Robert Campin Portrait of a woman 1430-35
© AP / Manuel Balce Ceneta (I like this photo)
https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1901305613721702854
NASA
The Biden Stranded NASA astronauts have sent a thank you to Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
Surprise, surprise! The media never covered it…
pic.twitter.com/sggFKUkIuU— Chad Prather (@WatchChad) March 15, 2025
14
An absolute bombshell from @elonmusk on the latest episode of Verdict.
He reveals there are 14 magic money computers in the federal government that send money out of nothing.
Don’t miss the latest episode of Verdict wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe now!… pic.twitter.com/1tnJmJtiw9
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 17, 2025
Isaacson
Biographer Walter Isaacson reflects on the childhoods of Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Einstein
Isaacson reflects on his biography of Elon Musk and Elon’s tough childhood of suffering from bullying in school and an emotionally abusive relationship with his father:
“I sometimes… pic.twitter.com/8glpr0QRqF
— Startup Archive (@StartupArchive_) March 17, 2025
Today: Putin-Trump call, JFK files release (80,000 pages), the astronauts come home.
Call starts at 9AM EDT. Putin doesn’t have a lot of room to move. And he will demand suspension of all weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Not an easy call for Trump.
• Trump-Putin To Hold Tuesday Call On Ending War In Ukraine (ZH)
Both the US and Russian sides have confirmed that Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will hold another phone call on Tuesday. Trump previewed that he plans to continue discussions to end the war in Ukraine, and he cryptically referenced negotiators having already discussed “dividing up certain assets.” “I’ll be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday. A lot of work’s been done over the weekend,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One while en route back from Florida to Washington.n “We want to see if we can bring that war to an end. Maybe we can, maybe we can’t, but I think we have a very good chance,” Trump said. The US is still proposing a 30-day temporary ceasefire, which Putin has already questioned as a likely means by which Ukrainian forces can simply rearm, replenish, and regroup.
“We will be talking about land. We will be talking about power plants,” Trump said when asked by a reporters about concessions. “I think we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides, Ukraine and Russia. We are already talking about that, dividing up certain assets.” Trump’s special envoy who met with Putin in Moscow last week, Steve Witkoff, has said that the Russian president “accepts the philosophy” of Trump’s ceasefire. Still, the Kremlin has repeatedly said it will not accept anything that’s a short-term solution. Putin and Trump had an initial phone call spanning 90-minutes less than a month after Trump was inaugurated, to talk about moving toward a potential Ukraine peace plan. The Russian Defense Ministry has meanwhile indicated that Moscow will demand Kiev’s neutral status and that NATO can never accept Ukraine for membership.
This appears to be Moscow’s only and main ‘security guarantee’ that it wants in place: “Part of these guarantees should be the neutral status of Ukraine, the refusal of Nato countries to accept it into the alliance,” Russia’s deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko said Sunday. Of course, this is to include a ban on NATO building up military infrastructure in Ukraine as well. But other Western allies are challenging the progress made, and are likely even trying to sabotage any potential deal. “If Ukraine requests allied forces to be on its territory, it is not up to Russia to accept or reject them,” French President Emmanuel Macron has said.
A district judge issues orders to the President and his government. Well, Boasberg is all over. Tanya Chutkan, Jack Smith, J6, etc. This is not an accident, it’s the lawfare machine. The only way to stop it is to cut off the money: NGOs. And the Magic Money Computers (see below).
• Judge Demands DOJ Reveal Classified Information On Deportation Flights (ZH)
US District Judge James Boasberg on Monday held a hearing after the Trump administration refused to turn two plane-fulls of criminal migrants around mid-flight, and may have allowed a third plane to depart following his Saturday order halting the deportations of suspected Tren de Aragua gang members. Boasberg on Saturday temporarily halted the Trump administration from using the 1789 Alien Enemies Act to deport the illegal immigrants, however DOJ lawyers told the judge that there were already two planes in the air – one headed for Honduras, and the other headed for El Salvador. While the judge verbally ordered the planes to be turned around, the directive was not included in his written order. As journalist Julie Kelly reports, Monday’s hearing was a complete power play by Boasberg. Kelly documented the exchange on X:
Boasberg: I have scheduled this hearing for fact finding on government’s response to my order. Focus on timeline involved and get a sense of numbers of people here. I just want “facts” not planning to issue any ruling about the government’s conduct.
Boasberg asks DOJ if it’s still true that the 5 individual plaintiffs are in the US. DOJ says yes.
“How many planes departed the US on Saturday under the proclamation?” DOJ says flights complied with his order but won’t disclose more to anyone.
Boasberg: “Anyone including me?”
DOJ: “Yes.”
Boasberg: “Based on what?”
DOJ cites national security concerns, flight patterns.
Boasberg: “You’re saying it’s classified? I can receive classified information. Or there is some other basis? Why are you showing up today without answers?”Nothing but a power play.
“I’m just asking how you think my equitable powers do not attach to a plane that has departed the U.S., even if it’s in international airspace,” Boasberg said.
Boasberg then demanded the DOJ answer a list of questions, including;
How many planes left at any time Saturday based solely on the proclamation.
How many people were on each plane.
In what country did the planes land.
What time did they take off and land.
When were they in air space.
What time were individuals on the plane transferred to custody.As Kelly notes further, “There are three flights at issue: two that left before any written order (and that DOJ says did not include individuals covered under the Alien Enemies Act) and one that might have departed after Boasberg’s minute order posted around 7:30pm on Saturday,” adding “ACLU wants a sworn statement that third flight did not include illegals covered by proclamation. Boasberg tells DOJ he will order the govt to file a sworn declaration as to the third flight.” Boasberg then made the argument that the DOJ should not have allowed any planes to take off on Saturday because they knew Boasberg had a hearing scheduled for 5pm… In other words, he’s arguing that the Trump administration should not have executed the President’s lawful order because he (Boasberg) was going to hold a hearing, and maybe stop the government from deporting the immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act.”This is batshit crazy,” said Kelly, adding that she would “love to see Boasberg’s comms with ACLU before lawsuit was filed Saturday morning.”
Miller
Hi. Want to see a murder on Live TV?
I give you White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller vs CNN’s Kasie Hunt.
Hunt asks if the Trump Administration ignored orders from the district judge to stop deportations.
Then, Fatality…
pic.twitter.com/uvzgRwGhCS— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) March 17, 2025
Different case, same principle.
“..it’s a judge that’s putting himself in the position of the president of the United States, who was elected by close to 80 million votes,” Trump said. “That’s a very dangerous thing for our country..”
• Trump Slams Federal Judge’s ‘Dangerous’ Ruling on Fired Federal Workers (DS)
President Donald Trump said it’s “ridiculous” that a federal judge ruled that the government must rehire fired government employees. “I don’t think that’s going to be happening, but we’ll have to see,” he told The Daily Signal aboard Air Force One on Sunday. A judge appointed by President Bill Clinton ruled Thursday that the Trump administration must reinstate some fired probationary government employees. He ruled that six agencies must give jobs back to thousands of recently hired employees who President Donald Trump fired in an effort to eliminate “waste, fraud, and abuse” from the federal government by cutting the federal workforce.
“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous, absolutely, it’s a judge that’s putting himself in the position of the president of the United States, who was elected by close to 80 million votes,” Trump said. “That’s a very dangerous thing for our country,” the president continued, ”and I would suspect that we’re going to have to get a decision from the Supreme Court, but that’s a very dangerous decision for our country.” U.S. District Judge William Alsup said employees the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, and Treasury must get their jobs back. “These are people, in many cases, they don’t show up for work,” Trump said. “Nobody even knows if they exist, and a judge wants us to pay them even if they don’t know they exist.”
“Where did we get the idea that federal judges can just act with impunity, jerking around the public interest like some show-off with a yoyo?”
• Welcome to FAFO-Land (Kunstler)
It’s as simple as this: the orgy of judicial lawfare put on by blob-adjacent Democratic Party seditionists trying to make the USA ungovernable is looking to get swatted. Hubris is a harsh mistress, but Nemesis is more like the gods’ re-po man, and he comes to the door with attitude, meaning bidness. Blob judges will get flushed out of their humid conclaves naked and find themselves, astoundingly, in the FO zone of FAFO-land. Do you think AG Bondi is playing tiddlywinks in Main Justice or that Kash Patel is just sitting there buffing his nails over at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW? Where did we get the idea that federal judges can just act with impunity, jerking around the public interest like some show-off with a yoyo? Case in point: Judge James Boasberg, head honcho of the DC federal district court stepped into the FAFO waiting room over the weekend when he ordered two planeloads of deported toxic human trash known as Tren de Aragua, bound for jail in El Salvador, to return to the USA.
Mr. Trump’s White House refused, saying the planes were already over international waters, outside the judge’s jurisdiction. Dem-blob lawyer Mark Zaid made the predictable next move, claiming that the matter will be grounds for Impeachment No. 3 against Mr. Trump post the 2026 midterm election. But, of course: strategery! The general purpose in this latest phase of lawfare is to choke the federal courts with so many restraining orders and injunctions that the White House lawyers find themselves locked into an endless Chinese fire drill of counter-filings, motions, writs, and appearances. It’s all that the so-called “resistance” has left, what with DOGE breaking up the racketeering operation that has funded the Dem’s defense of the blob for a decade. By which I mean the government funding of non-governmental orgs (ha!) to distribute payola to Dem foot-soldiers who do all the dirty work of protecting the rogue bureaucracy in a circle-jerk of power and payoffs. This includes the dirty work of Dem-blob lawyers such as Mark Zaid, Norm Eisen, Mary McCord, Marc Elias, Barbara McQuade, Joanna Lydgate et al.
The history of Judge Boasberg in particular presents a disturbing picture of a tool covering-up every act of the shadowy blob’s war against American citizens. Boasberg presided in the FISA court that fraudulently enabled the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane operation to attempt ousting newly-elected Donald Trump in 2017, and the many RussiaGate pranks that followed. As chief judge of the DC District, he oversaw the Jack Smith Special Counsel op and all the cases associated with it, including the Mar-a-Lago raid and the J-6 case in Tanya Chutkan’s crooked court. Boasberg allowed the prosecution of J-6ers under the unlawful use of the corporate fraud obstruction statute, 18USC§1512c2, a.k.a. the Enron law. He presided over the trial of Ray Epps, the shady character recorded on video repeatedly urging J-6 protestors to “go into the Capitol.” Boasberg gave Epps a suspended sentence while grandmothers who merely “paraded” through the rotunda between velvet ropes that day got sent to jail.
What can be done about judges like Boasberg? The prevailing view is: not much. I’m not so sure that’s true. While Rep. Brandon Gill (D-TX) announced last week that he will file articles of impeachment against Boasberg, a two-thirds majority would be required to convict him in any eventual Senate trial, so fuggeddabowdit. But federal judges are not immune from criminal investigation and prosecution, which is where AG Bondi and FBI Director Patel ought to come in. What’s probably standing in plain sight is a RICO conspiracy involving the aforesaid lawfare artists — Norm Eisen & Co — and the federal judiciary to deliberately bury the executive branch under burdensome fraudulent process, impede the executive branch’s ability to carry out its constitutional duties, and to obstruct justice.
Would you like to know if correspondence exists between these parties? Mr. Patel can ask them to produce it, and if they fail to, there’s a strong possibility that DNI Director Tulsi Gabbard can root it out of the NSA’s server farm. Depositions can be demanded. The lawfare lawyers will have to hire lawyers — just as all the targets of “Joe Biden” and Merrick Garland were obliged to lawyer-up when they were systematically persecuted from January, 2021 to January, 2025. The meters will run, ka-ching, ka-ching. It will be interesting to see who is footing the bill for that. You can be sure that it will be found out. Reid Hoffman? George and Alex Soros? Note: Dan Bongino was sworn in as Deputy Director of the FBIat 8:00 o’clock this morning. Nemesis is open for bidness. The lawfare gang would love all of this to ramp into a king-hell constitutional crisis. Could happen. Let them try. They don’t hold any of the levers of power the way they used to. A lot could go wrong for them. Welcome to FAFO-land.
To be precise, he didn’t “declare” it: “It’s not my decision — that’ll be up to a court — but I would say that they’re null and void,.”
• Trump Says Biden’s Autopen-Signed Pardons “Null and Void” (ZH)
Ten days or so after the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project disclosed that nearly every document bearing former President Biden’s signature during his first term had been signed by an autopen—except for one—questions arose over whether executive orders and pardons could be deemed invalid, as we noted that Biden’s staff likely leveraged his rapid cognitive deterioration to sign those documents via autopen. Overnight, President Trump declared that the 11th-hour pardons, including those given to members of Congress who investigated the January 6 insurrection, were “void, vacant, and of no further force or effect, because of the fact that they were done by autopen.” Some of those last-minute pardons include Deep Staters, such as former Representative Liz Cheney, retired General Mark Milley, and government scientist Anthony Fauci.
“The “Pardons” that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,” Trump wrote on Truth Social late Sunday night. The president continued: “In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime.”
He went on to say that members of that House committee are “subject to investigation at the highest level”… “Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two year Witch Hunt of me, and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level. The fact is, they were probably responsible for the Documents that were signed on their behalf without the knowledge or consent of the Worst President in the History of our Country, Crooked Joe Biden!”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One late last night: “It’s not my decision — that’ll be up to a court — but I would say that they’re null and void, because I’m sure Biden didn’t have any idea that it was taking place, and somebody was using an auto pen to sign off and to give pardons.” https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1901530391598555271?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1901530391598555271%7Ctwgr%5Eb15225da52c37de9c468fe65a7fe74f6bab0c219%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Ftrump-declares-bidens-autopen-signed-pardons-void
“This isn’t about political parties anymore; it’s about the integrity of the highest office in our land.”
• The Brilliance Behind Trump’s Move Declaring Biden’s Pardons ‘Void’ (Margolis)
President Donald Trump dropped a bombshell Sunday evening. As my PJ Media colleague Catherine Salgado reported, Trump declared Joe Biden’s pardons void due to the suspicious use of an autopen and serious questions about whether Sleepy Joe even knew what he was rubber-stamping. “The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. But here’s what’s really fascinating — and telling. Biden’s social media team remains suspiciously silent. Not a peep from his X account disputing the autopen accusations. These are serious allegations that merit a response, yet we got nothing. Really makes you think, doesn’t it?
Trump’s second Truth Social post cuts right to the heart of the matter: “The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime.” This isn’t just about pardons; it’s about who was really running our government. How is this going to play out? Proving that Biden wasn’t aware of these pardons might be an uphill battle. But something tells me that’s not the point. While I suspect that it will be virtually impossible to prove that Biden didn’t authorize those pardons, I still think this may have been a brilliant move by Trump. Here’s why. Every legal challenge, every court filing, every public statement will keep this scandal front and center.
Even if the pardons ultimately stand, the damage to Biden’s legacy and the Democratic Party will be done. Why we’ve been reporting on this scandal for several days, mainstream media coverage of the scandal has been virtually nonexistent. However, I’m starting to see reports from mainstream outlets trickle out. So far, I’ve seen reports from NBC News, Axios, Bloomberg, The Hill, USA Today, NewsNation, and ABC News. The story is out there now, which means that the American people will see exactly how the Deep State operates behind the scenes with its cognitively challenged puppet, Biden.
Why focus specifically on pardons and not Biden’s executive orders or judicial nominations? Because Trump knows exactly what he’s doing. By challenging these pardons, he’s forcing several sitting Democrats who received preemptive pardons from Biden to publicly defend their get-out-of-jail-free cards and attack Trump for declaring Biden’s pardons void. The mainstream media can’t ignore this story when their favorite Democrats are squirming under the spotlight. The mere fact that we’re having this conversation about whether the President of the United States actually knew who he was pardoning should terrify every American. This isn’t about political parties anymore; it’s about the integrity of the highest office in our land.
As I’ve pointed out in previous coverage of the scandal, the use of an autopen isn’t unprecedented in presidential actions, but using one to sign executive orders and pardons while serious questions exist about the president’s mental faculties and consent? That’s a whole different ballgame. The Trump administration hints at having evidence to support these claims, and given its track record of exposing Democratic corruption, I wouldn’t bet against it. Will that be enough for them to be declared legally void? I’m skeptical, but again, that may not be the actual point. The Democrats thought they could quietly slip these pardons through without scrutiny. Thanks to President Trump’s strategic move, the American people will get to see exactly how the sausage is made in Biden’s White House, and it’s not pretty.
“..It’s approximately 80,000 pages..”
• Trump Says JFK Files Will Be Released Tuesday Without Redactions (JTN)
President Donald Trump announced on Monday at the Kennedy Center that the files regarding former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination will be released on Tuesday without redactions. “We are tomorrow announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files,” Trump said. “So people have been waiting for decades for this, and I’ve instructed my people that are responsible, lots of different people, put together by Tulsi Gabbard, and that’s going to be released tomorrow.” The release will happen Tuesday afternoon, The Daily Wire reported.
“We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading. I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything. I said, just don’t redact. You can’t redact,” Trump added. “But we’re going to be releasing the JFK files, and that would be tomorrow.” “It’s approximately 80,000 pages,” he said. “So it’s a lot of stuff, and you’ll make your own determination.” Trump said that the documents will be released without summaries so the public and media could drawn their own conclusions.
“..because these were congressional records, the president lacked the authority to release them to the public without the assent of the House of Representatives.”
• Key to Uncovering Truth About MLK Assassination Lies With Congress (DS)
Since his return to the White House, President Donald Trump is close to signing 100 executive orders. The deluge has put the corporate media, and sometimes Congress, on their heels. Nevertheless, Congress is coming alongside Trump to keep one of his more interesting campaign promises: to declassify records related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., recently announced the formation of a congressional task force whose purpose is to examine declassified material in the public interest. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., will lead the task force, which will examine the government records that are declassified pursuant to Trump’s Jan. 23 executive order, among other things.
Luna explained that the “mission” of the task force is “to ensure these documents are released swiftly and in their entirety, giving the American people the truth they deserve.” As Luna has repeatedly noted on social media, the task force itself has no declassification authority, which is the exclusive prerogative of the president. Nonetheless, it can support the declassification of government records related to these assassinations by holding government officials accountable for any attempts to obstruct the timely release of these records to the public.Indeed, in a recent post on X, Luna stated, “If @POTUS’ executive order to declassify these files is obstructed, we won’t hesitate to hold those responsible accountable. Remember: [Attorney General] Pam Bondi is at the DOJ [Department of Justice] now. If Congress votes to hold someone in contempt, she’ll back us.
”While it is true that Congress has no declassification authority over records of the executive branch, this does not mean that Congress has no role to play in the complete declassification and public release of government records related to these assassinations. This is particularly true with respect to the assassination of King. In 1977, the House of Representatives established the Select Committee on Assassinations, which was tasked with reinvestigating the assassinations of President Kennedy and King. Two years later, the committee released its findings. Albeit couched in highly tentative terms, the committee concluded that both Kennedy and King were assassinated “as a result of a conspiracy.”
Per House rules at the time, all records associated with these investigations were sealed from public access for 50 years—until Jan. 3, 2029. With the passage of the JFK Records Act in 1992, however, the timeline for the public release of the committee’s records related to the Kennedy assassination was superseded and became subject to immediate release with only the most sensitive records being withheld until Oct. 26, 2017. Although some of these records required declassification by executive agencies prior to public release, the vast majority did not. More importantly, because these were congressional records, the president lacked the authority to release them to the public without the assent of the House of Representatives.
Thus, if Trump intends to declassify and publicly release “all records in the federal government’s possession” pertaining to the assassination of King, he will need the House of Representatives to assent to the release of all its records relating to the committee’s investigation of the assassination in advance of its original Jan. 3, 2029, deadline. Accordingly, Luna and her colleagues can strike an immediate blow for full government transparency by requesting that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., instruct the House Clerk to make these records available immediately to the public. Undoubtedly, the House Clerk will determine that some of these records require a declassification review by the president, but that doesn’t mean the public has to wait for declassification to see the rest of the evidence committee investigators relied upon to support their conclusion that King was assassinated “as a result of a conspiracy.”
Independence.
• The Strongest Case for Trump’s Tariffs I’ve Heard Yet (Margolis)
Donald Trump’s tariff policies remain a lightning rod for debate. Democrats are sounding the alarm, warning of dire economic fallout and painting a picture of looming catastrophe. Batya Ungar-Sargon, deputy opinion editor of Newsweek, made one of the strongest, most effective cases yet for former President Donald Trump’s tariffs during the latest episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher.” She broke down exactly why these tariffs are necessary, and by the end, she left Bill Maher flustered. Ungar-Sargon’s explanation couldn’t have been clearer: manufacturing jobs and economic nationalism are crucial for the American middle class.When the conversation turned to the economy of the 1970s, Ungar-Sargon wasted no time explaining why so many Americans look back on that era with nostalgia. “In the ‘70s, the largest share of our GDP was in the middle class,” she said. “And that was not separate from the fact that 25% of our economy was in manufacturing.”
Maher sought clarification, asking if that meant “most of what was produced came from the middle, and now it comes from the rich.”“Now, the top 20% controls over 50% of the GDP,” Ungar-Sargon confirmed, highlighting how economic power has been funneled away from the working class. “That manufacturing is still being done; it’s just being done in other countries.”Maher interjected, noting that the jobs have moved overseas for “wages we will not work for.”This, of course, is true, but it also proved Ungar-Sargon’s point. “Yes, that’s exactly right. You’re right, Bill,” Ungar-Sargon responded. “That’s what the tariffs are for. They are to make American workers more competitive in the global market.” She then challenged the defeatist attitude that has allowed China to dominate industries once vital to the American workforce.
“Why are we accepting that there should be a race to the bottom? You know, China, what is its competitive advantage over us? It’s that it pays slave wages. Why should we accept that?” She laid out Trump’s argument for protecting key industries, explaining that his trade policies aren’t just about economics but national security. “Trump says there are five industries that we cannot have any kind of national security without having a stake in them—pharmaceuticals, lumber, steel, aluminum,” she said, adding that she had momentarily forgotten the fifth. “These are really important, that we have a stake in the manufacturing of the things that we need as a nation. So that when China decides that it wants to go to war against us, we’re not relying on them for steel and aluminum in order to fight them.”Maher, clearly caught off guard by the well-reasoned argument, could only muster a flustered response: “Okay, well, at least that’s an answer.”And it was an answer—one the left refuses to confront, because deep down, they know she’s right. Maher certainly seemed to. He had no rebuttal. Why? Because there isn’t one.
Batya Ungar-Sargon stuns Bill Maher into submission when talking about Trump's rationale on tariffs:
BUS: "The 70's the largest share of our GDP was in the middle class. Now the top 20% controls over 50% of the GDP.
That manufacturing is still being done: It's just being done in… pic.twitter.com/s8REPsSUH8— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) March 15, 2025
“..what made them “radical” and “crazy” is actually how very American-as-applepie they were.”
• Why Has Trump Finally Pulled The Plug On Deep State Propaganda? (Amar)
He’s done it again. Or rather, they have. As part of their curious slash-and-burn crusade to dismantle – for better or worse – large swathes of the American state from the top, President Donald Trump and his bestie-in-chief Elon Musk with his gang of enforcers at DOGE have put the axe to yet another seven government agencies. Carried out by presidential executive order, this particular blitz is aimed at offices busy with things as diverse as labor dispute mediation and the mitigation of homelessness. The method of Trumpist attack is simple and already familiar: The targeted agencies are not literally shut down, which Trump cannot legally do by decree. Instead, their budgets and staff are pruned so aggressively that they have to cease operations. Yet, tellingly, there is only one kind of cut that has really made centrists, liberals, and the mainstream media furious. Nope, not the hit on the homeless; and not the one on labor relations either.
What caused a ruckus instead is that Trump and Musk have gone after state propaganda. To be precise, state propaganda for the rest of the world. For one of the offices that has been given the Trumpist flamethrower treatment this time is the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). And that is, in reality, the US ministry for propaganda abroad. While it’s a fairly new (2018) label, USAGM’s roots reach deep into the fetid soil of the last century’s Cold War. Originally, there were Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty. Voice of America was founded during World War II and was quickly retooled afterwards to be used as a Cold War propaganda weapon by the CIA. Its younger cousins, Radio Free Europe, founded in 1950, and Radio Liberty (1951) were, literally, CIA fronts.
But that “involvement was kept secret until the late 1960s for fear of Soviet retaliation,” as Encyclopedia Britannica puts it with fine British understatement as well as a whopping portion of brute disinformation: The fact that the CIA remained in hiding was, of course, not due to the big bad Russians (the Soviets at the time) being so terribly scary. It was simply a means to manipulate publics in the East and the West and present what was geopolitically driven propaganda as ‘independent news’. After 1971, the CIA (officially) ended its (direct) control. If you believe that means an agency specializing in lying – and so much worse – was no longer pulling the strings, I have a Ukrainian ‘democracy’, complete with ‘civil society’ and all the fixings, to sell you. Formally, the Board for International Broadcasting took over. It was appointed by the president, which tells you all you need to know about how important this global propaganda machine was to Washington.
Finally, after further label changes, the board morphed into the USAGM. It ended up controlling not just Voice of America, as well as Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty – long merged into RFE/RL – but a host of other outlets, including Radio Free Asia, and the very honest-sounding (not) Office of Cuba Broadcasting. According to USAGM’s own website, it was reaching an audience of 427 million per week in 64 languages, and via traditional broadcasting as well as the internet. Those lucky viewers, listeners, and readers were fed an unhealthy diet corresponding to the US “national interest” (in USAGM’s own terms) of “more than 3,000 hours of original programming each week.”
Say what you will about this American ministry of foreign propaganda, but it was bigger and richer than anything comparable the poor old Soviets ever managed to rig up. And that is the organization that Trump and Musk have just cut down. The Cold War, of course, has long been over. Any reasonable person’s response to this overdue move would be: ‘What took you so long?’ Elon Musk had a point when posting that the propaganda outlets are “just radical crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1bn/year of US taxpayer money.” Except, they were by no means only talking to themselves, unfortunately. And what made them “radical” and “crazy” is actually how very American-as-applepie they were.
“..peacekeeping and NATO are actually incompatible things..”
• NATO ‘Peacekeepers’ in Ukraine Would Snatch War From the Jaws of Peace (Sp.)
Russia’s demands for “ironclad” guarantees on Ukraine include a firm rejection of NATO “peacekeeping forces” on Ukrainian soil, no matter the “nameplate” the alliance may try to insert them under, Deputy Foreign Minister Grushko has said. What are the uncertainties Russia faces amid peace talks with the US? We asked a top political risk consultant. “Any so-called ‘ironclad’ guarantees for Russia will likely come down to one thing: keeping Ukraine out of NATO. That, along with a promise that Western powers will stop meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs, would be the only realistic foundation for any lasting settlement,” foreign affairs analyst, political risk consultant and lawyer Adriel Kasonta explained.
“But here’s the problem —when has the West ever been good at keeping its promises to Russia? Time and again, Western leaders have made commitments only to walk them back when it suits their interests. NATO expansion was never supposed to reach Russia’s doorstep, yet here we are. Obama and Bush both spoke of ‘resets’ with Moscow, only for relations to deteriorate further,” Kasonta told Sputnik. “Now, Trump is pushing for a deal with Russia, not out of goodwill, but because he sees China as the bigger threat,” the observer said. “The question is, what happens after him? What stops a future U.S. administration from reversing course once again? If history is anything to go by, Russia has every reason to stay on high alert.” “If we’re talking about NATO peacekeeping forces, peacekeeping and NATO are actually incompatible things,” Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said in an interview with Russian media on Sunday.
“We know the history of NATO, and although they boast very much about being a defensive alliance, the real history of NATO consists of military operations, aggression against unarmed states without justification, just to emphasize once again its hegemony in global and regional affairs,” Grushko said. “Therefore, all these conversations” about NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine “are absolutely inappropriate. They are absurd. And I think that even the average person in the West understands the real cost of this kind of deployment…We absolutely do not care under which nameplate NATO contingents could be deployed on the territory of Ukraine, whether the EU, NATO or in a national capacity. In any case, if they appear there with the consent of Ukraine, that means they are located in the conflict zone, with all the consequences” this entails, Grushko stressed.
“Moscow already views Western involvement in Ukraine—whether through arms shipments or foreign fighters—as an indirect war,” Kasonta said, commenting on the deputy foreign minister’s remarks. “Sending NATO troops would remove any ambiguity, risking escalation on a whole new level.” As for the UK, whose government is reportedly prepared to deploy peacekeeping troops of its own to Ukraine “for years,” “London is just following Washington’s lead,” the observer said.“The UK doesn’t have the military capacity or public support to play a serious role in Ukraine. No one in Britain is eager to send troops to die in a war that doesn’t concern them. The only people who seem to care are politicians who have spent years hyping up the conflict and now can’t admit they were wrong. Rather than face reality, they double down, pretending that the war is still winnable.” Kasonta summed up.
Another way to feed the lawfare machine: print money wherever and whenever you want.
• Musk: Feds’ “Magic Money Computers” Issue Payments “Out Of Thin Air” (ZH)
Elon Musk says that DOGE has discovered the US government has “magic money computers” that make payments “out of thin air.” Sitting down with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for his podcast that was recorded at the White House, Cruz said: “One of the things you told me about is what you called, ‘Magic Money Computers.’ So tell us about it, ’cause I never heard of that ’til you brought it up.”
.@elonmusk: "One of the biggest fraud holes we've uncovered … is that the government can give money to a so called nonprofit … They then give themselves … insane salaries, expense everything, buy jets and homes … on the taxpayer dime … This is happening at scale." pic.twitter.com/oqe9L5OShr
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) March 17, 2025
Musk: “Okay, so, you may think like the government computers all talk to each other, they synchronize, they add up what funds are going somewhere. And, that they’re coherent … And that the numbers that you’re presented as a Senator are actually the real numbers.”
Cruz: “One would think!”
Musk: “One would think – they’re not … I mean they’re not totally wrong, but they’re probably off by five percent or 10 percent in some cases. So, I call it ‘Magic Money Computer’: any computer that can make money out of thin air. That’s magic money.”
Cruz: “So how does that work?” Cruz asked.
Musk: “It just issues payments.”
Cruz: “And you said there’s something like 11 of these computers at Treasury that are sending out trillions in payments?”
Musk replied that they’re mostly at the Department of Treasury, and others are at the Department of Health and Human Services as well as the Department of Defense.
Musk: “We’ve found now 14 ‘Magic Money Computers. They just send money out of nothing.”.@elonmusk: "The fraud we're seeing is overwhelmingly on the left … The single biggest thing that they're worried about is that DOGE is going to turn off fraudulent payments of entitlements … to illegals … This is why they really hate my guts and want me to die." pic.twitter.com/dZDrtvxw87
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) March 17, 2025
Musk also told Cruz that DOGE will save taxpayers $1 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2026… “If you look at DOGE now, you look at the government and what you’re finding, what percentage have you guys even gotten to and how much of it is ‘mars’ where you haven’t even gotten there yet because there’s so much you’re finding out here,” asked co-host Ben Ferguson. “You seem like a timeline guy – when you say ‘I want to get in there and get numbers and things’ – how far are we from the endgame, where you’ve seen it all – you know, to process it all, and fix it. Are we years away? Months away?” Musk: “Not years. I’m reasonably confident that we’ll be able to get a trillion dollars of waste and fraud out, meaning that it will have, we’ll have a net savings of FY26 of a trillion dollars, provided we’re allowed to continue and our progress is not impeded.”
BREAKING: TED CRUZ INTERVIEWS ELON ON DOGE
Senator Ted Cruz and TV host Ben Ferguson just released this new interview with Elon Musk on DOGE's progress and other topics.
Timestamps:
0:46 Improving gov: 80% waste, 20% fraud
4:16 Stacey Abrams org & non-profit scams
5:37 The gov… pic.twitter.com/QiRoFmEqNr— ELON CLIPS (@ElonClipsX) March 17, 2025
Very tough and dehumanizing. But the gang members appear dehumanized anyway.
• Bukele: New Partnership With US Advances Fight Against Organized Crime (JTN)
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said it’s partnership with the U.S. on transferring illegal immigrants linked to gang activity to prison in El Salvador helps both countries crack down on crime. Under Bukele, the homicide rate has dropped to its lowest point since the civil war in El Salvador in 1992.”The first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country. They were immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year (renewable). The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us,” Bukele wrote on X.”Over time, these actions, combined with the production already being generated by more than 40,000 inmates engaged in various workshops and labor under the Zero Idleness program, will help make our prison system self-sustainable. As of today, it costs $200 million per year,” he added.
Bukele said the partnership is helping dismantle the MS-13 gang. “On this occasion, the U.S. has also sent us 23 MS-13 members wanted by Salvadoran justice, including two ringleaders. One of them is a member of the criminal organization’s highest structure. This will help us finalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants of MS-13, including its former and new members, money, weapons, drugs, hideouts, collaborators, and sponsors,” he said. “As always, we continue advancing in the fight against organized crime. But this time, we are also helping our allies, making our prison system self-sustainable, and obtaining vital intelligence to make our country an even safer place. All in a single action. May God bless El Salvador, and may God bless the United States,” he added.
Bukele
REPORT: Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller secretly orchestrated the Venezuelan gang members' flights to El Salvador to get the criminals out of the country before an activist judge could take action.
Brilliant.
According to Axios, the Trump administration *ignored* the court… pic.twitter.com/oojJSyxWgL
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 16, 2025
“..before he became associated with green beer and leprechauns, Saint Patrick was a symbol of freedom of speech.”
• Celebrate Saint Patrick by Chasing Censors Out of Ireland (Turley)
With the arrival of Saint Patrick’s Day, our nation’s close affinity to Ireland was on full display in the White House as President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance hosted Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin. We are two countries joined by blood and tradition. Of course, there are tensions over trade conflicts with the European Union and Ireland, which quickly came to the surface in the meeting. In the end, however, we are likely to resolve those trade problems. The fact is that we need each other, both economically and culturally. Yet, there is one chasm between the two countries that not only remains wide but is widening: the gap between how each country handles free speech. And Martin would much prefer to talk about Irish socks than Irish censorship. Ironically, before he became associated with green beer and leprechauns, Saint Patrick was a symbol of freedom of speech.
Although there is no evidence beyond pious legend that he chased snakes out of Ireland (there likely never were snakes in Ireland), he did chase slavery and human sacrifice out of the country, despite the initial unpopularity of his reforms. A former slave himself, St. Patrick’s public statements against slavery, paganism and longstanding traditions were viewed as harmful to social tranquility and harmony. Does that sound familiar? Today, Ireland, like many of our European allies, is shredding free speech with laws criminalizing viewpoints and regulating speech by its content. “Irish eyes [may be] smiling,” but Irish tongues are increasingly silent in the face of government investigations and prosecutions. The growing conflict between the U.S. and the Irish could not be more telling.
Irish immigrants, including some of my relatives, came to this country to live freely, and many soon became lawyers fighting for individual rights. Just before Martin’s arrival in Washington, his government was hammering Elon Musk and conservative sites in the latest crackdown on free speech. The most recent flashpoint was a small pro-life platform called Gript, a rallying point for many in his Catholic country who oppose abortion. The government demanded that X turn over Gript’s data on sources and users. An Irish court on June 13, 2024, sought the data on private accounts as well as IP addresses and messages linked to Gript coverage of the April protests against Ireland’s housing of documented migrants. The violence in those protests gave the Irish government another justification to curtail free speech.
In yet another defining moment for Musk on free speech, he not only resisted but informed Irish citizens what the government was doing. That transparency and opposition sent the Irish government into a full-on rage. After the arrest of 34 people and extensive property damage in the anti-immigration protests, the government moved to expand on its already draconian anti-free-speech laws. A new bill was introduced criminalizing “preparing or possessing material likely to incite violence or hatred against persons on account of their protected characteristics.” That includes any material concerning national or ethnic origin, as well as protected characteristics including “transgender and a gender other than those of male and female.”
The bill included crimes relating to “xenophobia” and can be committed merely by the “public dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material.” Then-Prime Minister Leo Varadkar declared his intent to “modernize laws against hatred” by criminalizing speech that his government decides is “incitement.” He stated an intention to not only stop those engaged in violence but those who say things that might arouse their anger. The powerful Irish Green Party was all-in with censorship and speech prosecutions. As Green Party Sen. Pauline O’Reilly admitted, “We are restricting freedom, but we’re doing it for the common good.”
“This incomplete picture painted a grim outlook of crop yields declining with only modest warming..”
“The additional information showed “positive average output gains for all crop types across the warming scenarios even up to 5 degrees Celsius..”
• Study Destroys Basis of EPA Climate Regulations (Jayaraj)
For two decades, the public has been bombarded with dire warnings of an impending climate-induced agricultural apocalypse. The claim is that a climate warmed excessively by the carbon dioxide emissions of human activity will ravage the food supply and plunge humanity into famine and chaos. For many reasons, none of this ever made sense. Now, a new study published in Scientific Reports has turned this narrative of catastrophe on its head, revealing that a global temperature rise of even 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) would not reduce crop yields—and might even increase harvests. The paper, written by economist Ross McKitrick, dismantles a key pillar of the Biden administration’s always-suspect upward revision of the “social cost of carbon”—a metric used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to quantify the supposed economic damage of carbon dioxide emissions.
The fivefold increase of the social cost of carbon—from $51 per ton of carbon dioxide to more than $250—was based partly on the assumption that warming would devastate agriculture. The new findings aren’t just a minor correction to the scientific record; they are a reversal of dangerous conclusions drawn from sloppy—perhaps even fraudulent—analyses. Everything we’ve been told about climate change and food security is wrong. How did the EPA arrive at a social cost of carbon that equates with mass starvation? In 2014, a widely cited meta-analysis of crop-model studies claimed that a warming climate would slash global crop yields, an assertion that fed into subsequent models that influenced the Biden EPA’s social cost of carbon hike.
That original dataset, however, was flawed—crippled by missing variables. Of its 1,722 records, nearly half lacked critical data, such as changes in CO2 concentrations, leaving only 862 usable entries. This incomplete picture painted a grim outlook of crop yields declining with only modest warming. McKitrick, undeterred by what had become climate orthodoxy, dug deeper. By revisiting the source material, he recovered 360 additional records, bringing the total to 1,222—about a 40% increase in usable data. The additional information showed “positive average output gains for all crop types across the warming scenarios even up to 5 degrees Celsius”—a temperature jump far beyond warming predictions of the U.N.’s International Panel on Climate Change. This isn’t cherry-picking; it’s what happens when the full scope of evidence is examined.
“If over the next 100-200 years, yields of all crop types increase, it does not stand to reason that a global trade model could generate global welfare reductions,” writes McKitrick in his concluding remarks. McKitrick’s findings, grounded in a more comprehensive dataset, suggest the doomsday assumption was built on sand. Far from heralding a collapse, the data show crop yields at least holding steady and even improving with significant warming. Moreover, plants are not too frail for a warming world. They’re built to thrive in the contemporary temperatures of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Most crops fall into two categories: C3 and C4 plants, so named to reflect their different photosynthetic processes. C3 crops, such as wheat, rice, and soybeans, flourish in elevated CO2 conditions characteristic of the 21st century.Carbon dioxide is food to plants, necessary for the process of photosynthesis—a process where oxygen is a byproduct. Higher levels of CO2 act like a supercharger, boosting photosynthesis and water-use efficiency. Studies have long shown that CO2 enrichment in greenhouses can increase C3 yields by 20% to 40%. C4 crops—like corn and sorghum—are less responsive to CO2 but do well in hotter, drier conditions. In summary, if crop yields don’t crash—if they hold steady or grow—the rationale for a sky-high social cost of carbon disappears.
“..possibly due to increased exposure to visual media..”
• People Becoming More Stupid (RT)
Human intellectual abilities such as reasoning and problem-solving are diminishing, possibly due to increased exposure to visual media, the Financial Times (FT) has reported. Human intelligence appeared to peak in the early 2010s and has been in decline since, the FT added, citing PISA, an international benchmarking test for 15-year-olds that includes reading, mathematics and science, and adult cognitive evaluations. The reported trend comes amid a rise in artificial intelligence (AI) which, by some estimates, may surpass human IQ in a matter of years.The recorded spike in the share of high school students who reported difficulties in PISA tests coincides with a broad change in people’s relationship with information, such as the transition away from reading and towards visual content, the publication explained.
While active, intentional use of digital technologies can often be beneficial, being passively exposed to infinite content on social media coupled with frequent context-switching has been shown to negatively impact attention span, memory, and self-regulation. The documented decline in reading among Americans reportedly comes alongside a decrease in numeracy and other forms of problem-solving in most countries. Human intellectual capabilities, such as critical thinking, have also been impacted by generative AI, according to recent research by Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University. Outsourcing thoughts to AI leaves people’s minds “atrophied and unprepared,” which can lead to “the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.”
Companies and governments have poured billions into AI research, focusing on areas such as machine learning, natural language processing, and automation. Tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI have introduced increasingly sophisticated models, such as ChatGPT and Gemini, capable of performing complex cognitive tasks.AI could become smarter than humans in the next three years, tech billionaire Elon Musk warned in December, shortly after his AI company, xAI, launched its first image generation model, Aurora.
Sums up the day.
• Federal Judge Orders Astronauts Be Returned To Space Station (BBee)
A district judge has issued a ruling saying Trump lacked the Constitutional authority to pick up two astronauts who have been stranded at the International Space Station for several months. SpaceX has been ordered to return the astronauts immediately. “I will not stand by while Donald Trump abuses his power like a dictator,” said Judge Earl Flanders in his ruling. “Trump has no authority to pick up these astronauts, and I can say that because I’m a federal judge, and no one is allowed to argue with me, and everyone has to do what I say.” Eyewitnesses say the judge then donned a Keffiyeh and spray painted a Cybertruck while screaming “Black Lives Matter.”
Sources in Washington say Trump plans to brazenly ignore the lawful order and bring the astronauts home anyway. “This is just the kind of wanton lawlessness we should expect from a dictator who is literally Hitler,” said one legal analyst. The SpaceX craft docked at the ISS on Sunday and was preparing for the return journey to Earth when the orders stopped the process short. “Please bring us home, I just want a cheeseburger and a nap in a horizontal bed,” said one of the crew. At publishing time, Trump was polling at 100% approval among the stranded astronaut demographic.
Extremism
John Cleese nailed it 30 years ago. Amazing how little things change.
Repost: @builders @joerogan pic.twitter.com/j69FTIJdWj— Joe Rogan Podcast (@joeroganhq) March 16, 2025
Feynman
https://twitter.com/21WIRE/status/1901604907519467850
Someone took an action shot of their dog jumping in the water and it will haunt my sleep forever pic.twitter.com/cdVrTTKbLH
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 16, 2025
Scent
https://twitter.com/Yoda4ever/status/1901267216043024582
Mozart
Mozart – Rondo Alla Turcapic.twitter.com/cZHzsglMhH
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 17, 2025
Scott
Democrats are about five minutes away from accusing the statue of giving a N*zi salute, so whatever. https://t.co/XhBQXYptYL
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) March 17, 2025
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