Links - 6th March 2026 (2 - Iran Attack)

Rest in Pieces: Ali Khamenei, Demure Progressive Stalwart and 'Black Lives Matter' Ally Who Inspired Democrats and Academics, Bombed to Death at 86 - "Ali Khamenei, the "Black Lives Matter" advocate and long-serving supreme leader of Iran, was a guiding light to Democratic lawmakers, Ivy League professors, and other progressive ideologues who endorsed his intellectual appraisal of America's evil and the treachery of Jews...   The Iranian people cheered a tyrant's demise and hoped for what could be. You could tell their joy was real and not the Kamala Harris kind. The ayatollah's left-wing comrades sobbed like sloppy seventh graders. They shook their fists at mushroom clouds and wept for what had been. The revolution. The hostages. The oil nonsense. Decades of degenerate behavior and the targeting of American soldiers. The homespun hipster in his button-down shirt (also killed). The slow death of the Iranian economy, which even the Obama nuclear shake-down couldn't stop.  They had to hand it to the supreme leader. Fans commended him for dying honorably—on his own terms, mid-resistance, cowering in a bunker, surrounded by his closest friends and military commanders. They touted his progressive bona fides—he understood that decolonization was more than vibes and essays. In May 2020, he penned an eloquent clapback against white supremacy after the death of George Floyd. He never took Trump's calls or laughed at a misogynistic joke, which in some ways made him even more of a winner than the USA men's hockey team. He inspired a generation of Ivy League losers to hate Jews even more than they hate themselves.  Khamenei's death was a crippling blow to America's elite institutions, many of which had presumably shortlisted the supreme leader in their search for a commencement speaker. It was basically the last remaining option to forestall a shrieking walkout. Now what? The students and faculty who supported Iran's proxy, Hamas, and its "anti-colonial insurgency," are naturally devastated. Their terrorist allies have been crushed. They must endure the moral indignity of mourning a tyrant who murdered thousands and repressed millions. It remains to be seen which campus chapters of Feminist Fatties for Palestine will issue statements denouncing Iranian women for burning their hijabs. One can only marvel at the magnitude of self-absorption required to exist this way... The garment rending in the media was also a sight to behold. It's been several years since the Washington Post was deservedly mocked for lamenting the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the "austere religious scholar" who pioneered the rise of ISIS. Many assumed they would be too embarrassed to do that again. Evidently not. The Post's obituary described Khamenei as an "avuncular figure" with a "bushy white beard and easy smile" who enjoyed classic Westerns and Les Misérables. Mehdi Hasan melted down in public. He was not alone.  Ben Rhodes, the former Obama aide who recently implored Iranians to "negotiate" with their oppressors, may never recover. He took Khamenei's side in 2009 when the regime was shooting protesters in the streets, and bragged of manipulating halfwit journalists to rally support for the nuclear deal he crafted. Rhodes's public comments in response to the supreme leader's death reflected a profound anguish at the thought of not being invited to the funeral.   It is often said a man's enemies reveal the content of his character. As far as Khamenei is concerned, the pathetic zeal of his admirers will supply the final judgment."

Larry Correia | Facebook - "Scrolling through the internet, people remain really fucking stupid, are totally incapable of critical thinking, and they're completely divorced from any sense of history. So... Iran's been fucking with us since I was born, has funded, trained, and enabled some of the most heinous assholes of the last several decades, destabilized an entire region of the Earth, and generally been total pricks.  Previous administrations going back to Jimmy Carter have had problems with the Iranians being total pricks who routinely do evil shit. Each of them did a little something, or nothing, or went full quisling sucked up and bribed them, but mostly they kicked the can down the road to be someone else's problem for political expediency. Because due to the situation at those times there'd be no overthrowing the fanatics without getting into a protracted ground war that would result in lots of American casualties.  But today, due to a cascading series of current events, the situation has evolved and the American president most likely to say Fuck It YOLO, was presented the opportunity to dog walk this regime without invading. That hadn't really been an option before. This was all caused because one of Iran's many proxy bands of terrorist dickheads flew their waxy terrorist wings too close to the sun and got their dicks blown off by pagers. As that escalated Iran decided to launch a shit ton of missiles which weren't nearly as impressive as everyone was scared they would be, so then they lost a whole bunch of their leading boss assholes, and the whole world saw that Iranian air defenses were wishful thinking when some B2s buttfucked their impenetrable super bunker.  So then the populace of Iran got really uppity, because they're sick of these religious fanatic death cultists too. Their asshole government then provided a demonstration of why we're never ever giving up the 2nd Amendment here.  Except the FAFO president told them not to massacre all those people, and he was sick of their shit. This is the same guy who has made a rather impressive list of military operations that get in, fuck shit up, and then get out fast with minimal American casualties. This man is not George Bush. He does not have a Colin "You Break It You Buy It" Powell. Trump apparently does not seem to give a fuck about "nation building", which works out because the American people do not want  another twenty years of bullshit like Afghanistan or Iraq. When given the opportunity to kill a ton of bad people, allowing the Iranian people to do the rest, and this opportunity has never come along before, of course Trump is going to go for it. And despite the screaming from the schizophrenic podcaster crowd of the griftosphere, most conservative Americans are very much of the attitude fuck Iran.  (of course libs are gonna lib, so get ready for a bunch of rainbow dipshits to march with Iranian flags next week)  And none of this should be surprising either, because Trump just recently took out a South American dictatorship over one weekend. People were like, oh shit, yeah, America can actually do stuff like that. Americans got so used to wars being long and stupid and pointless fucking around with dumb ass rules of engagement that the concept we could just do shit and get it over with is crazy to people. We got used to sending dictators and fanatics pallets of cash, making red lines that didn't mean anything, followed by the occasional drone strike, all while our young warriors risked their lives trying to make a country with Man Love Thursday into a Jeffersonian democracy for YEARS.  I see zero indication Trump wants to do that shit again. Good.  Of course when this kicked off the fucking Deus Vult, helmet avatar, Return bros who keep talking all this shit about throwing a new crusade, crushing Islam, and protecting the west, all turned into pacifists who are absolutely against attacking the regime that funds most of the world's Islamist bullshit. The same country that's building mosques across Europe and behind most of the refugee crisis bullshit that flooded those countries, nope. Leave the ayatollahs alone!  Why this change of heart? The JOOOOOOOZ of course! Because clearly, America can't have its own strategic reasons for wanting to fight the Death To America crowd who has continually fucked with us for five decades. Oh no. Clearly this is Israel's war, and these guys (who aren't in our volunteer military) "aren't gonna die for Israel."  Which is fucking stupid. Because if there's one other country that this is all really about, it isn't Israel. It's China.  We're down to two major global powers who actually matter, us and commies, and so far this year Trump has basically taken two of China's allies/suppliers off the table. Which limits China's options and ability to fuck with us.  As for being on the same side as Israel? No shit, of course we are. Militant Islam is a mutual foe. They're tired of getting bombed and terrorized by these assholes. So they've got reasons to want the Iranian regime overthrown. And the US has reasons we want to overthrow the Iranian regime. And now, because the Iranian mullahs are INSANE DEATH CULTISTS the other Muslim countries are jumping in on this too. These dipshits launched missiles at Muslim countries that were neutral or even aiding them. (no word yet if Tucker Carlson's house in Qatar was damaged!)  Beyond screaming about the Jews, the other big thing I've seen is that attacking Iran is a distraction from the Epstein Files... Are you fucking high? I've seen this from the halal right and the commie gibberish left. Because that's an absolutely brilliant plan these masterminds hatched, let's fuck around with Iran for nearly fifty years, and then when a pedophile scumbag dies, seven years after that we'll rile up the Persian people to the point of revolution so we can overthrow their government as a distraction. AND this is such a brilliant distraction, that the plan is to do it FAST. That way it distracts for less time. Genius.  Plus, what is it with these fucking simpletons who can only pay attention to one issue at a time? But you know, come to think of it, I bet these fucking idiots are that easily distracted. Never mind.  My position on Iran, fuck the government of Iran, I hope the Persian people replace it with something better (it would be hard to be worse!), good luck to them, and God speed to our troops. Killing bad guys and letting the Persian people build their own nation-good. Invading-stupid. But I see zero indication anybody wants to do that (well, except for maybe Lindsey Graham and the ghost of John McCain)."

Terrence K. Williams on X - "Pelosi: " Obama doesn’t need congressional authorization for Libya"
Today: " Trump must ask Congress first"
Same Constitution. Same war powers. Hold them to the same standard. Full quote from Nancy Pelosi: “The President Obama does not need congressional authorization to take military action in Libya… and I think that he has that authority.”"

Rabbi Poupko on X - "The Amir of Kuwait checking in on the health of the American pilots after Kuwait mistakenly shot down three American airplanes. The USS Liberty conspiracy theorists do not seem to be very interested in the fact that Kuwait just shot down three American airplanes."
Of course, the Jews tricked Kuwait into shooting down US planes

London news: UCL society MOURNS Ayatollah's death as 'unimaginable loss' - and urges Muslims to 'remain ready' - "A Muslim society at a prestigious British university has mourned the death of the Iranian Ayatollah as an "unimaginable loss".  The Ahlul-Bayt Islamic Society at University College London (UCL) expressed its "sincere condolences" after the death of Ali Khamenei, posting a tribute to him alongside a prayer to be recited in his memory. The society claimed the expression of mourning was not any form of "incitement, endorsement of violence, or unlawful mobilisation".  The death of the Iranian leader was described as "martyrdom" by the Ahlul-Bayt Islamic Society, with condolences given from "all at UCL ABSoc".  The group's "mental health team" went on to describe his death as an "unimaginable loss for the entire Ummah", or the Muslim world. It added: "This is not the end to resistance. The Shia in the West must remain aware and ready.""

MEMRI on X - "Dearborn Heights Shiite Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi Eulogizes Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: He Would Have Loved to End His Life This Way – Being Killed by “the Most Wretched Hands on Earth” Is an Honor; Nothing Is Greater Than Martyrdom after 86 Years of Service"
The Persian Jewess on X - "The Michigan based Imam calling America “wretched” and glorifying Khamenei is an Iranian Radical Islamist trained by the Islamic Regime.  He moved to Dearborn in 1991 to run the Islamic Center of America and later established the Islamic House of Wisdom.  How did an Iranian with clear Regimist ties receive a visa to enter the U.S.?"

Jennie Taer on X - "Israeli Ambassador to the UN @dannydanon  just called out a United Nations official who tweeted a graphic photo showing rows of body bags she claimed was from the recent strikes in Iran. Turns out, Danon says, the photo shows victims of the "Iranian regime itself" and was taken in January."

Calla on X - "Every single US and “Israeli” official is a legitimate target wherever they are in the world."
Bonchie on X - "This account is run by a silver-spooned 21-year-old white woman. She's a former Elizabeth Warren campaign volunteer, a self-avowed communist, and a pro-Hamas activist. As I've said before, there is a serious mental health crisis going on among left-wing women in America."

Stu Smith on X - "“Death to America.”  That’s the phrase 20-year-old American activist Calla Walsh chants from Tehran—“Marg bar Âmrikâ”—while praising “all the martyrs” and glorifying the “axis of resistance,” Iran’s alliance with terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.  “Glory to all the martyrs, glory to the axis of resistance. May we see victory within our lifetimes. Marg bar Âmrikâ.”  If she loves the “axis of resistance” so much, she’s welcome to stay there."
ML 🇺🇸⚾️✝️ on X - "This woman is a domestic terrorist, she has a well documented history of radical extremism. @FBI she is now calling for US and Israeli officials to be targeted."

J.T. Alexander on X - "This is worth highlighting about the brilliance of how the way was paved for the 2026 Gulf War.  Thanks to Obama and the JCPOA, by 2016 Iran had the upper hand in the Middle East. A complete logistical line ran from Tehran to Beirut, with Shia militias all the way between receiving high-end military equipment and competent IRGC Qods Force leadership. All of this was built under the mastermind Qasem Soleimani.  In 2020, Trump initiated the Maximum Pressure Campaign against Iran and, in addition to his economic pressures, elected to remove Soleimani from the picture. This removed Iran's queen from the chessboard.  After an incredibly poorly thought out attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, Hamas wrote Bibi a blank check of political capital to destroy the enemies of Israel. Bibi leveraged this to not only cripple Hamas, but to set back Hezbollah and the Shia militias in Syria for a generation.  By the time Trump returned to power in 2025, Iran's fortunes had taken a complete turn. I do believe Trump wanted a negotiated settlement with Iran last year and that Iran just vastly overestimated its position. On paper, Iran was a regional power with the best non-American/non-IDF military capabilities around.  The 2025 12-Day War would prove to be a brilliant prelude to the 2026 Gulf War in large part because it weaponized Khamenei's chihuahua nature against him. As I've written countless times, Khamenei's tendency had always been to bark and shout and declare victory, but as long as you let him have the last word about it you could bang his wife and get little more than an earful of whining over it.  Khamenei's only concern was survival of the Velyat-e Faqih, the Guardianship of the Jurist, the political system instituted by the Iranian Revolution. As long as the Velyat survived, he would tolerate way too much for his own good. This was known before Soleimani's assassination and was, no doubt, part of the decision calculus on whether to pull that trigger.  The 12-Day War ended up an excellent chance to use that tendency against Khamenei. By attacking him under pretenses that did not include destruction of the Velyat, the US and IDF were able to achieve battlespace supremacy, destroy Iran's ability to defend its airspace, exhaust significant portions of its ballistic missile and drone swarm capabilities, and expose some of their retaliation mechanisms—without triggering Iran's MAD-substitute: firing indiscriminately at the GCC and other neighbors.  So, come February 28, 2026, the scales are totally tilted against Iran.  They have less than half their ballistic missiles on hand, their chains of command have been decimated, their tactics, techniques, and procedures all tested and exposed, their airspace free for the flying, and their allies in no position to help them whatsoever.  Iran was no slouch, militarily speaking, as recently as five years ago. Fighting them would have been a nightmare as recently as 2017.  Absolute brilliant display of strategic militarism."

Jim VandeHei on X - "🚨🚨3 US soldiers dead. This shifts the debate inside MAGA, Congress and America to: Is the killing the Iranian leader and degrading its capabilities worth three American lives? Puts a human face and reality on Trump’s war of choice…This ? will dominate politics for weeks."
Max Twain on X - "33 Americans were killed on October 7th by Iranian proxies. 12 more were held hostage. Strange that I can’t find a post from you with sirens highlighting them. 🤔"
Alex Joffe on X - "Ask the 600+ who were killed by Iranian IEDs in Iraq. Or the three killed in Jordan by an Iranian backed militia in 2024. Or the Marines killed Beirut in 1983. Iran made its choice in 1979."

Daniel on X - "Despite civilians being killed in Iran, have you noticed there are no videos of ambulances, wailing parents, lifeless bodies covered in dust? Exact same in Lebanon. Or Ukraine. Compare that to Gaza where every hospital apparently has a film crew, multiple cameras, directors, editors and social media channels.   Do you get it yet?"

International law is not a suicide pact - "There is a certain type of British parliamentarian for whom the world is not a complex web of shifting allegiances and existential threats, but a neatly ruled jurisdictional straightjacket for the West. To hear Emily Thornberry or the leadership of the Green Party tell it, the recent US and Israeli operations against the Iranian regime are not a necessary excision of a regional cancer, but a simple “breach of international law.” Case closed. Bring in the tea. One expects this kind of reductionism from the protest lines, but it is deeply unsettling to see it calcify into the official posture of a British government. We have reached a bizarre juncture where Whitehall appears to have adopted a black-and-white interpretation of international law that slants so heavily against national freedom of action that it borders on the masochistic. For centuries, British law was held up as the global paragon – a pragmatic, evolving system that balanced order with the messy reality of human affairs. Yet this government seemingly no longer believes in that legacy. Instead, they treat the UN Charter, and other branches of the international legal apparatus, not as a living contestable framework, but as a suicide pact designed to ensure Western democracies remain politely motionless while their enemies sharpen the blade. International law is not some static, crystalline structure handed down from Sinai. Indeed, it is formed by the practice of states. If the law is interpreted in a way that always leaves the law-abiding defenceless against the law-breaker, then the law is not just “flawed” – it is worse than useless. Other liberal democracies, such as Australia and Canada, have looked at the same facts and reached the opposite conclusion about “Operation Epic Fury.” They understand what our own Foreign Office seems to have forgotten: that nuance is not a loophole; it is a necessity. The legal case for action against Iran is not merely “arguable”; it is compelling, both within and without the strictures of the UN Charter.  First, there is the reality of the “Long War.” Since the Ayatollah’s 1979 proclamation of “Death to America,” Iran has been in a state of constant, if unconventional, armed conflict with the West. A state of war does not vanish because there is a temporary lull in the counting of bodies. Through its proxies – Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis – Tehran has waged a persistent campaign of kinetic aggression. When President Trump listed the decades of attacks, from the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing to the strikes on global shipping, he wasn’t just reminiscing; he was identifying a continuous theatre of operations. British lives lost to Iranian IEDs in Iraq furnish further such sad evidence, as do the many attempted terrorist attacks on our soil, which the Prime Minister referenced. If a conflict is established, the use of force is governed by the laws of war – distinction and proportionality – not the peacetime hurdles of Article 51... Negotiations with a regime that views diplomacy as a stalling tactic for enrichment are not a legal barrier to action once it is clear those negotiations have failed.  Finally, there is the moral and legal weight of humanitarian intervention as established in customary law and statecraft. We have seen this before: in Liberia, in the no-fly zones of Iraq, and in Kosovo. In 1999, Tony Blair stood in Chicago and argued that Western democracies have a responsibility to intervene against oppressive regimes. The Iranian people, who have been tortured, slaughtered, and repressed for decades, represent the ultimate “humanitarian distress.”   To hide behind a narrow, 1945-era reading of the UN Charter while a regime exports terror and murders its own children is not “upholding the rule of law.” It is moral cowardice dressed up as jurisprudence. The Prime Minister’s recent, dizzying U-turn on the use of British sovereign bases –previously described by Whitehall as a legal impossibility – has let the cat out of the bag. It confirms that what was presented as “inviolable international law” was, in fact, nothing more than political sophistry designed to delay the inevitable.The US/Israeli action is both morally justified and legally legitimate. Sir Keir Starmer will continue to face a series of choices: He can continue to play the role of the cautious clerk, clutching a dusty rulebook while the world burns, or he can finally inhabit the role of a statesman and a true upholder of human rights. This demands more than a reluctant nod; it requires: an explicit acknowledgement that the Iranian regime is an existential evil... International law was designed to protect the civilised world, not to serve as a set of handcuffs for those tasked with defending it. If our legal frameworks truly forbade us from stopping a genocidal, nuclear-aspirant theocracy, then it would be the law – and not the action – that was fundamentally broken. Fortunately, the law is far more robust than the anaemic interpretations currently favoured by the high priests of paralysis in Whitehall. It bestows clear legitimacy on those who refuse to wait for catastrophe before acting in self-defence."

Juliet Moses on X - "By the Judge Advocate General of the British Armed Forces 2004-2020: “To suggest that the US and Israel must wait for a mushroom cloud to appear over Tel Aviv before the law “allows” them to act is a form of legalistic insanity. Negotiations with a regime that views diplomacy as a stalling tactic for enrichment are not a legal barrier to action once it is clear those negotiations have failed.” I have not heard anyone who has said Israel and the US acted illegally come up with a realistic solution about what they should have done to prevent Iran getting a nuke, which leads me to believe either they would have no problem with a mushroom cloud appearing over Tel Aviv or are deluded enough to believe that the fanatical theocracy, having just murdered tens of thousands of its own people and now targeting Sunni states with ballistic missiles, wouldn’t use it."
Even if a mushroom cloud appeared over Tel Aviv, left wingers and Islamists would be bitching over the response, as we can see from October 7th

re Iranian agents targeting Canadians with bullets? - "Article content  There appears to be a dark storm gathering over not only Jewish communities in Canada, but Iranian-Canadians who oppose the Islamic regime. Article content  Late Monday night, gunfire struck the Temple Emanu‑El synagogue in Toronto, leaving several bullet holes in its windows. This followed a shooting on Sunday morning, in which multiple rounds were fired into an undisclosed business in Markham, Ont., just north of Toronto. Police have advised the community that they are aware of concerns that these violent incidents may be linked to what’s happening in the Middle East. These incidents in the Toronto area are not isolated. They are part of a pattern of violence, which appears to be escalating due to events in the Mideast. It also shows that law enforcement and governments are in over their heads... The Saliwan Boxing gym in Thornhill, Ont., which is owned by an Iranian-Canadian, was also hit by gunfire...  the gym’s owner, Salar Gholami, believes his business was targeted because he is an anti-Iranian regime activist and that agents of the Islamic Republic carried out the attack... “This is so serious, a clear message for the Government of Canada. When they open the door for Islamic Republic, they come inside, and you can see they are gangsters, they come in and support the terrorists. Article content  “Here is the school. We have a lot of teenager and a lot of kids.… Seventeen bullets means 17 bodies.… You must protect your citizens. I’m Iranian. A world without Islamic Republic is better place for everyone. Not Just for Iranian.” Article content  Gholami’s concerns about the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are justified. Although Iran and its leadership have been designated as state sponsors of terror for years, and the IRGC was put on the terrorist watch list in 2024, Global News reported last spring that immigration officials had identified 20 suspected senior Iranian officials living in the country. And now that the regime is collapsing, there are concerns that more will attempt to flee to Canada. Article content  But it wasn’t as if this couldn’t have been predicted. Iranian-Canadians have been sounding the alarm about people with links to the regime entering Canada for years. Mojdeh Shahriari, a human rights lawyer in Vancouver whose organization, StopIRGC, has received more than 200 reports about regime members and affiliates in this country, was interviewed by the CBC back in 2023 and did not mince words: “They’re terrorists.… Do you want these people to roam around in Canada unchecked? Are you OK with that? I don’t think so.” The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs notes that the Jewish and Iranian communities share common bonds, as both have been terrorized by Iran and its proxies. The group also pointed out that there is a stark contrast between rallies held by anti-regime activists and those held by anti-Israel activists. Article content  Having gone to both types of protests, I agree. Even Toronto police have remarked that the anti-Islamic regime protests held in February were “safe” and incident-free, despite their large numbers. The same cannot be said of many pro-Palestinian rallies. According to a January report in the Grind, citing data from the Legal Support Committee, since October 2023, 170 people in Toronto have been arrested “as a result of Palestine solidarity actions.” Article content  After attending the “No War in Iran” protest held by the Palestinian Youth Movement in Montreal last weekend, which took place alongside a much larger protest held by Iranians celebrating the killing of former supreme leader Ali Khamenei, I can tell you that many of the people I’ve see taking to the streets of Montreal on a weekly basis and accusing Israel of “genocide” also came out to support the Islamic regime last weekend, with “Hands Off Iran” posters... Article content  The common bonds shared by Jews and Iranians in Canada are the same bonds shared by every Canadian who believes in democracy and fundamental human rights. As Gholami said, a “world without the Islamic Republic is better place for everyone — not just for Iranian people, for everyone.”"
The terrorist supporter cope is going to be that this proves that Iranians who oppose the regime as "Zionists", so that proves that the Iranian government is good

Antifa_Ultras on X - "Watch the cockroaches dancing and waving US and Israeli flags while their so-called beloved country is being bombed."
Alan MacLeod on X - "I'm not sure how they did it, but somehow the Iranian diaspora is worse than even Miami Cubans and Venezuelans."
Haviv Rettig Gur on X - "That vile Iranian refugee diaspora keeps expressing the wrong opinion on the Iran war. Like those chutzpadik Miami Cubans or the vile one-in-four Venezuelans who no longer live in Venezuela for some unknowable reason. I, Alan, shall explain."
Richard Hanania on X - "Yes, it’s the people who have suffered under tyranny who are always the problem. It’s not your left-wing anti-human ideology which sympathizes with the worst dictators in the world. This is a deep moral and spiritual sickness."
Harry Ellis, Head of International Development on X - "Why is there a diaspora? (He might ask)"
Weird. I thought antifa wasn't an organisation

Max K on X - "This type of woke leftism is pushed by such frauds it's hard to know where to begin. They spent over a decade smearing anything and everything in the hyper-tolerant West as 'racist', 'extremist', 'white supremacist', 'fascistic' etc, and on that basis trying to get everyone else censored, fired, and cast out of public life for making virtually any statement that ran counter to cult-left groupthink - even factually accurate ones.   They relentlessly depict hyper-tolerant metropolitan institutions as unbearably oppressive, fake-cry about their own supposed subjugation on hyper-elite university campuses and in well-paid media jobs etc, and wang on about things like microaggressions and 'silence' being 'violence'.   But show them *actual*, brutal, genocidal oppression, (e,g. jihadists massacring men, women and children), recorded in HD on go-pro cameras, and they immediately call it a 'day of celebration', suggest it's 'exhilarating', say we should 'support' it, and so on.   They cry 'believe all women' and go mad if you question the existence of 'rape culture' in Ivy League colleges but, upon watching footage of female corpses being stripped naked then desecrated in the streets by armed bands of medieval, ultra-patriarchal Islamic fundamentalist savages they immediately take to social media to claim the women are making up the rape claims, the Israelis made them up, etc. And rush to the streets to fly the flag of the nation whose government organised the massacre. And chant jihadist slogans on marches organised by Hamas, full of islamists who are celebrating and demanding more 'jihad' (which, ofc, these people explain is actually no big deal at all).  They laud themselves as heroic warriors for 'social justice' but in reality they are a deeply malign force. They should have been laughed out of public life many years ago."

Why Johnny Can’t Read Anything Other Than Pronouns

Why Johnny Can’t Read Anything Other Than Pronouns - WSJ
Schools have become laboratories for esoteric ideological projects, not centers of learning.

The Supreme Court reinstated a lower-court ruling this week that said California schools must notify the parents of children who start asking to use new pronouns or otherwise take steps to adopt a “gender identity” at school that is different from their sex. 

In an unsigned 6-3 decision—the liberal justices dissented—the court said the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claim that schools violated the Constitution when they kept parents in the dark on such matters. Parents, it concluded, have a right to “direct the upbringing and education of their children” as they see fit. Most Americans no doubt are relieved by the majority’s common sense. But what does it say that these are the kinds of issues that often dominate our national discussions around K-12 education today?

Far too many children are still assigned to substandard schools, and too many remain unable to read or do math at grade level. Meanwhile, educators and policymakers seem preoccupied with nonsense like helping students “transition” behind their parents’ backs or indoctrinating impressionable youngsters with social-justice poppycock to promote trendy political causes. American kids are outperformed by their foreign peers on international exams while we have to concern ourselves with whether school libraries make sexually explicit texts available to third-graders.

For a growing number of people in charge of the public education establishment, making sure that boys can play on girls’ sports teams has become more important than making sure students are acquiring basic academic skills that will enable them to learn a trade, complete college, become productive adults.

One of the few bright spots in our education system has been selective-enrollment public high schools, which use standardized tests and other objective measures to determine admissions. Examples include Boston Latin School in Massachusetts, Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Va., all of which boast long and proven records of providing a rigorous education for students from all backgrounds. Yet even this successful model is increasingly under attack, and its future is uncertain.

A new study from the Manhattan Institute details efforts in Chicago to eliminate selective public high schools. Much of the Chicago public school system is in shambles. Wirepoints, a government watchdog group, reported last year that the Chicago Public School system operated 53 schools in 2024 where not a single student tested proficient in math, and 17 schools in which no student tested proficient in reading. Mayor Brandon Johnson and other Democrats blame these outcomes on a lack of resources, but spending per pupil has almost doubled since 2017, and teacher pay in the Windy City is among the highest in the nation for large school districts after adjusting for cost of living.

The sensible path forward in Chicago would be to change or close the schools that are underperforming, but Mr. Johnson and his fellow progressives are far more interested in targeting the selective-enrollment school model. Chicago operates under a “choice” system, which means students aren’t required to attend a school based on their ZIP Code and can apply to schools with open seats in other neighborhoods, including selective-enrollment schools.

In 2023, 76% of Chicago high-school students chose to attend a school other than the one assigned to them, but if teachers unions and other opponents of school choice get their way, this option will end. Resource allocation in the public school system is based in part on enrollment. Mr. Johnson, a former union official, and his allies want to force students to attend their assigned schools, which will help prop up failing schools and protect their union jobs. By design, it might also result in the closure of selective-enrollment schools that admit students from all over the city. School board elections in November could determine the future of Chicago’s choice system.

Critics of selective public schools claim that they serve too few minority students, divert resources from traditional schools, and exacerbate racial and economic achievement gaps. Yet the Manhattan Institute’s assessment found that at least a third of the students at selective high schools in Chicago come from low-income families, and Chicago Public Schools spend thousands more per student on nonselective schools.

Almost “70% of all students at selective enrollment schools are black and Hispanic,” according to the study’s author, Renu Mukherjee. And the “black-white, Hispanic-white, and low-income-non-low-income achievement gaps” in math and English test scores “are, on average, significantly smaller at the city’s eight top selective enrollment high schools than at CPS overall.”

We should be replicating successful school-choice models, not thwarting them. When will concern about the educational advancement of all kids reach the level of concern for their preferred pronouns?

Links - 6th March 2026 (1 - Left Wing Economics)

France is giving us a lesson on why wealth taxes always fail - "If wealth taxes were the easy solution that the online activists and Left-wing populists claim they are, then France would surely be doing brilliantly right now.  Amid a budget crisis last year, the country imposed a special surcharge on anyone earning more than €250,000 (£216,000) a year. So the deficit is fixed, right?... According to figures from the finance ministry this week, the so-called differential contribution, a special rate of income tax for the highest earners, generated an additional €400m last year. That compares to a forecast of €1.9bn... Of course, it is not hard to work out what went wrong. The better-off simply adjusted their income to bring themselves under the threshold, or else they moved elsewhere.  Paris was emerging as a serious rival to London as a financial centre, with lots of encouragement from Emmanuel Macron, but the financiers and hedge fund managers have all left, We haven’t heard much about bankers crossing the channel recently, while senior executives and successful entrepreneurs are getting out.  None of that will deter the high-tax, big state fanatics who now control the French parliament. The Left is already arguing that a clampdown on avoidance is needed, while the 2026 budget extends the temporary corporation tax surcharge that takes the rate up to a punishing 36pc for the country’s 400 largest companies. It surely can’t be long before major French companies such as the infrastructure operator Vinci or the drinks manufacturer Pernod Ricard, and perhaps even LVMH, are forced by their shareholders to move somewhere where they are not made to pay for the country’s lavish pension system. Taxes go up, revenues go down, so the political establishment puts them up again to make up the shortfall. No one in Paris seems able to work out what is going wrong.  And yet, the rest of the world should pay attention to what is happening in France. In her last Budget, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, imposed a mansion tax, a wealth tax under a different name, and if she and Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, are ousted this year, it seems certain the party will impose some form of levy on assets.  In New York, Mamdani is demanding a 2pc extra surcharge on incomes above $1m (£740,000). California is poised to hold a referendum later this year on a one-off 5pc wealth tax.  In 2022, Spain introduced a two-year “solidarity tax” on assets of more than €3m, and surprise, surprise, it has now been rolled over, and looks set to remain in place permanently. With government deficits soaring and budgets under pressure, wealth taxes have never been more politically popular. The trouble is, they never work. We have just seen that in France, and there are early signs of it in the UK as well. Only this week, the latest figures showed the amount collected from capital gains tax fell by 8pc in 2025, or £1.3bn. It wasn’t hard to work out why. The annual exemption was slashed from £12,000 to just £3,000 – shamefully by the last Conservative government – and anyone with a gain simply postponed selling instead of paying more. With the mansion tax, we will suddenly find that most properties are worth less than the £2m threshold.  Likewise, wealthy entrepreneurs such as Peter Thiel and the Google co-founder Sergey Brin are already leaving California ahead of its vote, while Spain forecast revenues of €1.5bn when it introduced its levy, but the actual amount came in at slightly over €600m. Once again, it was a spectacular flop. A handful of governments have figured out a better strategy. Italy, with its flat tax on non-doms, has turned Milan into a hub for financiers and dealmakers, with property prices in the city rising by 49pc since it was introduced. Dubai keeps booming on the back of its minimal taxes.  The lesson from wherever wealth taxes are imposed could hardly be clearer. They drive out entrepreneurs, deter wealth creation, damage savings and investment, and worst of all, they never raise anything more than a fraction of the amount expected. Once the second-round impacts are taken into account, they generally mean lower overall tax revenues."

Meme - Kendric Tonn: "There are several things one could say about this, but the thing that's getting me is the evident belief that $500 is a lot of damage, instead of, like, the absolute lowest number in which fixing problems on a property is denominated"
sarah @thesarahkelly: "I admit it's a low priority but I would support legislation that made "pet rent" illegal. I don't know how we normalized this practice over the last decade or so but it's a scam.
There is simply no way my dog is doing an extra $500 A YEAR in damage or wear and tear. I already put down a deposit! It is already legal to bill/sue me for damages exceeding the deposit! You're just being greedy."
Left wingers think maintaining a property is costless, which is why they seethe at paying rent

Chuck Ross on X - "Nekima Levy Armstrong, who takes $200k salary at her "anti-poverty" charity, sent three of her kids to a "prestigious boarding school on the east coast," her husband wrote a few years ago."
Bonchie on X - "The numbers are worse when you add more context. From 2019-2024, her “charity” raised $5.2 million. She paid *herself* $1.2 million of that while giving out only $700k in grants. The level of abuse of non-profits in this country by activists is insane."
Time to tax churches!

The Fallacy of Redistribution - "The recently discovered tape on which Barack Obama said back in 1998 that he believes in redistribution is not really news. He said the same thing to Joe the Plumber four years ago... Those who talk glibly about redistribution often act as if people are just inert objects that can be placed here and there, like pieces on a chess board, to carry out some grand design. But if human beings have their own responses to government policies, then we cannot blithely assume that government policies will have the effect intended.  The history of the 20th century is full of examples of countries that set out to redistribute wealth and ended up redistributing poverty. The communist nations were a classic example, but by no means the only example.  In theory, confiscating the wealth of the more successful people ought to make the rest of the society more prosperous. But when the Soviet Union confiscated the wealth of successful farmers, food became scarce. As many people died of starvation under Stalin in the 1930s as died in Hitler's Holocaust in the 1940s.  How can that be? It is not complicated. You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth -- and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated. Farmers in the Soviet Union cut back on how much time and effort they invested in growing their crops, when they realized that the government was going to take a big part of the harvest. They slaughtered and ate young farm animals that they would normally keep tending and feeding while raising them to maturity.   People in industry are not inert objects either. Moreover, unlike farmers, industrialists are not tied to the land in a particular country... Among the most valuable assets in any nation are the knowledge, skills and productive experience that economists call "human capital." When successful people with much human capital leave the country, either voluntarily or because of hostile governments or hostile mobs whipped up by demagogues exploiting envy, lasting damage can be done to the economy they leave behind.  Fidel Castro's confiscatory policies drove successful Cubans to flee to Florida, often leaving much of their physical wealth behind. But poverty-stricken refugees rose to prosperity again in Florida, while the wealth they left behind in Cuba did not prevent the people there from being poverty stricken under Castro. The lasting wealth the refugees took with them was their human capital.  We have all heard the old saying that giving a man a fish feeds him only for a day, while teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime. Redistributionists give him a fish and leave him dependent on the government for more fish in the future. If the redistributionists were serious, what they would want to distribute is the ability to fish, or to be productive in other ways. Knowledge is one of the few things that can be distributed to people without reducing the amount held by others.  That would better serve the interests of the poor, but it would not serve the interests of politicians who want to exercise power, and to get the votes of people who are dependent on them."
Thomas Sowell from 2012

Borrowing to keep up (with the Joneses): Inequality, debt, and conspicuous consumption - "The quest for status is a powerful motivator, but does it affect inequality? This paper presents a novel lab experiment that was designed and conducted to identify the relationship between conspicuous consumption, access to credit, and inequality. We report four main findings: First, consumption increases when it is “conspicuous” (i.e., is both observable and signaling ability). Second, costly borrowing increases when consumption is conspicuous. Third, the increase in costly borrowing is driven by those at lower income levels. Finally, in the presence of conspicuous consumption, access to credit exacerbates inequality."
Clearly, we just need to give poor people money to end poverty

Kiyah Willis on X - "I love capitalism because it has lifted much of the world out of poverty, made lifesaving innovations easily accessible, and allowed millions of people to live happy lives full of passion and love. You hate capitalism becaue someone you've never met owns a yacht and you don't"

Meme - The Other 98%: "If you're a Christian and you're big mad about the possibility of student loan debt being canceled. Let me remind you that the entirety of your faith is built on a debt that you can't pay that someone else stepped in and paid for you"
The Meme Policeman: "This equivocation of the word "debt" is impressive, truly one for the ages."
"The difference is Jesus didn't steal from me to pay the debt. He paid it all himself."
"So in this analogy, that would make Government their god. Makes perfect sense."
"Uh, I'm not really Christian, but I'm like 97% sure that's not what it is."

Calls for wealth tax as Rich List shows £772bn in the hands of just 350 families : r/unitedkingdom - "“You can’t tax wealth”  But you can use it as collateral to generate income.  Cunts."
"That is the loophole that needs to be closed."
"It's not even a loophole. Reddit has convinced itself that someone can generate endless tax-free income by taking a loan against stocks, seemingly forgetting that loans have to be repaid from income, which is taxed. At best it's a delay in paying that tax, not a reduction in it."
"What makes you think that loans have to be paid from income?"
"Because that's how the monthly payments are paid, from income. Either salary, dividends or capital gains. The main purpose of such collateral loans are to allow quick access to liquidity in a way that avoids onerous taxation (mostly an American thing as short-term capital gains have a higher tax rate), avoid volatility, or to avoid having to sell a controlling share to access that liquidity.  I know everyone on this site is convinced you can just take a loan and then somehow not pay it back, or convinced you just take more loans to pay it off, that's not how it works and for most examples, it'll result in the outstanding balance being greater than shareholding, meaning they'll be bankrupted within 10-15 years trying to service the debt by selling everything they have, and they'll still owe those taxes. The only scenario where that could realistically work is either if the borrower dies within a few years of the loan, or if their shareholding is wildly disproportionate to their annual spend (think £1bn shareholding, and an annual spend of £200k). Otherwise, it sits within the Reddit School of Economics lore alongside "supermarkets allow charity donations at the till all for the tax write-off"."
Left wingers are economically illiterate. That's why they're poor

San Diego State Wants Students to “Interrogate Capitalism” - "At San Diego State University (SDSU), ethnic studies students are learning to approach their internships from a “decolonial perspective” and to challenge the “colonizer logic of work.” Thanks to funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the university now offers a course called “Ethnic and Gender Studies in the Workplace,” part of a broader project to apply the principles of ethnic studies beyond the campus.  The “Building Decolonized Internship Pipelines” project, which SDSU launched last year, seeks to address a problem endemic to women’s, gender, sexuality, and ethnic studies (area studies) departments: their students are routinely underemployed...   To address this perception—and presumably, to improve students’ chances at gainful employment—the project proposes an unconventional approach: applying decolonial ideology. “To counter deficit models of [area studies] students,” the project aims to create a navigating-the-workplace course and internship program “from a decolonial perspective,” the grant proposal said.  In practice, this means teaching students to be skeptical of the “colonizer logic of work.” That logic, the proposal noted, “seeks to indoctrinate and police students into uncritical, non-self-reflecting citizens who do not interrogate the relationship between capitalism and minoritized cultural practices, values, and traditions.”  One of the SDSU initiative’s key activities is developing an “Ethnic and Gender Studies in the Workplace” course. This course teaches students “how to interrogate capitalism and minoritized cultural practices, values, and traditions” while “challenging and resisting white supremacy, racism and hate, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, imperialism, and contemporary colonialism that are deeply entangle [sic] with professional workplaces.”  The new course is seemingly designed to make area-studies students even less employable...   SDSU’s decolonized internship program is just one in a flurry of new ethnic studies projects in California. In 2024, the Mellon Foundation gave the California State University System $1.5 million to “Expand Ethnic Studies Pathways.” The system used these dollars for nearly a dozen smaller grants to its campuses for projects such as “Advancing Queer and Trans Ethnic Studies” and “Advancing Two Spirit and Indigenous Trans Sovereignty.”  In a recent Wall Street Journal article, I describe the Mellon Foundation’s activist turn. The country’s largest funder of the humanities has embraced a political agenda, single-mindedly focused on advancing “social justice.”  SDSU’s project offers a small but poignant example of the consequences. The Mellon-funded program sets out to teach students that the workplace is oppressive and to prepare them to challenge it. By making students less prepared for post-college life, the Mellon Foundation continues to undermine the case for the humanities."

ZUBY: on X - "It's funny how it's anti-capitalists who are so much more obsessed with money than capitalists. They're always focusing on how much money other people have and how they should spend it."
The Atlas Society on X - "The builder dreams about creating value. The critic dreams about redistribution."

Argentina's Milei News 🇦🇷🤝🌎 on X - "BREAKING🔴 ARGENTINA's WHEAT-HARVEST SHATTERS ALL-TIME RECORD HIGH
In a stunning victory for Argentina’s rural sector, farmers have just harvested a jaw-dropping 27.7 million tons of wheat — a massive 20% surge above the previous all-time record.  This historic milestone, thanks to President Milei's tax breaks, marks another triumph for the productive countryside, proving that freedom and sound policies deliver results.  Contrast this with the Kirchnerist era, when the country was forced to import wheat after production collapsed to an embarrassing low of just 8 million tons.  Today, Argentina is once again feeding the world and writing a new chapter of agricultural greatness. Argentina's golden fields are roaring back — and it sure looks like the best is yet to come.  @JMilei"

Councilwoman Vickie Paladino on X - "As leftist policies fail in increasingly high profile and undeniable fashion, and people and businesses continue to flee en masse, Democrats will now do what socialists have always done in these situations — build a wall to keep people in against their will.  Both Mamdani and Bernie Sanders have now seriously proposed an economic Berlin Wall around blue jurisdictions to prevent population and capital loss as a result of people not wanting to live under socialist policies anymore.  It’s hard to articulate how un American this really is. But I expect nothing less from these people.  We fought a Cold War to prevent this from happening here. And we might have to take even more drastic action against our own Soviet uprising."

Stefan Schubert on X - "The US tax system has become much more progressive (notice the X-axis). The richest pay half their income in tax, the poorest nothing."
Christian Heiens 🏛 on X - "The idea that we can balance the budget or even just avoid financial Gotterdammerung at this point if we simply raise taxes across the board is just wrong.  Just look at how consistent Federal revenues as a percent of GDP has been since WWII. The tax code has certainly not been consistent during the last 80 years.   We had an extremely progressive tax code in the 1950s and a much flatter one today, and yet the amount of money the Feds can extract as a percentage of GDP has remained relatively stable during this time.  This suggests that we already know more or less where the Laffer Curve is, and raising taxes wouldn’t do much of anything to raise revenues more than a few points as a percent of GDP.  The problem is the Federal government’s spending trajectory is utterly unsustainable, not that we aren’t collecting enough in taxes.  But nothing can be done to rein spending in because it’s political suicide to do so. “Nothing stops this train” as Lyn Alden likes to say.  Financial repression is inevitable."

Thread by @simonsarris on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "I used to believe this but then you run the numbers and you find out that in practice its not true at all. The most dense cities in the US have *higher*, not lower, municipal spend per person. There's basically an inverse to cost savings in practice.  Partly this is because as you increase density you increase municipal demands. You're doing more with more.  But part of it is that as you make a more dense city you bring brand new problems and costs that couldn't exist before that you now have to spend on. Looking at the extreme example, NYC's municipal social spending alone is the same as San Antonio's entire spend.  That's fine, its a choice a city can make. But if a city decides to expand scope then that ruins any tax efficiency argument, and it seems regularly true.
"Look how much money we could save if we were a city"
"Does the city spend less per person?"
"Well, no, they spend more"
Struck me as odd when I first found it. It seems pertinent to infrastructure discussions. Infrastructure is not built in a vacuum. These are total spend which has some data problems (NYC's includes schools, many others do not, etc)  I asked Gemini to include a few more including SF, some data may be suspect but it mostly looks good, here:"
Arpit Gupta on X - "Also remarkable that NYC’s budget per capita is comparable to Spain, Singapore, or Japan *on top of* everything the federal government handles"
Kevin A. Bryan on X - "On fiscal position of US relative to social welfare states: in US places with very high public spending, what do you get? NY State spends 3x/student what Ontario or Utah spends! If they spent US avg = 240k/student saved = free 4 yr daycare + parent leave + free public univ.
It is a mystery where the money goes. It isn't just salaries: NY State 33% higher average teacher salary vs US overall, ~40% higher vs Utah or Ontario. Total school spending 3x. Outcomes worse despite this - < US avg even adjusting for SES. Would love an accounting deep dive."
Total NIMBY Death on X - "its funny how people start discussing politics like its an abstract battle of ideas between "low taxes, poor services" vs "high taxes, good services" but then they discover that high spending in blue states is just a scam, it goes into a money pit."
Weird. Left wingers keep insisting that cities are efficient and the suburbs are inefficient and want to force everyone to live in a city. In reality it's easier to push the left wing agenda that way

Dominic Pino on X - "France doesn't only tax the rich at much higher rates than the US. It also taxes the middle class more. A LOT more. And the government still can't pay its bills."
Philippe Lemoine on X - "I think people, including and perhaps especially in France, don't realize how expensive a welfare state as large as we have in France is. You need to raise ridiculous amounts of money and, in practice, the only way to do that is through broad-based taxation.  But politicians don't want to admit that, often I think they don't really understand it themselves, so instead of telling people the truth about the trade-offs involved, those on the left pretend we could pay for it just by taxing the rich while those on the right pretend we could pay for it by eliminating waste 🤷‍♂️"
Clearly, France needs to make the rich pay their "fair share" and to "tax the 'rich'"

Opinion | France learns it cannot sustain its welfare state by taxing the rich - The Washington Post - "France has budget problems, so politicians reached for a politically popular solution: Tax the rich. Never mind that France already had the second highest tax rate in Europe for its top bracket at 55.4 percent. Or that it already had surtaxes on income over 250,000 euros and income over 500,000 euros. Politicians hashed out a compromise in 2025 to add a “differential contribution” for individuals with taxable income over 250,000 euros. If, after calculating tax liability, someone’s average tax rate was below 20 percent, they’d need to pay extra to reach that proportion. The government forecast that this would raise 1.9 billion euros in revenue during 2025. Turns out, it actually raised — sacre bleu! — 400 million euros, a 79 percent miss. The tax’s projected revenue for 2026 is now a billion euros less than previously estimated. The government blames the shortfall on a change in the tax’s design. It was supposed to be retroactive to 2024, but in practice it applied only to 2025. Saying that a tax works if it re-taxes people who already paid is not the strongest argument for its soundness. The French far-left say the problem is the tax didn’t go far enough. (They always say that.) But government already took in over half of France’s GDP in revenue in 2024, before the new tax was added. How much is enough?...  The average single French worker gets to keep only 53 percent of his or her pay after taxes, compared with 70 percent for the average single American worker. For average one-earner families with two children, the tax burden is almost twice as high in France as in America. And those figures are only for taxes on labor. They don’t include the burden of France’s national value-added tax, with a standard rate of 20 percent on consumer purchases of goods and services. (Compare that with the average U.S. sales tax rate of 7.53 percent.) France’s massive welfare state was not built by taxing the rich. It was built by taxing the rich and everyone else at far higher rates than Americans would ever tolerate. Yes, France has universal government health coverage, but nearly all French people have private insurance on top of that. France also has lower average gross wages (adjusted for purchasing power), a much higher unemployment rate and much slower economic growth than the U.S. These stats of shame are all related. Even then, all those taxes still aren’t enough to avoid an enormous budget deficit. Efforts at reform have torn apart French politics, and bond markets are now making clear that past changes weren’t anywhere near enough to solve the problem. The unsustainable welfare state also means France cannot afford its ambitions to build a self-sufficient military or fully support Ukraine as it fends off Russia. The bleak conclusion: Politicians in Paris have made promises they can’t keep to a people who are now dependent on government for their livelihoods. Charismatic socialists keep trying to sell Americans on the European model. Look under the hood, and it’s clearly a lemon."

Rutger Bregman on X - "Whenever European billionaires threaten to leave Europe for the US, feel free to remind them that they'll actually pay more income tax over there 👍"

Christopher M. Meissner on X - "European welfare states have much more regressive tax systems than the USA in order to support their welfare systems. Counterintuitive as though it may be. Peter Lindert, author of “Growing Public”, amongst others, has been saying this for decades."

Aakash Gupta on X - "Everyone is missing the second chart.  The left chart shows effective income tax rates. The U.S. taxes its poor less and its rich more than France and the Netherlands. That’s the number Thompson is leading with, and it’s real.  But the right chart is where the actual story lives. That’s total average tax rates, which includes consumption taxes like VAT. And look what happens: the Netherlands jumps to ~45% for middle-income earners. France stays elevated across the board. The U.S. stays the lowest for the bottom 60% of earners.  Why? Because European welfare states are funded by 20-25% VAT rates that hit every purchase a lower-income household makes. Denmark charges 25% VAT. Hungary charges 27%. The EU average is 21.6%. The U.S. has no federal consumption tax and state sales taxes average around 5-6%.  When you spend 80-90% of your income on consumption (as most lower-income households do), a 20% VAT is functionally a 16-18% income tax that never shows up on your pay stub.  And here’s what both charts agree on: billionaires in every country converge toward the same effective rate. The U.S. top 400 pay about 24% of economic income. French and Dutch billionaires land in a similar range once you account for all taxes. Zucman’s own G20 report estimates global billionaires pay roughly 0.3% of their wealth annually, regardless of jurisdiction.  The “be more like Europe” framing assumes Europe taxes the rich and spares the poor. The data shows Europe taxes everyone, especially through consumption, and the rich find the same exits everywhere.  The real policy question this surfaces: European countries collect 34% of GDP in taxes vs. 27% for the U.S., and that 7-point gap comes almost entirely from taxing the bottom 60% harder through VAT. The trade is higher taxes on the poor in exchange for universal healthcare, childcare, and public transit. You can argue that’s a good trade. But you can’t argue the poor aren’t paying for it."

Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 on X - "If Elon Musk liquidated his entire wealth tomorrow and gave all his money to the poor it would legitimately be a disaster for humanity.   Trillions of dollars in wealth would be incinerated, multiple companies at the frontier of human technological advancement would be destroyed, human space exploration would be set back decades.  And for what?  Most people would just use the money on drugs, porn, crypto and online sports gambling.  Destroy SpaceX, Tesla, xAI so that idiots can spend a $200 Elon stimmy cheque on OnlyFans and online sports gambling. The worst trade off in history.   Consider actual reality here.   Elon’s wealth is tied up in shares so if he tried to liquidate all his positions at once, the stock price would immediately crash, destroying trillions in value for normal middle class people whose pensions rely on stock market growth. Ultimately Elon could probably only recover 10-15% of the headline $850 billion figure if he tried to immediately go liquid. Then you would have to divide that up across hundreds of million of people.   If you tried to target the poorest people on Earth - those earning less than $3 a day - you would have to try distribute about $100 billion to 800 million people. About $120 each.   Logistically you would lose at least 20-30% of that on last mile delivery: banking fees, security, fraud, identifying the poor, preventing corruption. So you end up getting $90 to 800 million seperate people. That is one month of income.   The equivalent of a COVID stimmy cheque in a rich world country. Did COVID stimmy cheques solve the problem of poverty in the US? No, of course not, because one time infusions of cash are not enough to end poverty.   Even if you kept the program just within the United States it would largely be pointless. Divide 100 billion across the 40 million Americans below the federal poverty line - you get a $2500 payment per person. Roughly the equivalent of two COVID stimmy cheques. Not exactly world changing stuff.   Studies show that significant amounts of money from COVID stimmy cheques in America and Australia went directly to non-essential spending - gambling, day trading, crypto, online porn.   Studies from Australia show that when people were allowed to liquidate their superannuation (retirement fund savings) during COVID, they spent massive amounts on gambling. Up to 11% of all funds withdrawn from superannuation went towards online gambling.  Sadly the reality is that many poor people do not know how to manage money.   If you think the poor are only poor due to lack of money, you’re an idiot. Poverty is unfortunately far more complex than that, which is why so many poor people who win the lottery wind up going broke.   Elon could liquidate everything tomorrow, destroy all his companies. The end result would be a redistribution of wealth away from productive enterprises (companies pushing the frontier of human knowledge and civilizational advancement) towards some of the most non-productive ends imaginable: organised crime, drugs, prostitution, porn, online gambling.   Legitimate world historic disaster.  I would rather Elon keep the money."
Hunter Ash on X - "“Tax the rich” means converting SpaceX and Neuralink into hot cheetos for obese people."

Links - 5th March 2026 (2 - Iran Attack)

Meme - Shia Visuals @ShiaVisuals: "May Allah protect him. *Khamenei*"
Readers added context: "Allah didn't protect him."

CSIS acting to prevent possible Iranian proxy attacks on U.S. targets in Canada, former spies say - The Globe and Mail - "Canada’s spy service will be alert to any Iranian attempts to direct its proxies in Canada to strike U.S. targets in this country if the United States attacks Iran, according to former top spies.  Two former assistant directors of operations at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service told The Globe and Mail Wednesday that Canada and other Western countries’ intelligence services have been working in concert to prevent Iranian attacks in Europe and North America."
Naturally, left wingers were pretending the true problem was the "far right"

Students For Liberty | Facebook - "A 1979 NYT article described Ayatollah Khomeini as: an honest man, surrounded by moderates concerned with human rights, who will leave his internal enemies free to express themselves, and overall a beacon of hope for the region's future. File under: 100% wrong wishful-thinking predictions. This is what happens when institutions mistake their desires for reality. The New York Times wasn't reporting on Khomeini, they were projecting onto him. They wanted to believe the Iranian Revolution would bring progress, so they saw moderation where none existed. What actually happened? Mass executions. Suppression of women. Persecution of minorities. Decades of regional instability. Iran became a theocratic regime that stones women, hangs dissidents, and funds proxy wars across the Middle East. The "moderates" around Khomeini? Purged within months. The internal enemies left "free to express themselves"? Silenced, imprisoned, or killed. This wasn't a failure of prediction. It was a failure of honesty. The signs were there. Khomeini's ideology was clear. But acknowledging it conflicted with the preferred narrative. The media still makes this mistake, romanticizing authoritarians, whitewashing extremists, calling skeptics alarmist. Listen to what people say. Believe what they do. Ignore what you wish were true."

Nervous nations calling Canada's energy minister after Iran strikes - "Energy Minister Tim Hodgson says he's starting to get calls from countries about how Canadian energy producers can fill the gap amid the war in Iran, which is driving up oil and gas prices."
How ignorant. Don't they know there's no business case for it?

Terry Glavin: Iran faces horrific disintegration, not righteous revolution - "It was Washington’s preoccupation with cementing a nuclear deal as Obama’s foreign-policy legacy that pulled the White House back from supporting Iran’s massive pro-democracy uprising in 2009, when the Islamic Republic’s constitutionally-rigged presidential election went to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Washington fixation with a nuclear deal resumed during Joe Biden’s presidency. “Iranians calling for democracy became an inconvenience,” is the way the high-profile Iranian-American human rights activist and journalist Masih Alinejad puts it. “We’ve had five or six major uprisings since 2009. And still, they thought they could make deals.” The most dramatic of those uprisings was the “Woman, Life Freedom” movement that Alinejad played a leading role in mobilizing following the killing of Mahsa Amini in police custody in September, 2022. That uprising produced a brief coalition of expatriate opposition leaders. It’s practically impossible to maintain an effective and disciplined revolutionary movement inside Iran, but the efforts of the expatriate community have been stymied, too, by a combination of factors — not least the NATO countries’ lack of interest in dislodging the Khomeinist regime once and for all. It hasn’t helped that the pro-democracy opposition has been so susceptible to the sabotage undertaken by the regime’s influence peddlers in the west, its vast “cyber army” of hackers and its disinformation and propaganda operations. Disunity in the anti-regime constituencies has been exacerbated by slander campaigns aimed at undermining promising leadership figures, like the Canadian author and activist Hamed Esmaeilion. Esmaeilion, whose wife and daughter were among the 176 people killed when the IRGC shot down Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 (PS752) in 2020, was largely responsible for the largest anti-regime protest in history, a gathering of 80,000 Europeans in Berlin in October 2022. But Esmaeilion gradually withdrew from the movement leadership after having to refute persistent and absurdly false allegations accusing him of being an agent of the IRGC, or alternatively, a secret operative of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq."

Anonymous TV 🇺🇦 on X - "🚨⚡️BREAKING: Iranian hackers claim they now have videos of Trump with minors and will release them if the U.S. attacks Iran"
The TDS were gleefully sharing this. Then after the bombing started, they immediately pivoted to claiming Trump bombed them because Israel threatened to release these same videos if he didn't

Columbia anti-Israel group posts 'Death to America' after US, Israel kill Khamenei - "Columbia University’s biggest anti-Israel student group — which notoriously organized last year’s on-campus encampment in protest of the war in Gaza — posted “death to America” in Persian after the US and Israel killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.  “Marg bar Amrika,” the Columbia University Apartheid Divest [CUAD] group posted on X on Saturday — a rally cry made famous by founder Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini."

Insurrection Barbie on X - "March 2025 → Trump sends personal letter. Iran calls it “a deception.”
May 2025 → Trump sends nuclear proposal. Khamenei calls Trump “unworthy of a response.” Same week leads “Death to America” chants.
June 2025 → 60-day deadline expires. Iran still enriching. Israel strikes. US strikes. 12 days. Ceasefire.
October 2025 → Trump offers to negotiate AGAIN. Khamenei’s response: “Keep dreaming.”
January 2026 → Iran massacres thousands of its own people in the streets.
February 3 → Iran provokes US warships in the Gulf — WHILE scheduling talks.
February 17 → Talks in Geneva. Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz. DURING negotiations.
February 24 → Trump’s State of the Union. Iran calls it “big lies” within hours.
February 26 → Geneva talks. Iran walks out with no deal. Still won’t say three words: “No nuclear weapon.”
Yea, Trump and Israel are the problem.   😂😂😂😂"

Sadanand Dhume on X - "The 1979 Iranian revolution was a hinge point in history that dramatically set back the values that progressives claim to care about, including women’s rights, gay rights, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and rationalism in public policy.   In “Persepolis,” Marjane Satrapi recalls the story of Niloufar, an 18-year-old communist activist sentenced to death by the clerical regime. The religious jurists have no problem with the death penalty for Niloufar, but they worry that as a virgin she may go to heaven. So they arrange for her to be raped by a prison guard before her execution. Later the authorities send Niloufar’s family a small dowry to commemorate this “marriage.”  Ali Khamenei led this murderous medieval regime for nearly forty years. This is a regime that beat women for showing their hair and publicly hanged gays from cranes. It’s a regime that ignored the needs of its own people to fund jihadist groups in, among other places, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian Territories. It’s a regime that committed murder in dozens of countries, including Germany, France, India, Australia, Argentina and Saudi Arabia. Just weeks ago, it slaughtered thousands—possibly tens of thousands—of its own citizens for protesting its repressive policies.  Because the Iranian revolution offered a template for Islamist rule, albeit a Shia variant crafted by Ayatollah Khomeini, Islamists of all stripes took inspiration from it. Few countries adopted the extreme measures favored by the mullahs of Iran, but the revolution’s malign influence was felt from Morocco to Mindanao. In the 1980s it also sparked a theological arms race with Saudi Arabia, which spread its own regressive brand of Islamism around the world.  Progressives in democratic countries who mourn the death of Khamenei come in different flavors. Some are simply Islamists or Islamist adjacent. Their ideology conceals the deeper religious passions that motivate them. Others are so blinded by their hatred of America and Israel that they reflexively oppose any action by them. Yet others are simply so ignorant of the nature of the Iranian regime that they can’t see the absurdity of comparing Khamenei with Dumbledore from Harry Potter.   But all of these people have one thing in common. They spit on the suffering of the talented Iranian people who have had to endure nearly 50 years of brutal clerical rule."
Left wingers just hate the West

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani on X - "Today’s military strikes on Iran — carried out by the United States and Israel — mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war.  Americans do not want this. They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change. They want relief from the affordability crisis. They want peace.  I am focused on making sure that every New Yorker is safe. I have been in contact with our Police Commissioner and emergency management officials. We are taking proactive steps, including increasing coordination across agencies and enhancing patrols of sensitive locations out of an abundance of caution.  Additionally, I want to speak directly to Iranian New Yorkers: you are part of the fabric of this city — you are our neighbors, small business owners, students, artists, workers, and community leaders. You will be safe here."
ثنا ابراهیمی | Sana Ebrahimi on X - "Mr @NYCMayor ,  I say it as an Iranian New Yorker: You are a human garbage.  When our people were getting slaughtered and hunted like animals by the Islamic Republic terrorists, you stayed silent. You didn't say a word. Now that the regime, the murderers of our people are under attack, you came out of the woodwork to defend them. You are an Islamist human garbage and I fight your agenda as long as I breathe."

Stu Smith on X - "🚨 BREAKING: The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) just released a statement on Iran titled “DSA Stands against Imperialist War and with the Iranian People.” Read how it actually frames the regime...  The framing is telling. Throughout the statement, DSA repeatedly invokes solidarity with “the Iranian people,” yet the argument consistently centers the sovereignty of the Iranian state. It condemns “violations of its sovereignty” and insists that “national sovereignty is a precondition for working-class liberation,” while saying nothing about the Islamic Republic’s repression of its own citizens. There’s no mention of political prisoners, protest crackdowns, executions, or the mass demonstrations that have defined Iranian domestic politics in recent years.  Even more striking is how the statement assigns responsibility for Iranian suffering almost entirely to the United States. DSA claims U.S. policy has “destroyed the Iranian economy,” “empowered a class of domestic sanctions profiteers,” and “caused the Iranian working class to suffer.” Missing from the analysis: the regime’s own corruption and mismanagement, and its role as a central financer and sponsor of the Axis of Resistance—the network of proxies and militant groups Iran uses to project power across the region.  Unsurprisingly, the statement eventually pivots from foreign policy commentary to movement-building, calling for “participation in mass mobilizations,” urging readers to “contact their representatives in Congress,” and to “join DSA and its International Committee.” That’s notable because DSA’s International Committee has recently drawn attention for full-throated defenses of the regime even amid repression of protesters—making it hard to read this document as neutral “solidarity” rather than ideological alignment."
Swann Marcus on X - "Unlike with Maduro, I’m skeptical of this because I fucking hate getting involved in Middle Eastern bullshit However, it is unbelievable how left-wing American organizations always frame foreign dictators as being the voice of their nation’s people. Just utterly dire"

Denise Wu on X - "Iran 🇮🇷 was utilizing the 🇨🇳 surveillance radar, YLC-8B, which was dubbed the “anti-stealth radar” that had arrived in January. Performed exactly like Venezuela’s Chinese “stealth-killer” but newer model."

Cliff Connolly 👁️‍🗨️☧ 🇵🇸 on X - "When the United States declares war, the duty of every US socialist is to make sure it ends in our government’s defeat. May God protect the people of Iran, and may God damn the Trump regime."
Councilwoman Vickie Paladino on X - "This is a DSA party leader. This is the party our mayor belongs to, along with multiple members of the city council and state legislature. Does Zohran agree or disagree with this sentiment? Americans deserve answers."

Omar Sakr on X - "Fucking evil cunts. Fuck this murderous fascist empire forever. Fuck the inevitably stupid and servile shit our government will say to not piss off the genocidal US that is run by a pedophile rapist. Fuck the whole rotten status quo"
emily north on X - "woke up this morning burning with rage. nuremberg trials 2 would not be enough at this point. fuck this genocidal fascist imperial regime and fuck anyone who isn’t immediately outraged at shit like innocent schoolchildren in iran & civilians across the middle east getting bombed"
𝔏𝔢𝔫𝔞 🎀 on X - "leftists will see the islamic regime rape and murder 40,000 civilian protestors and declare their full support, and then suddenly be imbued with righteous anger and love for the iranian people the second the iranian regime starts blurting out propaganda. go fuck yourself"

Satire or Documentary? - "It is common knowledge that the UK would not allow the United States to use any of its bases or resources to strike Iran. Against that backdrop, Keir Starmer’s statement about the US and Israel’s actions may be the most honest encapsulation of how Western policymakers operate today. He said:  “The United Kingdom played no role in these strikes. But we have long been clear — the regime in Iran is utterly abhorrent.”  How should people interpret that? Does it betray fear of Britain’s restive Muslim migrant population? Is it a preemptive disclaimer — an advance excuse so that if Islamists riot in Britain’s streets, the government can wash its hands of responsibility? Or is it simply an admission that Western officials and policymakers are feckless cowards whose sole aim is to avoid difficult decisions for as long as humanly possible?  Sir Keir’s statement might as well have read: “Don’t blame us. We say a lot of things, but none of it really means anything.”  My first thought when I heard Starmer’s speech was “He is doing the meme!”—because it reminded me that Matt Stone and Trey Parker captured this governmental and diplomatic ethos in 2004’s Team America: World Police, when Hans Blix (the cartoon version of the head of the International Atomic Energy Administration) threatened Kim Jong Il (the cartoon version) with a series of “strongly worded letters” telling Kim how angry the IAEA was with him if he keeps breaking the rules. This attitude is not uniquely British, it is the posture of much of the Western political class to talk endlessly, condemn loudly, issue strongly worded letters, and when none of that works, convene conferences, draft more communiqués, and finally, impose toothless sanctions and ignore the breaches. Above all, avoid decisions that impose real cost—especially on hostile regimes that have spent decades testing the limits of Western patience.  Yet these same officials somehow discover remarkable resolve when dealing with their own citizens. They regulate, they tax, they surveil and restrict. They experiment socially and economically at home with policies that would never be tolerated if imposed from abroad. It is a curious inversion: timidity outward, assertiveness inward.  For nearly half a century, Western nations have talked about Iran. They have threatened, sanctioned and negotiated. They have released frozen assets and, under the Obama administration, even transferred literal pallets of cash to a regime widely acknowledged as a state sponsor of terrorism. Through it all, Iran’s behavior did not moderate, if anything, it intensified. When rhetoric is unaccompanied by consequence, the target learns quickly. The lesson is simple: endure the press conference, wait out the outrage, continue as before.  That is why the return of consequential policy feels so jarring to the global establishment. President Trump’s approach—whether one agrees with every tactic or not—signals something different: that words may again be paired with action. I have said before that violence is not always the answer. It should never be the first answer, but history demonstrates that there are moments when credible force, or the demonstrated willingness to use it, is the only language an adversary understands.  What is almost comical is watching long-time critics of Iran’s regime now cloak themselves in procedural piety... The sudden reverence for “process” seems less about constitutional principle and more about discomfort with decisive action. The deeper issue is this: for decades, Western foreign policy has been built on the illusion that perpetual negotiation, symbolic sanctions, and that moral condemnation would eventually bend hostile regimes toward compliance. It has not. The status quo persisted precisely because it carried no real cost – and when America engaged in seemingly perpetual wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, costing American lives and billions of dollars, we still accomplished nothing. If anything, these wars communicated to the world that we really didn’t mean it.  Leadership is not measured by how eloquently one denounces evil or how many resources we can deploy to not achieve our goals. It is measured by whether one is willing to align means with ends. If a regime is “utterly abhorrent,” then policy must reflect that judgment, otherwise, the words are hollow, empty and worthless. The world has grown accustomed to Western leaders who speak loudly and act cautiously, but peace secured by fear of one’s own electorate, or by avoidance of hard choices, is not peace at all—it is an illusion that over time invites greater danger. Consequences must follow declarations or diplomacy becomes theater, governance becomes performance, and adversaries will fairly deduce that Team America: World Police wasn’t a satirical comedy, it was a documentary of Western policy.  At some point, the talking has to stop.  President Trump says a lot of things, but he has proven he is willing to act when the talk is going nowhere."
Left wingers are obsessed with words and rhetoric and think intentions matter more than outcomes

New Direction AFRICA on X - "Stephen King quotes the Constitution. Cites Article I, Section 8. Calls for impeachment.  He's right. Only Congress can declare war. Not the president. Not alone.  But here's the thing. They've been ignoring this for decades. Korea. Vietnam. Iraq. Libya. Now Iran.  Every time, the same violation. Every time, silence.  Now a novelist says what Congress won't.  Impeach the SOB? Maybe. But the system that let him do it needs more than impeachment. It needs rebuilding."

Critical Spectator | Facebook - "Apparently Mdm Halimah is upset that US and Israel decided to take out a bloody, theocratic regime during Ramadan, despite the fact that Iranians in and out of the country took to the streets to celebrate the death of their butcher. Curiously, she has never published a single statement, posted a single Facebook entry when IRGC on orders of Khamenei massacred protesting Iranians, killing as many as 30,000 people over the past few weeks (compared to alleged 60,000+ Gazans over two years of war that Hamas started, which she flooded the social media about for months). And yet she had the temerity to once lecture everybody that "if you remain silent, you're complicit" in the atrocities.  Well, there's A LOT she's been silent about. I don't see any posts about Afghanistan and Pakistan going to war in recent days either - two Muslim countries killing each other during Ramadan. But decapitation of one of the worst regimes on the planet is suddenly a problem? 🤔 As you can see, even PAP makes occasional recruitment blunders."

Melissa Chen on X - "This war was inevitable   The Biden admin tried deals. The Trump admin tried talks. But all the Iranian regime was doing was to stall any action without concessions to its pursuit of acquiring nuclear capabilities.   Their only option for survival - having nuclear weapons -  threatens the survival of everybody else's. This is a pure zero sum situation.  Trump promised the Iranian people that help was on its way after tens of thousands were slaughtered by their government. He spent billions moving assets into the region. He tried talks one last time. He gave the Iranian regime several offramps.  Not acting at this point would've raised a lot of questions about American might and resolve around the world.   It is not an easy choice to make as things can and probably will go wrong. But it was not "now or never." It was "now or later."   He chose now.   Godspeed to the Iranian people and all in the region who will face danger and uncertainty over the next few days.  May Persia prosper soon"

hasanabi on X - "iran wouldn’t be getting bombed if they developed nukes and a delivery system like jericho 3. mearsheimer is totally correct. the region would be more stable if iran had nukes rn. the moment trump ripped up the jcpoa should’ve been the moment they threw away the fatwa."
Thread by @KareemRifai on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "There are about 500,000+ dead Syrians unavailable for comment on how "stabilizing" Iran is for the Middle East. Lots of commentary on Iran that conveniently omits its last 15 years of activity in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and beyond because it causes narrative failure"

Abubaker Abed on X - "Israel has hit Iran's airport, presidency and national security compound, and other residential areas. No way anyone in this world can defend this. Utter depravity and total impunity funded by Western governments."
Wilfred Reilly on X - "Iran just killed 60,000 people, many of them feminist student fighters raped so badly their wombs allegedly had to be destroyed.  None of you journ-o-list leftist clowns gave a shit until Israel, the GOP, etc could be invoked. Doesn't it at least make you feel bad during evening meditation?"

Iran Times on X - "Every Muslim country has betrayed Iran; Saudi Arabia handed over its bases to the U.S. and Israel, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait are all against Muslims. Iran is fighting alone. Pray for Iran, and Allah will grant success."

🇬🇲🇸🇳PROUDEST SON OF MALI 🇸🇱🇲🇱 on X - "All Arab Muslim nation are complicit in the aggression against Iran….Saudi Jordan Bahrain Turkey Egypt Oman UAE Iraq Pakistan are all conniving with US to destroy Iran…As a Muslim am ashame of what we have become but Allah’s folk will prevail against evil 🙏🏿"
So if a Muslim country is at war with a non Muslim country, Muslims in the non Muslim country are expected to support the Muslim country. Clearly talking about a fifth column is racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic

Chaya’s Clan on X - "A failed missile launch in Iran caused the projectile to fall on a school. Images captured the moment it failed, fell back to ground, and struck.   The Iranians - just like the Palestinians in Gaza at the beginning of the war - immediately claimed it was a missile fired by the United States or Israel."
On Minab

Charlie Kirk and Relishing in Human Suffering / Killing an Unarmed Person

mitra @persianmama111: "I think the hardest part of the political climate right now is realizing how many people around me are actually evil. Not stupid. Not misinformed. Just blatantly enjoying and relishing in the suffering of other human beings."
mitra @persianmama111: "Charlie Kirk deserved what he got"

David Santa Carla 🦇 @TheOnlyDSC: "“He was unarmed and they killed him anyway!” We said the same thing and you guys laughed. *Charlie Kirk*"

Links - 5th March 2026 (1 - Trans Mania)

Nancy Hogshead, JD, Oly on X - "I took a course “Modern American Religious Cults” as an undergraduate in college … and Gender Ideology checks all the boxes. Love-bombing. New Name. New “family.” Doctrinaire, “No debate”, Suspend Critical Thinking. Special vocabulary. Belief that they’re hated - “most  marginalized” Attack & Shame Non-believers - “bigots” “transphobes” etc.  What else?"
Anonamoose on X - "Disconnect with familly if they don’t support them as trans... You can't reason people out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.  This is how the woke magic wand works, it turns scrutiny into bigotry, and your logic is transphobic.  We've created an industry that mutilates children's genitals, and we call it love.    This happens because transgenderism can't be scrutinized; it's just labelled as "hate", which mean it can be silenced or censored.You can't reason people out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.  This is how the woke magic wand works, it turns scrutiny into bigotry, and your logic is transphobic.  We've created an industry that mutilates children's genitals, and we call it love.    This happens because transgenderism can't be scrutinized; it's just labelled as "hate", which mean it can be silenced or censored."

English courts defy own ruling on trans toilets - "English courts are still allowing biological men to use women’s toilets in defiance of a Supreme Court ruling.  Eight months on from a landmark judgment that trans women are not women under equalities law, HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) has still not updated its rules on the use of ladies’ facilities... In April the Supreme Court ruled that the word “sex” in the Equality Act refers to biological sex and not a person’s gender identity.  The EHRC published interim guidance soon afterwards to say that public bodies should bar trans people from the toilets of their opposite sex, and that they could provide unisex facilities for trans people.  It submitted its final guidance to equalities minister Bridget Phillipson, who is also Education Secretary, but she has so far refused to publish it. In the meantime, many public bodies, including the NHS, have refused to update their guidance, saying they are waiting for the EHRC... The Supreme Court building, where April’s ruling was made, complies with the law as it only has unisex toilets."

Genevieve Gluck on X - "Once again for the newcomers: gender identity ideology does not come from feminism. It was not created suddenly by Judith Butler in the 90's.  It comes entirely from the convergence between sexology and psychiatry. Gender ideology was pioneered by sexologists and especially men sympathetic to pedophilia.  Sex offender treatment programs spearheaded "gender-affirming care" via chemical castration for pedophiles. That chemical castration treatment is now promoted to minors as "puberty blockers". A pedophile's dream come true.  The idea that sex itself is a social construct dates back to the 1960s, and was promoted by John Money, who encouraged the use of pornography - even among children - to develop one's gender identity. John Money forced children to act out "copulation play" and photographed them, and advocated for sexual relationships between adult men and children.  Gender identity ideology is the philosophy of porn and BDSM. It is quite literally the belief that sexual roles determine one's sex, and it normalizes dangerous sexual pathologies by turning them into a protected "identity"."

Mario Nawfal on X - "🚨🇺🇸 BREAKING: JD VANCE HOME ATTACKER IDENTIFIED AS TRANS DAUGHTER OF DEMOCRAT DONOR SURGEON
The suspect accused of smashing windows at Vice President JD Vance’s Ohio home has been identified as Julia DeFoor, a transgender woman formerly known as William DeFoor, and the daughter of two wealthy Democrat donors.  Julia, 26, was arrested and charged with multiple counts after allegedly breaking into the Vance family’s $1.4M Cincinnati residence with a hammer.  She grew up in luxury in Hyde Park, attended elite private schools, and is the child of William and Catherine DeFoor ,both prominent pediatric doctors who’ve donated thousands to Democratic causes, including Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.  No motive has been released, but the suspect has a prior criminal record, including a guilty plea for vandalizing an interior design firm in 2024."

SEEN in Journalism on X - "‘Data from hundreds of public bodies shows only four complaints about trans women in women’s single-sex spaces over three years’ Lack of complaints signals all sorts of things, including fear of complaining. One thing it doesn’t signal is consent."
HeCheated.org on X - "Pink News claims "only four people in the UK have formally complained about a trans woman entering a “single-sex” facility, an eye-opening report has revealed." This claim is a bit puzzling considering there were eight women complaining about this very thing in the Darlington nurses case alone."

'Listen to women' NHS nurses say, after tribunal rules sharing changing room with trans woman 'violated dignity' - "Hospital bosses violated the dignity of a group of female nurses who complained about a transgender woman using their changing room, an employment tribunal found this morning. Eight nurses from Darlington Memorial Hospital claimed they had been "penalised" by managers for objecting to Rose Henderson, a biological male who identifies as a woman, using the single-sex space."

Colin Wright on X - "🚨A new peer-reviewed paper in the @APA 's American Journal of Orthopsychiatry refuses to acknowledge sex differences in athletic performance.  It claims that "sex and gender" are "social constructs," and rejects "testosterone's role in superior male performance."  It further claims that "laws and policies preventing transgender athletes from competing in sports in the gender category matching their gender identity contribute to significant physical and mental health disparities in this highly marginalized population."  It doesn't seem to care about or even consider the physical safety or mental health of the women and girls who are forced to compete against male athletes.  It's amazing how papers so detached from reality manage to still get published in ostensibly scientific journals."
Benjamin Ryan on X - "There is essentially no debate among mainstream scientists that testosterone, particularly following male puberty, drives a wide gap between men's and women's athletic performance. Arguments that women's lesser capacity is socially driven were debunked decades ago.   In the 70s, after Title IX was passed, it was an open question whether, afforded the opportunities to train and compete, women could catch up with men athletically. By the 1990s, these questions had been answered: They can't. Thanks to T, men are stronger and faster than women (on average).  Furthermore, recent review papers by @FondOfBeetles  and @DrMJoyner  have indicated that even sustained gender-transition treatment does not fully erase the athletic advantage conferred by male puberty. I asked various scientists how confident they were in these conclusions and they all said, "Very."  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-020-01389-3 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39716906/"

Meme - *The Shining Here's Johnny Axe to Door Scene*
"LESBIAN DATING APPS" *terrified woman*
"TRANS WOMEN" *Johnny with beard, moustache, eyeshadow and lipstick*

Trans gymgoer caught 'masturbating' in women's bathroom at California Planet Fitness - "Disturbing viral video shows the moment a transgender gymgoer appears to be masturbating in a stall inside the women’s bathroom at a Planet Fitness in California.  Planet Fitness patron Grace Hutson claims she encountered the ordeal while she was using the female restroom at the gym’s Concord location, just outside San Francisco, last May — but the footage only exploded online over the weekend...   “At the end of the day, whether you’re transgender or not, you should not be stroking your s–t in the women’s bathroom,” Huston said in a TikTok video posted late Sunday after the footage started going viral.  “Okay, that’s definitely some weirdo s–t.” The young woman alerted the front desk staff at the time, but the employees didn’t know how to handle the situation, she said.  Her boyfriend eventually stepped in to confront the trans gymgoer.  Addressing the saga, the young woman said she now regrets not doing more at the time.  “I was just really uncomfortable and, honestly, I kind of just wanted to say my piece and get the f–k out of there. Looking back, I do have regrets, like I should have done more. I should have called the cops,” she said...   The viral clip resurfaced months after Grammy-nominated singer Tish Hyman was kicked out of a Gold’s Gym in Los Angeles after confronting a wife-beating transgender woman who allegedly exposed his male genitals in the women’s locker room...   “When you see me speak with passion, this is why,” she wrote.  “Women and girls deserve truth, safety, and protection — not confusion, not denial, not lies dressed up as compassion,” Hyman continued.   “Sex is real. Boundaries matter. Reality matters. Enough with pretending otherwise.  “This isn’t hate. This is care. This is love. This is standing up.”  Hyman was filmed last year getting into a heated argument with Alexis Black, a convicted wife-beater who is transitioning.  Hyman had filed complaints against Black for using the women’s locker room and accused Black of exposing himself and harassing her in the locker room, which he has denied."
Not letting him into the women's toilet is literally genocide and denying trans people exist
If she'd called the cops, she'd have been arrested for transphobia, so she was lucky she didn't

Meme - "Don't pick on children who still believe in Santa... I know adults who still think boys can be girls."

Trans woman ‘threatened to firebomb law firm’, court hears - "A trans woman has been accused of a £100,000 blackmail plot to firebomb a law firm, a court has heard.  Ella Potter, 28, is said to have threatened and demanded money from Norton Peskett solicitors, based in Norfolk, on July 17 last year.  The defendant is accused of telling a senior partner at the firm that their arson threat would be carried out unless a six-figure cash sum was paid, Norwich magistrates’ court was told.  Potter, who is male but identifies as a transgender female, appeared in court to face a single charge of blackmail.  Wearing a skirt but with a full beard, the defendant was referred to as “Miss Potter” throughout the hearing despite being identified as male on court documents."
Obviously trans women are women, because women do this all the time

Diana Alastair💚🤍💜 ⚢ ❌❌ on X - "Incarcerated women are not allowed to take HRT when they go into menopause, so as a result, menopausal women in California’s prison system are buying estrogen from the trans identifying men they are now locked up with. This is possible because many of these men have no desire to  take female hormones, and only claim to be trans so that they can serve out their time in a women’s facility.   Other trans-identifying men don’t bother with estrogen at all: the prison systems in California, Oregon, and Washington state, as well as Minnesota, do not require these men to be on HRT in order to be transferred to a woman’s prison, let alone to have had a vaginoplasty."
🎗️ Mister V on X - "can a woman also identify as "trans-woman" to get Gender Affirming Care? I'd love to see the ACLU suing the "department of corrections" for discrimination. if men can can identify as transwomen, why can't women? @marycatedelvey did."

Eric Daugherty on X - "🚨 HOLY SMOKES. SCOTUS Justice Sam Alito asks ACLU lawyer "what is a man and a woman?" and they DON'T HAVE A DEFINITION. Alito's response is perfect.
ALITO: What does it mean to be a man or woman?
ACLU: We do not have a definition for the Court.
ALITO: How can a court determine whether there's discrimination on the basis of s*x, without KNOWING what s*x means?!
Omg, you can't make this crap up. Seriously."
Jonathan Choe on X - "NEW: The ACLU's attorney is arguing in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The outcome could shape rules for transgender athletes nationwide. But the lawyer cannot define what it means to be a man or a woman. Make it make sense. 🙃"
Peak Seattle on X - "Of course the ACLU can't provide a definition. Their only definition trans ideologues have been using this whole time is a woman is anyone who "identifies" as one. They know that kind of circular reasoning won't fly in an actual courtroom."

Supreme Court appears likely to approve transgender athlete bans, letting laws in 27 states stand - Thoughts? : r/allthequestions - "People identifying as transgender is around 1% of the U.S. population and less than that globally. They also make up less than .5% of NCAA athletes. Transgender people have been documented across many different cultures throughout history.  With that being said, I don’t understand how this is something people vote over or care about. It is such a small and menial thing looking at the numbers. We have actual issues in this country considering our massive wealth gap, student debt, and problems with our healthcare system. The only thing this topic does is pull us away from actually fixing problems in America, because this isn’t a pressing issue based on data."
"This is such a disingenuous argument.  The people that bring it, are usually the ones championing what they call "transgender rights". They are wanting change to fulfil these rights. But when people oppose this (as is normal, politics always has an opposition to whatever anyone is trying to do) they say "well why do you care, such an insignificant issue, it's just brought up to distract and divide". Completely pretending away that they were the ones bringing it up in the first.  And no, I am not saying "transgender people never existed". I said "championing what they call "transgender rights". They are wanting change to fulfil these rights". So before the otherwise inevitable comment of "trans people always existed" - just no."
"Yep this SCOTUS case is literally a lawsuit against a school setting the policy that sports are separated by sex not gender, and trans women sued claiming it was illegal. This wasn't raised by conservatives."
If you oppose the left wing agenda, you are a bad person for wasting time on irrelevant issues, but if you push it you are brave and stunning. The left wing agenda is seen as the natural order of things, and disagreeing with it is the abnormal position which requires effort, when a decade ago it was barely on the radar

Supreme Court appears likely to approve transgender athlete bans, letting laws in 27 states stand - Thoughts? : r/allthequestions - "Well we are indeed trying to exclude some girls from participating in girls sports."
"There we have it.  It used to be "we just want to live". Then "we just want to pee". Now it's "why are you excluding girls from girls sport"."

Nick Freitas on X - "I genuinely feel bad for daughters of leftist dads. Can you imagine coming home from school and telling your dad a boy was in the girls locker room watching you undress, and your dads respone being: “Don’t be a bigot.”"
Shepard Middle School student in Deerfield claims she had to change in front of transgender classmate; officials say untrue - "A student at Shepard Middle School in Deerfield said she was forced to change her clothes in front of a transgender classmate."
Boy watched girls change in Fairfax County high school locker room, new complaint alleges - "a boy was watching girls change in Fairfax County’s West Springfield High School girls’ locker room, but when a girl complained, a teacher said there was nothing they could do."
Trans student exposed girls to male genitalia in school locker room, legal group claims - "the transgender student, a senior who WILL says was 18 at the time, joined the girls in the shower and exposed them to male genitalia."
Naturally, left wingers were denying this happened and accused conservatives of being pedos etc

Diana Alastair💚🤍💜 ⚢ ❌❌ on X - "This is Tremaine Carroll. He does not try to present as female, or take cross-sex hormones, but claims to be a woman. He was placed in a women’s prison for this reason alone, even though his first two strikes were for kidnapping young girls and forcing them to perform oral sex on him. His third was for armed robbery.  He’s also 6’2, and weighs 250 lbs.   This is a man CA officials agreed was so “vulnerable” that he had to be placed in a women’s prison for the sake of his safety — and CA law gave him the right to a female cellmate.   He impregnated the first woman who was locked in a cell with him — whether she consented to sex or not, I do not know. CA has a nasty habit of punishing female inmates for reporting assaults by trans-identifying male inmates.   The second woman they locked in his cell, he raped, and when she reported it, he counter-accused — this 6’2, 250 lb man. She - all of 5’1 - was placed in isolation.   Carroll was given yet another female cellmate, and it wasn’t very long before he’d raped that woman, too. Only then did the state return him to the men’s facility he never should have been allowed to leave in the first place.   The final slap in the face to the victims? The judge overseeing Carroll’s trial has ordered his victims to refer to their rapist as “she.”"

Diana Alastair💚🤍💜 ⚢ ❌❌ on X - "The CA Department of Corrections has decided that no charges will be filed against any of the prison employees who were complicit in locking 3 women, one after another, in a cell with a man who had multiple convictions for abducting young women and forcing them to fellate him.   Employees will avoid all charges even though they were fully aware that Carroll had impregnated his first cellmate and raped his second when they locked the third woman in his cell with him in spite of her pleas for a female cellmate.   Mr. Carroll raped her, too, of course — but CDCR is not even punishing these employees internally."
Damn right wing war on women!

Transgender rights versus feminism: What makes a woman? - "In The Whole Woman, Germaine Greer compares trans women to rapists: "When he forces his way into the few private spaces woman may enjoy and shouts down their objections, and bombards the women who will not accept him with hate mail, he does as rapists have always done." Earlier this year, Greer claimed there was no such thing as transphobia, suggesting trans women are not women because they do not know what it is like to have a "smelly vagina"."
Wesley Yang on X - "Cancellation campaigns against Greer on college campuses lead by male students who seek inclusion in women’s spaces around 2013 were one of the early indicators of the mania that would eat institutional America.   Like everyone else other than hardcore TERF’s I laughed smugly at the “Left eating itself,” little suspecting that in less than a decade millions of schoolchildren would be taught from the earliest age that any of them could change sex.   Nor did I understand that the chemical castration and dismemberment of minor girls caught up in a social contagion had begun in earnest."

Disabled university worker 'had career sabotaged' after forgetting her trans colleague's pronouns - "A university worker who had her career 'sabotaged' after misgendering a trans colleague has won a disability discrimination case.  Karenne Sylvester, 56, was found to have 'harassed' her transgender colleague following an investigation by the University of Manchester - because her short term memory issues meant she forgot the right pronouns, a tribunal heard... On the misgendering incident which took place in February 2023, the tribunal was told: '[Ms Sylvester] used the incorrect pronoun for CD. CD corrected [Ms Sylvester].  '[Ms Sylvester] apologised to CD, making a comment suggesting she would probably misgender CD in the future and was apologising for future occasions as well.  '[Colleague] Rebecca Oldfield made it clear that [Ms Sylvester] should not misgender CD at all in the future. Everyone went back to working. CD was later found crying. '[Ms Sylvester] tried to speak to CD later, but he did not want to speak to her.'  Following the incident, Ms Sylvester was told that she could not have any 'physical interaction with the rest of her team, who all worked in the shared open plan workspace along with 40 or so other staff'. She had to book a back room on the same floor when she worked on the university's campus, to make sure that she 'did not risk coming into contact with CD'.  In a meeting about the incident in March, Ms Sylvester told investigators from the Faculty of Humanities, Stuart Phillipson and Martin Banks, that 'her dyspraxia made it more difficult for her to gender CD correctly'.  E-learning manager Mr Phillipson and lead people partner Mr Banks found she had 'persistently used the incorrect pronoun over a period of time' and had 'unlawfully harassed CD'.  Ms Sylvester appealed against this finding and the appeal hearing was held in September 2023 - before ruling again that she had harassed CD.  She was transferred to a different team in September 2024 - a move she described as having 'sabotaged' her 'career and academic intentions'.  Ms Sylvester had intended to do a PhD by Publication, but now 'no longer has access to the relevant academics who could support this activity'. She was told in October 2024 that she would not face disciplinary proceedings for the harassment of CD.  The tribunal found the appeal panel carried out some 'sloppy work' and failed to do some 'basic due diligence'."

Transgender woman posts sobbing selfie in bathroom after claiming TSA agent punched her testicles - "another TSA row erupted when a transgender woman hit out at screenings for being 'transphobic' after an 'anomaly' was detected between her legs that 'set off the alarm'.   While Rosalynne Montoya was moving through the security, a TSA officer reportedly pressed a button designating her as a woman - triggering the alarm when she walked through the body scanner.   'Can we talk about how horrible it is to travel while being transgender sometimes? I always have immense anxiety leading up to going through security,' she explained.    After being flagged by the security system, she called on the TSA to 'remove the gender settings from their scanners' to cater to transgender people"
Arrested for smuggling $1.5m in gold in their genitalia - "Turkish airport authorities detained 6 Uzbek women on suspicion of smuggling $1.5 million worth of gold bars concealed in their genitalia and shoes. Gaming consoles were also found in luggage at Izmir airport."

‘My neglectful council is fixated on pronouns while my family lives in disrepair’ - "When Wandsworth council circulated internal guidelines instructing staff to declare their pronouns in meetings and use gender-neutral options such as “ze/zir/zem” in email signatures, it was presented as a progressive step towards greater equality to “recognise” non-binary and transgender members. Yet for residents in Wandsworth council housing, where roofs leak, lifts break and bins overflow, focusing on fringe gender views when basic services are falling short feels misplaced...  The issues facing her are not abstract, and come in a week where local councils across the country have come under growing scrutiny after 29 local elections scheduled for May were postponed. While Wandsworth, which has been under Labour control since 2022, is not one of the councils delaying, it has come under fire in recent weeks for its undemocratic attention to fringe ideology... if you complain, she adds, the attitude from council staff is often worse than the problem itself: “We got left without hot water for four weeks. I was on the phone to the council multiple times a day. That was when I was told to be grateful I had a home. There was no urgency to get it repaired, it was towards the end of summer and they even said you don’t need hot water, it’s hot enough outside.”  For her, the contrast is stark. “There’s irony in that they address and speak to tenants so poorly, yet are spending so much on pronouns.”"
You're only at fault for fixating on unimportant wedge issues while neglecting important ones when you oppose the left wing agenda