“President Donald Trump’s doubts about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) date back at least to the 1980s, when he took out full-page newspaper ads questioning the value of defending prosperous allies capable of paying for their own security. So, when he voices frustration with the alliance and the lack of support among its members for the U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran’s theocratic regime, it’s not a new development. What’s new is growing disenchantment with NATO among Americans, led by the president’s Republican supporters.” (04/22/26)
“As another week of Trump’s war begins, it becomes ever more clear that all his presumptions about how the war would go have proven wrong. Iran’s economy has bent but not folded despite a blockade of its ports. Its ability to control the Strait of Hormuz hasn’t been eliminated. Iran still has drones and missiles for retaliatory attacks. The regime’s control of the population remains. Gas prices and the cost of oil remain high. The war goes on. Trump’s deadline on the cease-fire expires April 22. Will Vice President JD Vance travel to Islamabad for a second round of talks with Iran? … The only certainty is in Trump’s mind: that Iran has ‘no choice. We’ve taken out their navy, we’ve taken out their air force, we’ve taken out their leaders,’ he said on his social media. He just doesn’t get it.” (04/22/26)
Source: Liberal Currents
by Holly Berkley Fletcher
“Around the country, Mainline Protestant churches are stepping up to help organizing the resistance to ICE’s incursions into their communities.” (04/22/26)
“Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s book, The Technological Republic, is a clarion call for Silicon Valley to abandon its consumer trinkets and rush headlong into the arms of the military-industrial complex. According to Karp, America’s future depends on wielding hard power through technology — arming soldiers, AI-weaponry, and mass surveillance systems — rather than on the ‘soft’ influence demonstrated by free markets and liberty-first principles. The book claims that ‘the survival of the American experiment depends on the technological revitalization of the military-industrial complex’ and urges the country’s engineering talent to focus on national defense. … This techno-militarism dressed up as patriotic duty presumes that concentration of power in the state and its corporate allies (isn’t there a word for this?) is not only desirable, but morally required.” (04/22/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by Harrison Berger
“When the NSA responded to [Tucker] Carlson’s 2021 allegation that the agency had been monitoring his communications, it said only that he had never been an intelligence ‘target,’ a carefully lawyered denial that conspicuously avoided saying his communications had never been queried under programs like FISA Section 702. The NSA’s response was also unusual since three-letter agencies typically neither confirm nor deny whether any specific individual’s communications have been collected. On how Trump, another documented victim of FISA abuse, and Johnson, who built his political identity around opposition to FBI overreach, both ended up as the leading advocates for a clean renewal of those spying powers, Carlson pointed to institutional capture and coercion.” (04/22/26)
“Imagine you’re a professor who disagrees with your university’s indigenous land acknowledgement, so you write your own as a joke — and then your school investigates you for ‘unacceptable’ and ‘inappropriate’ speech. Or imagine you invite a controversial former Black Panther to speak on campus, so your university forces the event online. These are real stories, and FIRE’s archives are full of plenty more just like them. But thanks to a new measure passed in Tennessee, the university’s actions in cases like these wouldn’t just violate the First Amendment, but state law, too.” (04/21/26)
Source: Association of Mature American Citizens
by Shane Harris
“On Tuesday, Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment that will allow Democrats to draw new maps, handing them control of 10 of 11 U.S. House seats in a state that Kamala Harris won by just five points in 2024. The result should be a shock to the senses for Republicans nationwide that it’s time to get serious about redistricting – starting with a push in Florida next week. What Americans witnessed over the past three months in Virginia was one of the most corrupt, dishonest – and well-funded – campaigns in American history.” [editor’s note: “Playing hardball” with gerrymandering was what got the GOP into this mess in the first placce – TLK] (04/22/26)
“Remember the Paris Agreement? Signed a decade ago today, it was hailed as a historic milestone in the fight against climate change, with practically every country promising drastic action to keep global warming below 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels. And, at the time, the stakes couldn’t have felt higher. As Western politicians and activists endlessly warned, unless carbon emissions were urgently and drastically reduced by 2030, climate change would have apocalyptic consequences, potentially extinguishing humanity — if not all life on Earth. … Ten years on, then, one cannot help but ask: did the Paris Agreement, and the broader UN Conference of the Parties (COP) process, actually achieve anything?” (04/21/26)
“It’s a proud day for American toughness! Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has officially done away with the U.S. military’s WOKE flu vaccine mandate, and I applaud that decision from the bed I currently can’t get out of due to a high fever. TRUE warfighters know their lethality is only enhanced by bacterial pneumonia, and soft and so-called proven public health tools like vaccines are for weenies. Simply put, the libs will never understand that a fever is just God warming your body for the battle ahead.” (04/21/26)
