Author: nick

“Farthest fall the virtuous with feet of clay.” The nationalist former first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, and her husband, Scottish National Party CEO Peter Murrell, dominated Scottish politics for a decade and arguably came close to breaking up Britain. Their project ended in ignominy Monday, as Murrell was led in handcuffs from the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, where he had pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 of SNP funds. There is a special irony in his tawdry tale of petty larceny and greed. The pair always conveyed an image of honest Scottish moderation. They lived in…

Reinink v. Hart presented an excessive force claim under the Fourth Amendment. The case was rescheduled three times and relisted after eight conferences. On May 26, the Court finally denied certiorari. But there was an unusual notation: Petition DENIED. Justice Thomas and Justice Alito would grant the petition and summarily reverse for essentially the reasons given in Judge Larsen’s separate opinion. See Hart v. Grand Rapids, 138 F. 4th 409, 426–428 (CA6 2025). It is not uncommon for a Justice to dissent from the denial of certiorari, and maintain they would have summarily reversed the lower court. I found eleven…

Great nations are rarely destroyed in the way Hollywood imagines. Most people still think empires collapse under missile strikes, invasions, assassinations, revolutions, or dramatic military defeats broadcast live across television screens. History, however, tells a colder and far more disturbing story. The strongest civilizations usually begin dying financially long before the population realizes anything irreversible has started. Military decline only becomes visible later, after the economic foundations supporting the empire have already begun cracking underneath the surface. Rome did not suddenly wake up one morning and discover barbarians had magically become stronger than the empire itself. Rome exhausted its own…

INDIAN SPRINGS AIR FORCE AUXILIARY FIELD, Nev. – A B-1 Lancer performs a fly-by during a firepower demonstration here recently. The bomber is from the 7th Bomb Wing at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Robert W. Valenca) A top US military official told their European counterparts that Washington plans to provide NATO with fewer warplanes, drones, and refueling tankers.  The German outlet Der Spiegel reports that Department of War official Alexander Velez-Green briefed high-ranking representatives from NATO member states that the US will curtail its military support to the alliance. The military equipment…

Photo by Thiébaud Faix As stakeholders navigate the catastrophic war launched by the United States and Israel on 28 February 2026, it is difficult to project how it will end.  It is, however, safe to say that West Asia will not be the same.  Also, it is most likely that the Islamic Republic of Iran has it in its power to reshape the politics of the region.   For more than 70 years, the United States has used its alliance with Israel to project power and control the geopolitical landscape of the region.  And since the 1979 Revolution, Iran, unlike its Arab neighbors,…

The United States loves to remember the Second World War and the Gulf War, because they resulted in the United States smashing the huge conventional armies of diabolical adversaries such as Adolf Hitler, the Imperial Japanese, and the former American ally Saddam Hussein. Yet most recent U.S. wars haven’t gone all that well. Although the outcome of the Korean War against countries using conventional armies—North Korea and China—didn’t provide the expected decisive victory over adversaries, the real trouble started in Vietnam, when such opponents began to realize that the center of gravity when fighting the United States abroad was really…

Last week, Republican senators grilled Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche about the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” created by President Donald Trump’s settlement of his lawsuit against the IRS. About 45 senators attended the meeting, and “at least half of them were blasting the attorney general,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) reported. “They were pissed.” It is not hard to see why. The lawsuit that provided the pretext for using taxpayer money to compensate purported victims of “lawfare and weaponization” was legally dubious, the fund has nothing to do with Trump’s claims against the IRS, and the main beneficiaries are apt to be…

President Donald Trump has always said he’d rather make a deal than a war with Iran, but that he wouldn’t hesitate to do the latter if needed. Sure enough, when he failed to get a nuclear deal last year, Trump bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. And when a grand bargain still wasn’t forthcoming in late February, he and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a joint, large-scale war against Iran that swiftly degenerated into a geopolitical and global economic catastrophe. The war stayed hot until a ceasefire began this April. For better or worse, Trump’s back in dealmaking mode, but he’s…

Paxton Defeats Sen. Cornyn in Texas Senate GOP Runoff Source link

This summer, the United States celebrates its 250th birthday. In 1776, few people believed this new version of self-government would last. After the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of government the Founding Fathers had created. “A republic,” he replied, “if you can keep it.” If. It’s rare that a new form of government lasts dozens of years, let alone 250. How did America do it? In my new video, people give reasons: “In the U.S. Constitution, you see a lot of phrases like ‘Congress shall not’ or ‘No law shall be passed,'” Rob Henderson, the author of…