Author: nick

This is the way the drug war starts to end, not with a bang or a whimper, but with an executive order signed by a president who must surely be the least-psychedelic occupant ever of the Oval Office, even when you think about characters as glum and dour as Millard Fillmore and Calvin Coolidge. In recent weeks, Donald Trump has picked figurative and literal fights with everyone from the Pope to Iran’s ayatollah. Last year, he released an animated video of himself in a fighter plane dropping feces on “No Kings” protestors. If there is an American alive over the…

Introduction: The Flicker of Hope, Extinguished I watched the so-called ceasefire announcement with a sense of exhausted disbelief, a feeling I suspect many of you shared. Here we are, in April 2026, and the charade continues. President Donald Trump, fresh from his 2024 victory, declared a ‘two-way ceasefire’ with Iran, a move breathlessly reported by the corporate press as a diplomatic triumph [1]. I knew better. It was a strategic surrender, a desperate act of market manipulation by a regime that has long since abandoned any pretense of statesmanship. And it lasted, by my count, about as long as it took…

Polling shows a close contest in the swing state where Republicans could lose all but one congressional seat if Old Dominion State voters choose "yes" Source link

‘Donald was anointed by God to lead the Chosen People out of the slavery into which they had fallen.’ Source link

President Donald Trump made a sharp reversal and announced that the ceasefire with Iran will continue indefinitely.  “Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” the President wrote on Truth Social Tuesday. “I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready…

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair On November 2, 1800, John Adams wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, on the first night he moved into the White House.  He was its first resident and the second President of the United States.  In concluding his letter, President Adams prayed: “May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”[i] Given his ending prayer, President Adams would be absolutely dumbstruck were he to observe the Presidency of Donald J. Trump. Rather than the “honest and wise” man, President Adams prayed for, Donald Trump is the polar opposite. He is a serial liar,…

Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve after Jerome Powell’s term ends, faced a contentious Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday. Democrats interrogated Warsh about his ability to maintain the central bank’s independence under pressure from the president to cut rates. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) asked Warsh why Trump told the Wall Street Journal that Warsh would cut interest rates as Fed chairman.  “The president never asked me to commit to interest rate cuts at any particular meeting over the period of my tenure at the Fed,” Warsh said. “He didn’t ask for it. He didn’t demand it.…

Last week Treasury Man Scott Bessent unveiled Operation Economic Fury to put maximum financial pressure on the hoodlums running the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. I’d like to give that economic fury some more visibility, because I think blockading Iran ports, which will keep the regime out of the money, along with a banking freeze, are two major weapons that will eventually bring the regime to an end. We know the Iranian ports are being successfully blocked, and it won’t be long until their revenue dries up, and the IRGC, which is basically a government cartel mafioso business operation, won’t even…

Democrats challenged the former Morgan Stanley banker over his perceived allegiance to the president, but his nomination depends on two Republicans. Source link

Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week’s newsletter covers the flood of housing reforms that passed the Idaho Legislature this session, and what they say about where the policy and politics of zoning reform is at. While it doesn’t lend itself to easy alliteration like the “Montana Miracle,” Gem State lawmakers have now, like their eastern neighbors, passed a long series of bills right out of the YIMBY (“yes in my backyard”) playbook during a single session of the state Legislature. Here’s what Idaho’s slew of zoning reforms says about YIMBY politics and policymaking in the…