Rules for Radicals Turns 55: Division
Without Deliverance
Posted By: Mercedes44, 4/11/2026 5:31:07 AM
Fifty-five years after Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals landed on shelves in 1971, I am applying to it the only framework that matters: a performance audit. The question is not whether Alinsky's thirteen tactics are morally defensible. The question is whether they worked for the constituencies they claimed to champion. The answer is no — and the data are not subtle. This is not merely a conservative grievance. It is a portfolio performance review. And the returns are dismal.
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Mercedes44"
Fifty-five years after Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals landed on shelves in 1971, I am applying to it the only framework that matters: a performance audit. The question is not whether Alinsky's thirteen tactics are morally defensible. The question is whether they worked for the constituencies they claimed to champion. The answer is no — and the data are not subtle. This is not merely a conservative grievance. It is a portfolio performance review. And the returns are dismal.
Iran flexed its leverage in the Strait of Hormuz this week, forcing President Trump to lean on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scale back deadly strikes in Lebanon ahead of ceasefire negotiations planned in Pakistan this weekend.
However, Israeli attacks on Lebanon continued into Friday, and there’s still almost no shipping traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz — raising major doubts about the ceasefire as Vice President Vance heads to Islamabad. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, who will lead Tehran in the talks, said Friday there will be no negotiations without a ceasefire in Lebanon and a release of blocked Iranian assets.
As is so often the case, the greatest threat to any institution comes from within. Currently, a Groyper movement—that is, a movement built on mindless isolationism, hardcore antisemitism, coy pro-Naziism and Islamism, huge pockets of misogyny, and a barely hidden dislike for America—is trying to co-opt MAGA and the Republican Party. Its leaders are podcast hosts Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones, all of whom once claimed to be straight-talking conservatives. Now, they just engage in crazy talk.
Foreign billionaires reportedly fund millions
to groups that oppose American AI infrastructure 0 replies
to groups that oppose American AI infrastructure 0 replies
new American Energy Institute report shows that foreign billionaires have provided funding upwards of $39 million to the anti-AI data center movement in the United States, with experts saying AI infrastructure must be advanced in order to assert American tech dominance over communist China.
Founder, CEO and Chairman of State Armor as well as expert on Chinese influence in America Michael Lucci told The Center Square: “Either the United States or communist China will dominate artificial intelligence, and therefore, likely dominate the leading technologies of the 21st-century.”
“China is actively executing strategies to win this competition,” Lucci said.
Texas energy efforts advancing: New power
stations, new semiconductor institute
| Just The News 0 replies
stations, new semiconductor institute
| Just The News 0 replies
Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday participated in groundbreaking ceremonies highlighting Texas’ energy expansion in both oil and gas and semiconductor manufacturing.
In Port Arthur, Abbott joined Entergy Corporation CEO Drew Marsh and Entergy Texas President and CEO Eli Viamontes and others at a groundbreaking ceremony for Entergy Legend and Lone Star power stations.
The new power stations will expand Texas’ energy capacity by adding 1,200 MW of power to supply electricity to more than 300,000 homes.
In 2023, Abbott broke ground with Marsh and Viamontes at its Orange County Advanced Power Station, a combined-cycle power plant, built near Bridge City next to Entergy Texas’ Sabine Power Plant, The Center Square reported.
Virginia Democrats are swooning over the prospect of wiping out congressional representation for the overwhelming majority of Republicans in the state if voters pass their April 21 gerrymandering referendum. As I wrote here at The Federalist, that ballot question drips with contempt for rural voters as well as the “democracy” Democrats pretend to care about.
How did things change so fast? What’s behind Democrats’ cockiness to behave with impunity like Soviet apparatchiks? Normal Americans are still scratching their heads over the outcome of Virginia’s 2025 election that handed over the governorship and a massive statehouse majority to the Democrats.
The midterm elections ought to be the best of times for Democrats. But they’ve learned nothing from 2024.
Midterms are traditionally a referendum on the party in the White House. That’s usually bad news. People who are angry at the president are much more likely to vote than people who are happy with the job he’s doing.
In modern times, only two presidents — George W. Bush in 2002 and John F. Kennedy in 1962 — grew their party in Congress. Both were foreign policy crisis elections: W after 9/11 and JFK just after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Races for the Senate and for governor often go the same way.
Two Thirds of Voters Want Starmer Out
5 replies
Almost two thirds of voters want Sir Keir Starmer to resign immediately and a similar number want a General Election now, a poll has found, with even Labour voters saying they want him gone. The Telegraph has more.
Fewer than one in five think the Prime Minister should stay on, while almost half of those who voted Labour at the 2024 General Election want him to go.
Sir Keir is likely to come under increased pressure to step down if Labour fares badly in next month’s local elections, and there is a growing belief within the party that it cannot win the next General Election with him as leader.
Cuban "president" Miguel Díaz-Canel has been doing some rare interviews with the U.S. media in recent days, with the goal of combatting Donald Trump and Marco Rubio's "Cuba is falling" rhetoric and spewing his own propaganda in hopes that he finds a sympathetic U.S. audience.
The latest was with NBC's Kristen Welker, host of Meet the Press. The full interview will air on Sunday, but we've seen some glimpses, and let's just say it got a little heated. Díaz-Canel was not a huge fan of Welker's line of questioning.
"Would you be willing to step down if it meant saving Cuba?" Welker asks.
Díaz-Canel does not look amused.
Creepy Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell is going down in flames.
Swalwell is currently running as a Democrat in California’s gubernatorial race.
As TGP reported earlier on Friday, The San Francisco Chronicle published a story about a woman who claimed that Democrat Eric Swalwell sexually assaulted her twice.
The woman, who worked as a staffer in Swalwell’s office for two years, told The San Francisco Chronicle that Swalwell began pursuing her just weeks after she was hired at the age of 21 in 2019.
Senator opens probe into tech giants over
alleged online child exploitation reporting failures 4 replies
alleged online child exploitation reporting failures 4 replies
Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on Thursday opened a congressional probe into eight tech giants over allegations the companies failed to sufficiently report online child sexual exploitation, hampering law enforcement investigations.
The senator, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, also released new information provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) detailing the alleged reporting deficiencies in tips submitted by eight technology companies.
These eight companies, Meta, Amazon AI Services, TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, X.AI, Grindr and Roblox, collectively made up 81% of all suspected child exploitation reports received through NCMEC’s CyberTipline last year.
Trump says Iran is doing 'very poor job'
of allowing oil to pass through Strait
of Hormuz 14 replies
of allowing oil to pass through Strait
of Hormuz 14 replies
President Donald Trump slammed Iran Thursday night for doing a "very poor job," of letting oil pass through the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.
The United States and Iran reached a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday that was contingent on Iran reopening the Strait, which is a critical waterway where about 20% of the world's oil passed through before the conflict broke out in February.
"Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz," Trump posted on Truth Social. "That is not the agreement we have!"
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In Colorado, the highest posted speed limit is 75 mph. I can live with that, even though I think 85 mph might be better and perhaps just as safe.
This speed limit of 75 means that it’s against the law to go faster than that. Trust me on this, I used to be a lawyer.
But now, Colorado has announced that if you go the 75-mph speed limit in the left lane, or even if you violate the speed limit by going 85 mph, and people stack up behind you who want to go 95, then you’re violating the law by impeding traffic. And you’ll be ticketed for it.
Apparently, Tucker Carlson thought it would be a good idea to use his platform to attack Franklin Graham, Samaritan’s Purse and the faith-based community. Tucker Carlson made a big mistake.There are situations that we sometimes have a great deal of familiarity with. The work of Samaritan’s Purse and Franklin Graham is one of those situations for me. Readers here will know of my time spent as a CERT volunteer during national disasters, most of which involve hurricane relief.(snip) the single most effective emergency response mission in our nation.
On his podcast, Tucker Carlson and guest “Bro” Nathan Apffel spin a conspiracy tale that’s wildly out of touch with reality.
Oh, Great, Peace in the Middle East Again
17 replies
Well, it’s another glorious day, or something. President Donald Trump’s threats against the Islamic Republic of Iran have apparently worked, a “ceasefire” has been concluded, and as he did when he forced Israel to stop fighting Hamas when it had a chance to destroy the jihad terror group once and for all, Trump is once again hailing the dawn of peace in the Middle East: (Snip)
The Islamic Republic of Iran was likewise in a celebratory mood, and in its joyful exuberance, fired off a round or two of celebratory missiles and drones into Israel and the Sunni states that it has targeted since the beginning of this conflict.
WaPo Columnist Says Muslims Should Not
Be Expected to Assimilate, and What Could
Possibly Go Wrong? 15 replies
Be Expected to Assimilate, and What Could
Possibly Go Wrong? 15 replies
It used to be taken for granted that immigrants to the United States would assimilate, adopt American cultural values, and become Americans. That idea, of course, was lost long ago as the lust for “diversity” and “multiculturalism” overtook the political and media elites, but up until Old Joe Biden opened the floodgates to any sentient being that could be relied upon to vote Democrat, most Americans took for granted the idea that people who settled in this country should obey the existing laws.
No more, however. On Wednesday, Shadi Hamid, a Washington Post columnist and professor at Georgetown University,
Trump says Iran is doing 'very poor job'
of allowing oil to pass through Strait
of Hormuz 14 replies
of allowing oil to pass through Strait
of Hormuz 14 replies
President Donald Trump slammed Iran Thursday night for doing a "very poor job," of letting oil pass through the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.
The United States and Iran reached a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday that was contingent on Iran reopening the Strait, which is a critical waterway where about 20% of the world's oil passed through before the conflict broke out in February.
"Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz," Trump posted on Truth Social. "That is not the agreement we have!"
In another jaw-dropping example of Minnesota’s collapsing justice system under far-left Governor Tim Walz, a major fraud kingpin in the state’s largest-ever Medicaid scam has skipped the country, just days before his high-profile trial was set to begin.
Abdirashid Said, the top defendant in a sprawling $11 million personal care assistant (PCA) fraud scheme, is now a fugitive after skipping a scheduled pretrial hearing in Hennepin County.
The trial, expected to last weeks and expose a massive web of fraud targeting taxpayer-funded Medicaid programs, has now been abruptly canceled.
What does this mean? Perhaps Donald Trump's latest statement is meant to paraphrase a line from the most worthwhile Star Wars film: You have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further.
Sometime in the next few hours, talks will begin in Islamabad between the US and Iran in an attempt to end the war. Trump agreed to a two-week cease-fire that stopped a massive American attack on energy and transportation infrastructure in exchange for a full re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to Iranian missile and drone attacks. Not only has Iran not delivered on those points
Israeli leaders overnight Thursday denounced the government of Pakistan, which is mediating the US-Iran ceasefire negotiations, after the country’s defense minister called Israel “cancerous.” In a post on X, Khawaja Asif wrote, “Israel is evil and a curse for humanity,” and asserted that “as peace talks are underway in Islamabad, genocide is being committed in Lebanon.”
Israel has been fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon since March 2, when the Iran-backed terror group started attacking the Jewish state with rockets and drones in support of its Iranian sponsor.
Creepy Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell is going down in flames.
Swalwell is currently running as a Democrat in California’s gubernatorial race.
As TGP reported earlier on Friday, The San Francisco Chronicle published a story about a woman who claimed that Democrat Eric Swalwell sexually assaulted her twice.
The woman, who worked as a staffer in Swalwell’s office for two years, told The San Francisco Chronicle that Swalwell began pursuing her just weeks after she was hired at the age of 21 in 2019.
federal judge ruled Thursday that the Pentagon cannot impose its new press restrictions, which he claimed was an effort to negate his previous order.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman last month dismissed parts of the Pentagon's guidelines released last year and ordered it to restore the press passes of seven journalists for the New York Times.
The War Department then changed its protocols late last month for its media briefing room, which includes the relocation of reporters to workspace outside the Pentagon. It also closed the correspondents' corridor within the Pentagon.
The Artemis II astronauts safely splashed down off the coast of San Diego at 5:07 p.m. Friday after a historic 10-day mission around the moon, finally letting the crew and NASA officials breathe a sigh of relief.
NASA regarded the high-energy reentry — streaking through the atmosphere in a nearly 5,000-degree-Fahrenheit fireball at more than 30 times the speed of sound — as one of the riskiest moments of the mission.
Space agency officials’ blood pressure was further elevated as experts closely watched the performance of the craft’s heat shield — which astronauts rely on to slow them down and keep temperatures livable.
Suicide Wish
10 replies
The State of Minnesota requires schools to allow boys to compete in girls’ sports. It also requires schools to allow teenage boys to shower with the girls, and otherwise avail themselves of girls’ locker rooms. This is not, to put it mildly, a popular policy, especially with the parents of teenage girls. But Minnesota’s DFL party defends it doggedly.
It gets worse: the federal government has sued Minnesota, alleging that the state’s anti-girl policies violate Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments. That lawsuit potentially could cost Minnesota up to $3 billion in federal education funding.
But none of that matters to Minnesota’s Democrats. Republicans in the Minnesota House introduced legislation