Posts on Tuesday, March 17, 2026

Silicon Valley was energized by legal immigrants from all over the world who founded ebay, Google, Nvidia, Space, Stripe, Sun Microsystems, Tesla, Yahoo, and a host of others. The Greek American Elia Kazan's 1963 film "America, America" is a fictional account based on the Herculean struggle of the director's uncle to immigrate to the United States from an impoverished and hostile Anatolia. The film summed up Americans' traditional view of immigrants: They had risked everything for the chance to reach America, and, once there, became hyperpatriotic in their gratitude for the magnanimity of their new hosts.

Silicon Valley was energized by legal immigrants from all over the world who founded ebay, Google, Nvidia, Space, Stripe, Sun Microsystems, Tesla, Yahoo, and a host of others. The Greek American Elia Kazan's 1963 film "America, America" is a fictional account based on the Herculean struggle of the director's uncle to immigrate to the United States from an impoverished and hostile Anatolia. The film summed up Americans' traditional view of immigrants: They had risked everything for the chance to reach America, and, once there, became hyperpatriotic in their gratitude for the magnanimity of their new hosts.

Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, has announced his resignation. Director Kent outlines his decision as driven by opposition to the war against Iran. Kent, a senior deputy to Director of National intelligence Tulsi Gabbard posted his resignation letter on the X platform, writing: “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.” … “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” (image)This is quite a remarkable development. (snip) out of an abundance of caution I prefer to await to see how President Trump and/or

The NY Times is reporting this afternoon that President Trump is demanding Cuba's current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, be removed from power in any deal with the country. This may be the first time people inside the administration have said so directly, but it has been obvious for weeks that this is what they had in mind. The other part of this, which also isn't really news, is that Trump is willing to leave some version of the regime in place so long as that regime is America friendly moving forward. As U.S. and Cuban officials negotiate over the future of the Communist-ruled and economically besieged Caribbean island, the Trump administration is seeking

Four teens were arrested on Monday under suspicion of setting off an explosion outside a Dutch synagogue, which Israel claims was conducted by a new terrorist group. Prosecutors say the teens, who were not publicly identified, were behind the terror attack at a synagogue in the port city of Rotterdam, where the explosion caused a blaze inside the temple on Friday. The arson attack was specifically “aimed at instilling serious fear in a population group, in this case the Jewish community,” the Rotterdam Public Prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

Multiple parents in Fairfax County, Virginia say a man groped their daughters in crowded school hallways. Now, the Department of Homeland Security is asking "Virginia Sanctuary Politicians" to not allow the alleged perpetrator, who is an illegal alien, back into the community. (snip) He is in the 11th grade at Fairfax High School (snip.) "This 19-year-old should not have been attending high school and allowed to prey on innocent teenage girls," DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement. Florez-Ortiz now faces nine counts of assault and battery. (snip) DHS has logged a (snip) detainer for Ortiz 

The United States expressed outrage when Great Britain revealed two years ago that its voter registration databases were hacked by scandal in what became a global scandal. But it turns out the U.S. intelligence harbored its own secret (snip.) Last June, FBI Director Kash Patel turned over to Congress a (snip) raw and unverified intelligence report (snip) bluntly titled "Chinese Government Production and Export of Fraudulent US Driver's Licenses to Chinese Sympathizers in the United States, in Order to Create Tens of Thousands of Fraudulent Mail-in Votes for US Presidential Candidate Joe Biden" (snip.) CBP (snip) "seized a total of 19,888 counterfeit frivers licenses"  

When Washington lawmakers were debating the state’s first-ever income tax, Gov. Bob Ferguson said the 9.9% rate on incomes above $1 million “represents historic progress in rebalancing our unfair system.” And at first blush, you can see why Washingtonians might agree with him. The new tax promises, after all, to raise $3.7 billion from fewer than 0.5% percent of the state’s taxpayers, with the money going toward such wonderfulness as education, child care, and expanded low-income tax credits. The middle-class families in that state are in for a rude awakening. First, the tax isn’t likely to collect anywhere

The Israeli defense minister said Tuesday that the Israeli military killed top Iranian security official Ari Larijani in an overnight strike. Israeli military also announced it killed Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard's all-volunteer Basij force. Iranian state media did not immediately confirm either death. (snip) The killings again strip away top leaders from the Iranian theocracy after the Feb. 2 strike that killed 6-year old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini.

The Minnesota Department of Human Services ( DHS) has failed to produce a report which documents the number of people who have been removed from Minnesota's taxpayer-funded healthcare programs. (snip) State law requires DHS to produce an annual report every Sept. 1 which documents how many people have been removed from the program as a result of periodic data matching. (snip) However, periodic data matching was suspended in March of 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded. (snip) Periodic data matching would not resume until July of 2024. However, no new reports have been published (snip.)

President Donald Trump said Monday that he has asked China to delay his official trip to the country by a month amid an ongoing conflict in the Middle East that he feels requires him to stay in the United States. Israel and the United States waged a conflict against Iran last month in an effort to stop the country from developing a nuclear weapon. Approximately 200 American servicemembers have been wounded in the conflict and 13 have died. Trump reiterated during a White House event that he would "love to" go to China, "but because of the war, I want to be here. I have to be here, I feel."

Video footage captured by congressional observers shows a third-party election vendor in Arizona’s largest county processing live ballots and performing signature verification in 2024 far away from the official Maricopa County election center where bipartisan monitors witness such activities, a discovery that prompted the observers to file a formal report alleging “alarming” concerns. The video obtained by Just the News depicts a visit by one Republican and one Democratic congressional staffer to a third-party printing company responsible for conducting signature verification on ballots during the 2024 election.

In March 2021, California principal Jesus Becerra was confronted by a clear and present threat to his school. Standing before him was the culprit — a student apparently so dangerous that Becerra had to act without delay to protect the entire Viejo Elementary School in the Capistrano Unified School District. The little girl is known only as B.B. in federal filings, but her actions were so heinous that a parent alerted Becerra to take all necessary action. Beccera showed B.B. the incriminating evidence: a picture of children holding hands with the words “any life” written under “Black Lives Matter.” Confronting the little girl, Becerra allegedly called the paper “racist.”

Rep. Jasmine Crockett insisted she “followed all protocols” in hiring a fugitive security guard who had a criminal history and was under federal investigation when he was fatally shot in a standoff with Dallas SWAT. Crockett (D-Texas) confirmed in a statement on Monday that her security guard, Diamon-Mazairre Robinson, whom she knew under the alias of Mike King, was shot by police in Dallas on Wednesday night — blaming “loopholes” in the system for his ability to circumvent the vetting process. [snip] “The fact that this individual was able to somehow circumvent the vetting process for something as sensitive as security for a member of Congress

Cuba has extended an invitation to Cuban Americans and other exiles living abroad to invest in and own businesses on the island, saying the “doors are open” to a community that has traditionally agitated for harsh economic sanctions against the Communist government. Cuba also said on Monday that it was removing impediments to US businesses and other foreign investors, but noted that United States law still prevented trade and investment under the long-running economic embargo aimed at punishing the government in Havana. “There are no limitations,” Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga, who also heads the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, told state television in an interview.

President Donald Trump declared Monday that Iran’s military has been “literally obliterated” by the U.S.-led Operation Epic Fury campaign, while revealing that Iranian officials have been reaching out seeking a deal even as he questioned whether those making contact actually have the authority to negotiate on behalf of a regime whose leadership he says has been largely wiped out. Speaking to reporters ahead of a meeting with the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, Trump said weeks of U.S. and Israeli strikes have shattered the Islamic Republic’s military capabilities. “They have been literally obliterated,”

Democrats and liberal media have been all in trying to disparage Operation Epic Fury against Iran. If you listened to them, you would think we were being destroyed and were losing, despite the unparalleled success of the military operation. It's legitimate to ask questions. You can reasonably have concerns or maybe be against the actions now. What isn't reasonable is pushing out false stories to undermine our effort and essentially help provide propaganda that could benefit Iran. Then the public has to wade through that and evaluate what they think, rather than just assessing the facts. Which, of course, is why Democrats/liberal media are doing that.

The Israeli government condemned an Iranian regime missile strike that not only aimed for a civilian area of Jerusalem, but damaged one of the holiest Christian churches. Last week, I reported on an Iranian strike that hit dangerously near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher — built over Christ’s gravestone — and the Western Wall, the last remaining part of the final Jewish Temple. Just in case there was any doubt as to the Iranian Islamic regime deliberately wanting to hit important religious sites during the conflict with Israel and the USA, on March 16 shrapnel again

Despite CNN being forced to walk back their fake news over the weekend where they suggested the U.S. military and the Trump administration didn’t have a plan to protect the Strait of Hormuz, ABC News program The View still pushed it during their Monday episode. The news show then went on to encourage people to vote for Democrats in the November midterms. Chronically aggrieved co-host Sunny Hostin pushed the false claim there was no plan for dealing with Iran’s efforts to close the Strait, then suggested the national average price of gas was $8-per-gallon because of it:

Ever since the start of the war with Iran, the liberal media has been pushing the narrative that this is not what Trump supporters voted for. They have eagerly quoted figures on the right, voices who they would never have given the time of day to pre-war, to attempt to make their point. CNN and MS NOW using clips from those like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, to name a few, while publications such as The Daily Beast, The New Republic and others speculate on a pending MAGA breakup, but as CNN's polling expert Harry Enten explained, the numbers don't reflect that at all. Saturday evening on CNN's Newsroom

Iran's leadership keeps demanding war reparations as a condition of talks with the US and Israel. Just think of all the money we could raise for that by seizing Kharg Island! Yes, that may be a little flippant in this circumstance. The strategic and tactical value of Kharg Island is no joke to either the Iranians or the global oil markets, however. Without Kharg, Iran has no means to export its oil, even on the black market. And that core strategic consideration might allow Donald Trump to force other nations into escort duty in the Strait of Hormuz. Axios' Barak Ravd reports that Trump is considering both options at the moment:

In what timeline are we living? Earlier today, I wrote about how we are in living in a world where everything has become its opposite in the media, and this is just one more example: As American and Western media are desperate to convince people that America is getting its butts kicked by the Iranians before Trump and Netanyahu can win the war, Al Jazeera has published an article from an Arab Security Studies expert from the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies that presents a radically different, and from what I can tell, far more accurate account of how the war is going.