinker notes--dude could write.

Anyway. The chance of a new Buffy being anywhere near as good as actual Buffy are vanishing small. And the odds of it being a complete disaster--and probably a woke disaster--are pretty good. So it's just a really bad gamble. Is it really worth the risk of getting something like the new woke "Star Trek"--whatever the hell that's called. ST Academy or something? (Answer: no, it is not.)

Apparently one of these proposals wanted to make the main character Buffy herself, but make her black. Which...why? The story has a sequel-explaining storyline built right into it. Why the hell would you ignore that? Well...maybe because the final episode was so bad, and at that point apparently every girl in the world becomes a Slayer... So, come to think of it, maybe a reboot is the only real option...

Wonder which character they would make trans? Clearly having mere gay characters is passe now...no way that would be sufficient. Maybe some extra "neurodivergence" and whatnot, too.

Anyway:

Kenin M. Spivak: The Marxist Wing of the Democratic Party and the Destruction of the West

Something that sounded like wingnut insanity a decade or so ago...but now, I think, is rather difficult to deny.

   To repeat myself repeating myself: obviously your average Democrat does not want the destruction of the West. Not even close. On the other hand, the radical/Marxist wing of the left has always wanted that--and always been the most significant sub-sector of the radical left. Marxism in some version or other pervades the left. And the radicalization of the American left meant, basically, that the ideas of the fringe permeated farther into the heart of the faction. A very large percentage of American progressives now accept at least a few radical ideas--and many of them accept many of them. This is difficult to deny. This is a party that generally accepts the idea that men can be women, kids can choose which they are, and can be medically "transitioned"--i.e. sexually mutilated. In general, the party supports DEI, which is a catspaw for implementing the whole package of left-wing ideas, including racial preferences in hiring and mandatory indoctrination sessions. Over the past decade, the left overall has simply become radical. Socialism, destructive as it is, may be one of its less destructive new doctrines...

   And: the radical left has never made any bones about wanting to bring down the West (and capitalism, and liberalism). The far left is entirely open about that. Many less-overtly-radical types are not open about it. And many even less radical types don't even want it...not exactly anyway. Anti-Western ideas are packaged as "social justice" for their consumption. Mass unregulated immigration, for example--a well-known weapon of cultural and political destruction--is characterized as kindness and "equity." Those who accept the means without understanding the end are Lenin's useful idiots...

   Anyway.

   You've heard it all before.

What's Going on with U.S. Minesweepers?

moved to the Pacific

How Many Lies Can Saddam Salim Tell About the "Assault Weapons" Ban in Three Paragraphs?

Jackass.

Drew Holden: Terrorism's Spin Doctors

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Chamath Palihapitiya's Story re: Trump is Exactly My Story

Though it didn't take me "six or seven years." Charlottesville was a big red-pilling event for me. Around that time I'd started to see through Russiagate and some of the other TDS bullshit...but I'd have to go back and look at the post timeline. Charlottesville was about two years and two months after Trump came down the "golden escalator." By November 2018 I voted straight-ticket Republican. But it's not clear what Palihapitiya means. Maybe he means something like: to really realize the full extent of the deception... Dunno.

Anyway. The left's reaction to Trump's statements on Charlottesville were just nuts. And this was before the "Very Fine People" hoax had coalesced into a standardized lie. Trump's initial statement was very good--I was pleased with it. But I was blasted for that by many commenters here (when we had comments...*). Anyway: I was right, they were wrong. If Obama had made the statement Trump made, he'd have been praised to high heaven. The criticisms of Trump's statement were bullshit. Then he issued another statement...and the left shrieked because he hadn't released it a day earlier...on Sunday... Utter nonsense. 

And, of course, the left portrayed the Unite the Right participants as completely evil, and the Antifa Lite counter-protestors as pure good...despite the fact that the UtR people were well within their First Amendment rights, and the "anti-racist counter-protestors" (as C'villians like to call them) were not--and they started the violence. (The bum who improvised a flame-thrower with an aerosol spray can and used it on the UtR guys became a celebrity in C'ville, fawned over by the local lefty papers (yes, 'papers' plural...). 

(Of course James Alex Fields gave the left the hook it needed to hang its argument on. Stupid asshole.)

But anyway: your First Amendment rights don't go away just because you are a racist--or otherwise an asshole...

Of course one must always add: Trump has his very significant downsides...but that's a different part of the story... 

Anyway, other than the "6 or 7 years" bit, this is me exactly:

* Anyway, in case you've forgotten: I stopped the comments basically as a way of stopping the blog...which I somehow never did. I still plan to switch over to Substack someday and start comments again.

Alexander Ward et al.: Trump Knew the Risk of Iran Blocking the Strait of Hormuz: He Still Went to War

I mean...this story doesn't strike me as terribly unreasonable...but doesn't it seem a bit...panicky? WSJ's news coverage leans left, of course...so one has to try to correct for that. Some of the concerns described (expressed?) in the story seem legit... But, as Chris Brey notes in a previous post, everybody knew Iran was likely to try to "close" the strait of Hormuz... That's just a cost of conflict with Iran. So what's with the apparently suggestion in the headline that Trump somehow just ignored the threat...or, rather, the obvious consequence of war? Everybody knew this would be one of the things that would happen...so it's peculiar grounds for panic...

   Also...what happened to Iran's announcement that it was opening the strait back up to everybody but the U.S. and Israel (and we don't really need it, apparently)? Why no mention of that? Because, you see, that seems huge to me. That's basically giving up on that front, so far as I can tell.

   And the stock market is tanking? Tanking?? Since when? Nobody tells me anything...

   Anyway.

   Look, I'm concerned about this war. Very, very concerned.

   But the overall tone of the news coverage is perfectly predictable: ominous suggestions that everything will go to hell...because Trump. Everything Trump does is bad and wrong. A tone of dread and disapproval is cast over every one of his actions and policies.

    And everything sure as hell might go to hell... I tend to think that's the most likely outcome of most wars...

   But I'm not going to let the MSM's TDS be the thing that sends me into panic mode.

   But what the hell do I know?

   Almost nothing, that's what.

Trump Saves the World?

Big if true.

OK, so the Abraham Accords. Taking down the Venezuelan cartel/dictatorship. Finally a response in the Iran War, the mullahs thought we were stupid and weak, they were right. Now Cuba.

You do get he's basically walking on water. Making every elected hack, bureaucrat and diplomat… https://t.co/iMOyB7xwA0

— Northern Barbarian (@xnoesbueno) March 15, 2026

Cuba?!?!

Either an anti-communist uprising prompted by blackouts / an oil shortage 

or

Protests over blackouts exacerbated by the U.S. oil embargo...

y'know, depending.

Another situation I know literally nothing about.

Leftist Shuts Down Event Meant to Showcase Civil Disagreement

The left in yet another nutshell.

The second leftist--the woman--is, perhaps, an even better representation of the left. She pretends that shouting down the other side is "questioning who is at that table"...

Really, honestly, this is one of the best snapshots of the contemporary American left I've ever seen:

Contra the talking head at the beginning: this doesn't show how "toxic" (<-- stupid word) "political discourse" has become...it shows how insane and totalitarian the left has become.

Judson Berger: The Iran Fog of War

Agreed.

Foggy, protean justifications and ever-shifting conditions of victory.

I recognize that there are plausible reasons for this thing...but it's extremely disturbing that the administration hasn't been able to state its case.

Alicia Nieves: How Pro-Immigrant Activism Turned Dangerous

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Alicia Nieves: The Moment Mass Migration Started

Astonishing and rage-inducing.

   It does offer some support for a view I started pushing during the election of 2020: Biden wasn't really the one to fear--but, rather, the lunatic progressive staffers that would inevitably permeate his administration.

   Some on the right are now afraid that Trump is going to knuckle under to the left and stop even trying to deport (and scare away) all the illegals. Some things he's said ominously suggest that he may shift focus entirely to criminals.

   It could just be talk--he could be trying to defang leftist propaganda.

   Hard to say.

   But if we don't figure out how to win this fight, we're done for. The U.S. won't survive--at least not in a recognizable form...i.e. in a form worth commitment and defense.

   Of all the left's ideas that threaten the nation, this may be the most dangerous one.

Behold, the Left: "We've Got to Get the Orcs Out of the Shire" Edition

This disagreement has two aspects.

First: dispassionate argumentation about borders and the enforcement of immigration law. The left loses there. They are ostentatiously nuts.

But the other relevant aspect is more visual or behavioral. It involves observation of these representatives--representations--of the left. Even if we didn't know which side was which, nor even what the disagreement was about, the grotesquerie of the left would be informative. There is just something wrong with these people. Yes, they're ignorant/misinformed. But that can be excusable (though perhaps not if you're out there demonstrating and impeding law enforcement. In that case, you probably have an obligation to inform yourself... But it goes deeper than that. Sane people don't do such things and don't say such things. One of their tactics is to say things to their enemies that no normal, sane person would ever say. Grotesquerie is an ideal to them. They want to be repulsive--visually and otherwise. They like the psycho "black bloc" look. It does have practical functions--making it more difficult to apprehend and prosecute them for their criminal actions, and so on. But it's also a kind of visual representation of totalitarianism. The umbrellas, the facemasks...the whole thing is supposed to look insane and inhuman. Again: those are goals of the extremist left. To gesture at just at something obvious: "queer theory" is one of the many expressions of these ideas on the left promoting such madness. It doesn't have all that much specifically to do with homosexuality. Rather, the point of "queerness" in queer theory is the destruction of normality (and sanity). The point is to destroy the West--by undermining reason. Madness and chaos are teloi of the left:

Z0MG PETE HEGSETH FEEDS THE TROOPZ0MG!!!1111one

There's plenty to fret about right now without making shit up to fret about.

4 of 6 KC-135 Crew Confirmed Deceased

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KC-135 Goes Down During Iran Operations

shit

Terrorist Attack at ODU: 1 Dead, 2 Injured

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The shooter is also dead--but nobody gives a shit about that.

Apparently some students subdued him...and now he's dead.

Oh well.

Shit happens.

Sorry to hear, though, that an actual person was also killed.

Noah Rothman: What's Gone Right in the Iran War?

link

John Masko: UT Austin Strikes a Blow to Critical Theory

Good.

I'd rather get rid of such programs completely--or form new sub-disciplines specifically designed to explain and criticize/counter them. But this is a step in the right direction.

Walter Russell Mead: How the Iran War Ends

I dunno.

Seems reasonable, I guess.

I'm just holdin' on for Spring Break at this point, man.

Anyway, I absolutely do not understand enough about all this to deserve much of an opinion.

I've really got little beyond: we seem to have had no good options--and we may have chosen the worse one. Or maybe not.

But the die is cast--no sense shoring up the side of the moonbats and the Mullahs by moping and puling.

Lefties Rejoice! Apparently We ARE Responsible for Bombing the Iranian Girls' School

Moonbats will be ecstatic.

This is what they've fervently been hoping for.

Riley: Trump Should Reconsider His "Failing" Strategy re: Deportations and Explaining the War

Look, the shootings of Love and Pretti were a godsend to the left. Even without them, the left's propaganda was working (or so it seems). Both shootings were easily avoidable, even if one or both turn out to have been defensible.

   The left is just better at propaganda, and it generally has and is willing to exploit the feelz angle. Those are huge advantages. Add to that: shooting a dopey, middle-aged woman who has been duped into thinking that she's fighting the Nazis in the face...well...we're in trouble.

   Sidebar: some on the right are concerned that Trump is going soft on the illegal invasion. He's said things that sound like he's shifting the focus completely onto criminals. If the left can pull that off, it really is Adios, America...

   And as for explanations/justifications for the war...I honestly have little idea what they're even saying.

   Almost makes me long for the buildup to Iraq. The reasons were bullshit...but at least we knew what they were...

   I rather wish Trump had focused on the homefront and left Iran to one of his successors to deal with...even though I think that might well be even worse. The extremist left is wrecking the country; it's a bigger threat than Iran, IMO. Take it out first. Then try to remake the ME later, if you've got the political capital...

More Medicare Fraud: Hospices (esp. in Los Angeles)

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