"The prognosis of the Iran War is now so couched in politics and so warped by the American Left that the public has grown tired and wants it all to go away. But in truth, the situation is so fluid that any accurate prediction is impossible. Yet there is good reason to believe in an eventual outcome quite favorable to the U.S. and one far better than the status quo ante bellum. ...

"Prior to President Trump's most recent announcement that the United States would first blockade and then reopen and control traffic through the Strait, only a few ships were going through, mostly those aligned with Iran, opposed to the United States, or neutral.

"Thus, the Strait was disrupted to a far greater degree than during Iran's earlier efforts at closure during the 'Tanker War' phase of the Iran-Iraq War, as well as its chronic harassment of shipping in 2019-19. And now?

"If Trump quickly clears and secures control of the Strait, and if allowable traffic reaches, say, 60-70 percent of prewar levels and if the U.S. avoids a full-scale war, instead responding disproportionately to any renewed Iranian attempts to close it -- then, within one to two months, oil prices will begin to taper off."

Read the entire article here.

"Strait of Hormuz

"The president had many choices. He could have given in to Iran demands and paid them money like Obama did.

"He could have sent in massive ground troops in as Bush did.

"He chose the method of JFK and created a blockade that would not abandon the goal and minimize putting US soldiers in harm's way. This is war and anything can and will happen but it was a careful choice.

"As successive waves of officials take control of Iran, they are learning a lesson that whether there will be regime change or not there will be regime modification and the US is not backing down from its position of no nukes and limited ballistic missiles.

"And the regime that gunned down 30,000 of its own citizens, oppresses women, fakes the 'elections' and has to shut down the internet to suppress opposition, is decrying that the US is not respecting its 'rights.' Of course, only the UN could add Iran to a human rights panel.

"Unlike Europe, we are not backing down and the only chits Iran has are its continued threats to take the rest of the world down economically and it can try but we are moving to block that and flip the script to close them down economically instead.

"It won't happen but Dems should get on board with supporting this quarantine of Iran and show some national unity and resolve. 47 years of oppression, threats, terrorism, nuclear enrichment, and deaths to US soldiers is enough."

Read the X post here.

"If you thought political cancellations could move fast, Congressman Eric Swalwell just set a new standard.

"If you tuned out California politics for one Friday afternoon, you missed the destruction of a gubernatorial campaign.

"In a matter of hours Swalwell went from one of the Democrats in the race for governor to a politically toxic candidate fighting for survival.

"That is how fast this happened."

Read the entire article here.

"America's propaganda media have used a litany of dishonest smears to try and undermine the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. And if you weren't already convinced that these attacks are bogus, a newly released study just sent one of them through the paper shredder.

"The analysis published Wednesday by the Pew Research Center examined how often the high court overturns its past decisions. These rulings carry significant weight throughout the American legal system and establish guidance for lower courts on how to handle specific issues as they come before the judiciary.

"With its conservative majority, the current Supreme Court has overturned several long-standing precedents in recent years that have often produced outcomes in accordance with the Constitution and existing law. The most notable example of this was the court's 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision overturning the precedent first established in Roe v. Wade (1973) that invented a so-called 'constitutional right' to abortion.

"Antithetical to their policy agenda, media content creators and their leftist allies have used these originalist decisions to try and foment controversy around the court where there is none. More specifically, they've sought to deceive Americans into believing that the conservative justices are overturning precedent at an alarming rate, and in a way that threatens the Constitution and rule of law."

Read the entire article here.

"One month into Operation Epic Fury against the Islamic Republic of Iran, a long-overdue conversation has finally broken into the open: What, exactly, is the enduring rationale for NATO? For decades, this question has been treated in Washington foreign policy circles as heretical. But it isn't. And to their credit, President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are now saying so plainly.

"As Trump recently put it, 'They haven't been friends when we needed them. We've never asked them for much. ... It's a one-way street.' Rubio has been similarly blunt: 'If NATO is just about us defending Europe if they're attacked but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that's not a very good arrangement. ... So all that's going to have to be reexamined.'

"They're spot-on."

Read the entire article here.

"The nation's main independent database for tracking deportation statistics and which is widely cited by media outlets and fact-checkers appears to have recently shifted from tracking detainees with a 'criminal record' to 'criminal convictions.'

"This new classification, which was also adopted by another standard immigration tracking database, provides figures widely cited by media and fact-checkers to suggest the Trump administration is detaining large numbers of illegal immigrants not suspected of breaking additional laws. ...

"The shift in terminology, which has also been adopted by another relative newcomer to the scene, the Berkeley Deportation Data Project, raises questions about whether the Trump administration's deportation efforts are being accurately described."

Read the entire article here.

"Rahm Emanuel helped build the modern Democratic Party. Now he's making the case that it isn't working.

"In recent months, as he tests the waters for a 2028 presidential bid, the onetime chief of staff to former President Obama has emerged as one of the party's most pointed internal critics -- warning that Democrats are losing their bearings on issues ranging from economic messaging to cultural positioning.

"Democrats 'lost the plot,' Emanuel said last month on the podcast 'The Fifth Column,' adding that the party 'got unanchored.'

"'Every one of our most successful electoral presidents anchored themselves in what I call middle class values and values that are universal, at least in this country, ascribed to. We went from acceptance to advocacy,' said Emanuel, a former Chicago mayor who has at times tangled with progressives in the party."

Read the entire article here.

"Californians are becoming aware of just how rampant fraud is in the state.

"After federal authorities arrested multiple people in Southern California this week for health care fraud, the top federal prosecutor in LA quipped that there might never be enough prosecutors to handle every case.

"The public's eyes have been opened.

"Just as I uncovered widespread, massive fraud in Minnesota, so too are we finding out the extent to which alleged fraudsters have been systematically fleecing the Golden State.

"The rot in California is so deep, one could spend a lifetime investigating it."

Read the entire article here.

Happy Easter!

"The rare quick and total victory over an enemy at little cost often ensures unquestioned political support in modern consensual societies.

In most cases, however, especially in the Western world, ongoing military success or failure is adjudicated through the lens of politics -- in a way sometimes at odds with the reality of the battlefield.

Politicians answer to the people. The best do not drift with the prevailing winds. On the other hand, all must face elections, secure legislative support, and ultimately explain to voters the human and financial costs of a war and whether it was existential or optional -- and, in the latter case, whether it was worth the costs.

By any purely military standard, in the current month-long war, Iran has been devastated by the combined air forces of the U.S. and Israel. Both nations achieved air supremacy early on. Iran has no air force or air defenses left. Its major warships are sunk. It has lost the ability to supply its terroristic appendages by air or sea. It has difficulty importing weapons from abroad. The Iranian military and the theocratic chain of command have been devastated. Iran's population is restive, held in check only by the sheer level of murder carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on a regular basis."

Read the entire article here.