Author: nick

[ad_1] On October 25, 2023, 18 people were killed in a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine.  The killer’s declining mental health was known to law enforcement since that May.  On July 6, although he owned other firearms, he legally purchased the firearm that he would use in the attack.  By August, he repeatedly threatened members of his Army Reserve unit that he would “shoot up” the base.  He was hospitalized for psychological evaluation but released.  Two months later, he carried out his nefarious threats at a bowling alley and a cafe. In 2024, the Final Report of the Independent Commission…

[ad_1] The scariest part of the U.S.-Iran standoff isn’t the loud headlines. It’s the quiet math of distance, missiles, and leverage at the Strait of Hormuz. We sit down with Larry Johnson to unpack Iran’s reported “new” framework and why it may be the same core message: lift the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports, and Iran controls access through Hormuz while allowing shipping to move. From there, we get brutally practical about what the U.S. can and cannot do militarily. Carrier strike groups have to operate far offshore to avoid Iranian cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and drones, which pushes Washington…

[ad_1] “Below the threshold”:  At a Pentagon briefing yesterday following Iran’s attacks on the United Arab Emirates, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters that our adversary’s actions were “below the threshold of restarting major combat operations.” This shows laudable restraint; it seems the U.S. is interested in shepherding shipping vessels out of the Strait of Hormuz without being pulled back into combat, despite all of Iran’s taunts. (Iran’s foreign minister said “the U.S. should be wary of being dragged back into quagmire by ill-wishers” and “so should the UAE.” I wonder who those mysterious ill-wishers might…

[ad_1] Oh look, another interview between Stephen Colbert and former US President Barack Obama, in which the topic of aliens is brought up! Could it possibly include some ground-breaking revelation about the UFO phenomenon, which has gathered so much attention since 2017? …NOPE. After recounting Obama’s past comment in a podcast where he was asked about the possibility of alien life, which triggered a deluge of online speculation and even an official response from president Trump—who just couldn’t pass the opportunity to one-up his predecessor, by announcing the ‘official’ release of all government documentation on UFOs or aliens… which hasn’t…

[ad_1] While governments around the world have imposed speech restrictions to fight misinformation and hate speech, they also have attempted to curb free speech for a less controversial reason: protecting children. But many of these restrictions stem from vague, unspecified, or speculative harms and corral wide swaths of speech that do not harm children. Censoring speech in the name of protecting children is not a terribly new phenomenon, especially in authoritarian countries. In 2012, for instance, Russia’s parliament passed a law allowing the country’s media censorship agency to unilaterally blacklist websites and take them offline, without any court approval. The…

[ad_1] [This post is excerpted from the new book, National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster).] To the delegates of the Continental Congress, the Declaration of Independence did not reflect abstract ideas. To begin with, it was a pressing piece of administrative business after the vote for Independence on July 2, necessary for legitimizing the American struggle against King and Parliament, as well as a means of garnering foreign support, primarily from France. Yet it also was a covenant invoking the Creator and identifying a people that it hoped to unite. This covenant…

[ad_1] Senate Republicans have unveiled their plan to fund immigration enforcement and President Donald Trump’s ballroom, and the proposal might take fiscal irresponsibility to a new record high. The two bills included in the package call for spending nearly $72 billion. Remarkably, every single dollar would be borrowed. That’s according to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) analysis of the bill, which was released on Wednesday morning. According to the CBO, the bill would direct $38 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and spend $26 billion on various programs run by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The largest share of…

[ad_1] The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will reduce federal Medicaid spending by more than $900 billion over a decade. But in a series of congressional hearings last month, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. misleadingly claimed that “there are no cuts to Medicaid” as a result of that 2025 law. Kennedy said there are no cuts to Medicaid under the OBBBA because the CBO also estimated that federal spending on Medicaid will increase by “47% over the next 10 years.” But health policy experts told us that total spending…

[ad_1] Data centers are big buildings full of machines that process what we do on our phones and computers. AI requires even more computing power, so companies are eager to build more data centers. The usual suspects are freaking out. “We must stop it!” says Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.). “Slow it down!” demands Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.). Data centers do use lots of power and water to cool them down because their computers generate heat. One center can use as much power and water as a small town. “Uses resources like a madman!” says one protester in my new video.…

[ad_1] I have said for years that people misunderstand the global monetary system. It is not driven by trade balances. It is driven by capital flows and access to dollar liquidity. The discussion of a currency swap between the United States and the United Arab Emirates shows how the system actually works under stress. The United States is now considering a currency swap with the UAE as tensions around Iran rise. This is not about trade policy. It is about liquidity. When uncertainty increases, capital begins to move. Countries need dollars to stabilize their financial systems and maintain confidence. Currency…