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The House speaker’s comments wrecked one of the far right’s most ridiculous, reprehensible tropes.It was a remarkable moment: After introducing a package of bills that includes military aid to Ukraine, Mike Johnson flatly told reporters on Wednesday that enabling Ukraine to defend itself is in the best interests of America and the world. This surprised a lot of people who had wrongly assumed the House speaker was effectively functioning as a stooge for Vladimir Putin—and Donald Trump—and would thus slow-walk Ukraine aid to death before ever allowing a vote on it.Johnson’s new stance has attracted a good deal of positive...

A massive explosion was reported near Isfahan, Iran today. Isfahan is considered to be the primary location of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Explosions were also reported in Syria and Iraq on Friday morning. The Iranian media is reporting three major explosions in Isfahan. IRANIAN MEDIA: 3 HUGE EXPLOSIONS WERE HEARD IN ISFAHAN, SOUTH OF TEHRAN JERUSALEM POST: SIMULTANEOUS EXPLOSIONS REPORTED IN IRAN, SYRIA, AND IRAQ ACCORDING TO INITIAL REPORTS — zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 19, 2024 This is not the first time the Isfahan nuclear facility has been targeted. IRANIAN MEDIA: 3 HUGE EXPLOSIONS WERE HEARD IN ISFAHAN, SOUTH OF...

It was a relatively bright day, November 21, 1920, when Vladimir Lenin, having won the civil war and driven off the American, British, French, Canadian, and Australian invasion forces, announced: “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country, since industry cannot be developed without electrification.” Come November 2024 it will be a century and four years to count what Lenin meant, and how Russia is proving itself against everything which the military industries, special forces, weapons, intelligence so-called, operations, and plans of the old invasion coalition, plus Germany, can throw at it. So on November 21, 2024,...

It has been a long time since the West dominated shipbuilding or steel making. We are already aware that we are losing ground in consumer goods, as well as in finance and transport. Add it all up, and we no longer expect the US, Europe or its allies to control the global market in most major industries. Still, even as other industries lost ground there was one thing most economists and industrial experts would have felt sure we could rely on: Apple. Whatever else happened, nothing would knock its world-beating iPhone — without question the world’s most profitable product —...

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Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed on Monday that Republican Donald Trump’s campaign team asked him to consider being the former president’s running mate. A Trump senior advisor has since denied the claim. In an X post on Monday, Kennedy asserted that Trump’s “emissaries” approached him to serve in the position, which he then “respectfully declined.” Kennedy did not elaborate further on who these emissaries were or what role they played in the campaign.” The X post came as a response to Trump calling Kennedy an “ultra-left radical.” “President Trump calls me an ultra-left radical. I’m soooo liberal...

Nearly six months after ending his Republican presidential campaign, former Vice President Mike Pence landed a new teaching job at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. In a statement posted last week, the conservative Christian college said it was establishing a Center for Faith & Public Life “to support the presence of Christian faith in public institutions.” Pence will help launch the initiative, serving as the Distinguished Visiting Fellow. “The appropriate role of faith in the public square is a major issue in this moment of our American life,” said Grove City College President Paul McNulty. “The Founders envisioned a free...

It was all more harmonious in the old days. One recalls the 1990 Eurovision finals in Zagreb, when the charming hostess, Helga Vlahović, presented her own fair country as the perfect Eurometaphor: "Yugoslavia is very much like an orchestra," she cooed. "The string section and the wood section all sit together." Alas, barely were the words out of her mouth before the wood section was torching the string section's dressing rooms, and the hills were alive only with the ancient siren songs of ethnic cleansing and genital severing. Lurching into its final movement, Yugoslavia was no longer the orchestra, only...

Last night, Ukraine was targeted yet again by another one in a seemingly endless series of massive strikes with missiles, drones and glide bombs. As it has been the case lately, the strikes seem to have primarily targeted the energy grid – including in the capital Kiev. The Tripolskaya thermal power plant is the largest in the Kiev region, and it supplied energy to Kiev, Cherkasskaya and Zhytomyr regions. According to Ukrainian officials, it has been completely destroyed….. All day long the air force bombed the complex of buildings of the vocational school, turned into an important defense point. All...

As we are waiting for Donald Trump to name his running mate, we here some laudable names such as Kristi Noem, Tulsi Gabbard, Tim Scott, and other prominent figures as potential Vice Presidential material What do we want in a Vice President? First, the idea that the VP could take the reins should something happen to the President. Given the age of Donald Trump, this is a very legitimate concern. What else? How about winning their home state? Being an asset to the ticket (Kamala fails that test)? Unifying the ticket? Being able to persuade suburban women (the ultimate swing...

The Biden re-election campaign should be dead in the water. Inflation is surging again, wokeness is deeply unpopular with most Americans, bills are beginning to come due for the Left’s “green” initiatives, and, most of all, Biden himself is so far gone in dementia as to be dysfunctional. How can he possibly win in November? By running on abortion. We saw it in many areas of the country in 2022. What should have been a red wave petered out, as the Democrats grabbed the lifeline that Dobbs gave them and often rode it to victory. Can it happen again in...

There's been chatter when it comes to Democrats calling for Justice Sonia Sotomayor to retire, so that President Joe Biden can nominate another liberal justice. Of course, the left has done it before, forcing now former Justice Stephen Breyer to retire so that Biden could nominate now Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The retirement was even leaked beforehand. Not everyone is calling for Sotomayor to rush into retirement, though, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) offering a suggestion for someone else who should retire.According to HuffPost's Igor Bobic, Fetterman said that "I have no opinion on anyone else’s ability to retire unless...

Come to think of it, the GOP’s federal bill is also pretty moderate.Abortion on demand, for any reason, until birth, funded by taxpayers.That’s the modern left’s position on the issue. Democrats are so dug into their extremism that they can’t even support bills that compel “doctors” to keep babies who survive a homicide attempt alive.Perhaps most American voters don’t care enough. Maybe most voters aren’t even aware of the modern left’s radicalism. The political media might be plagued by partisan mediocrity, but when it comes to abortion, they have demonstrated an unmatched competency in misleading the public.This week, Donald Trump...

Guido understands that the conversion therapy ban has finally been killed off. The government committed to a draft bill for pre-legislative scrutiny last January, though now it will not be put forward a Joint Committee, cutting it off at the first stage. Banning conversion therapy for gay and trans people has been kicked down the road since 2018, and now Rishi has let it die… Like most things, it’s an issue that polarises the Tories, and it seems that Sunak doesn’t want the backlash from the Tory right if he were to go ahead with the ban. MPs raised their...

Jury selection could take up to two weeks, or around a quarter of the trial which is set to begin on April 15. Potential jurors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s falsified business documents case against Donald Trump will reportedly be asked whether they have been to rallies either in support of or against the former president, as well as if they follow him on social media, have attended one of his rallies, or use Truth Social. Potential jurors will be asked if they use Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, as well as if they have "feelings of opinion...

It is undeniable that former President Donald Trump has been the catalyst for division in the Republican Party. I happen to think that's one of the most positive influences he's had on the party. A majority of the people whom Trump has driven away from the GOP are deeply entrenched establishment types who have been the bane of conservatives for decades. They also have connections to the same two prominent Republicans. The Opinion section of The New York Times is determined to make disaffected, Trump-loathing Republicans feel as if they still have relevance for the future of the party. Because...

This is what happens when you teach nothing but racism in school, and leave out anything actually, you know, educational. >p> During an event in Houston just before the eclipse Monday morning, Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee told the audience gathered at the Mickey Leland Federal Building that the moon was made up “mostly of gasses” (it isn’t) and that it's "almost impossible to go near the sun" (we actually can't go near it at all) because it's a "mighty powerful heat" (you don't say!?). Democrat Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee: It's "almost impossible to go near the sun," but the...

Chicago’s self-professed progressive Mayor Brandon Johnson is pushing the Biden administration to cut loose with more work permits for the tens of thousands of illegals sheltering in the city even as local black unemployment soars to many times the national average. As Chicago has been beset by nearly 40,000 illegals in the city’s 20 shelters, without work permits, illegals have a more have a difficult time getting work in Chicago, and Johnson has been pushing for more of these permits — which must come from the federal government. But Johnson has been piqued by the slow-moving wheels of the feds....

President Trump on Monday sued Juan Merchan, the far-left judge overseeing the Stormy Daniels ‘hush payment’ trial. The lawsuit is currently under seal, but the court docket reveals Trump requested a change of venue and asked for a stay on the expanded gag order. President Trump last Friday filed a motion requesting that Judge Juan Merchan be recused because of his daughter’s political work.

A principal goal of Stark Realities is to “expose fundamental myths across the political spectrum” — and few myths are as universally embraced as the notion that US participation in World War II lifted the American economy out of the Great Depression. This myth is dangerous not only because it leads citizens and politicians to see a bright side of war that doesn’t really exist, but also because it helps foster a belief that government spending is essential to countering economic downturns. That belief, in turn, has helped propel us to a point where the national debt now exceeds $34.6...