NATO’s Double Standard on Iran, Europe’s Drift, and the Fraud Crisis at Home | Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson and host Jack Fowler discuss why several NATO allies—especially France—restricted the United States from using bases and airspace during operations aimed at Iran, arguing Europe benefits from U.S. security while pursuing divergent domestic and foreign-policy agendas.
Hanson urges the Trump administration to frame NATO burden-sharing and reciprocity in “sorrowful” terms, consider tighter bilateral ties with supportive allies, and better explain the difficulty and aims of the Iran campaign, including deterrence and possible conditions for regime change while clarifying U.S.-Israel alignment.
They also address tensions with Canada over defense spending and policies, the scale of alleged fraud in California programs highlighted by City Journal reporting, and Democrats’ attempts to rebrand figures like Pete Buttigieg to win back white working-class voters.
Iraqi militia releases kidnapped journalist Shelly Kittleson: AP
Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah on Tuesday released journalist Shelly Kittleson, whom it abducted in late March, an Iraqi official told the Associated Press.
The group had previously announced its plans to release Kittleson as a show of gratitude to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. They did, however, assert that Kittleson would be required to leave the country upon her release.
Kataib Hezbollah is part of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of militias with official status in the Iraqi military. It was formed to combat ISIS at the height of its power in northern Iraq.
Kittleson’s release reportedly came in exchange for Baghdad releasing several of the militia’s own members from custody.
The Left Is Baffled—but Still Repulsed—by the White Working Class
After failing to win Congress and the presidency in 2024, the Democrats conducted an internal postmortem of what went wrong. While they predictably did not divulge the full results, everyone knew what they had found.
Their obsessions with the low side of 30/70 issues had especially alienated Democrats from white middle- and working-class voters.
Yet middle-class whites still comprise about 40–50 percent of the population and are perhaps overrepresented in voter turnout.
Democrats realize that their fixations on biological males competing in women’s sports, open borders and millions of illegal entries, radical green agendas, DEI-driven racial essentialism, and massive government entitlements rife with fraud have alienated the middle classes in general and white middle- and working-class voters in particular.
But since Democrat ideologues cannot shed their ideological straitjackets, they have instead tried to finesse the very problem that cost them the 2024 election.
They recall, in particular, the successful blueprint that won them the 2020 election. During that campaign, Joe Biden largely remained out of public view, hiding in his basement, while his handlers reconstructed him as a kind of waxen effigy of “good ol’ Joe from Scranton,” a throwback to the 1970s.
Once the cognitively diminished Biden was elected, his hard-left, Obama-era operatives behind that ossified, working-man veneer enacted the most radical four-year agenda in modern American history.
On the one hand, Democrats claim they will field candidates who can at least playact as good ol’ boy farmers and salt-of-the-earth welders.
The 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate, Humpty Dumpty lookalike Tim Walz, talked incessantly about driving a pickup truck. He assured us he could change its oil and tried to portray himself as a genuine hunter.
Yet these claims often came across as inauthentic, strained, and condescending; the more Walz tried to present himself as a man of the people, the more he appeared buffoonish.
The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg, became a caricature of the sanctimonious, credentialed technocrat—self-righteously and arrogantly projecting expertise without much humility or even a shred of the common touch.
As transportation secretary, Buttigieg used to pontificate about racist freeway clover leaves, rather than addressing the more immediate problems posed by the gridlocked and decrepit condition of the nation’s highways.
Now, as the 2028 election looms, Buttigieg has followed Democratic central casting and undergone a complete reboot, reemerging with a beard, a trucker cap, and a flannel shirt.
No matter, he still sounds as pedantic as ever in his riff on green energy and “diversity.”
Wannabe president and lame-duck California governor Gavin Newsom is also suddenly reinventing himself. …
ICE Agents Shoot Violent Illegal Alien Gangster After Migrant Tries to Mow Down Officer During Targeted Vehicle Stop in California
ICE agents had to take dramatic action this afternoon to save their own lives from an extremely violent illegal alien in California.
As KTVU reported, ICE officers shot a person in Paterson who they suspected was an illegal immigrant gang member. This led to a partial closure of the I-5 freeway in Stanislaus County.
Per KTVU, the illegal alien was wanted in connection with a murder in the city.
Fox News’s Bill Melugin later revealed more information: the illegal alien was a known 18th Street gangster from El Salvador and was shot while ICE agents were trying to arrest him.
“I’m told by a senior federal law enforcement source that ICE’s target was a known 18th Street gang member from El Salvador who is wanted in his home country in connection to a murder,” Melugin reported.
“ICE shot him while trying to arrest him. Details on what happened still unclear. More to come.”
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons released a statement identifying the criminal migrant and added that the officers acted in self-defense after the alien tried to run them over.
The illegal, Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, was taken to a local hospital, and the FBI is on scene.
Here is the full statement:
On April 7, 2026, ICE officers were conducting a targeted vehicle stop in Patterson, CA to arrest Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, an 18th Street Gang member wanted in El Salvador for questioning in connection to a murder.
As officers approached the car, the wanted gang member weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run an officer over. Following their training, our officers fired defensive shots to protect themselves, their fellow agents, and the public.
The illegal alien was taken to a local hospital. The FBI is on the scene.
This is a developing situation, and we will update the public when more information is available.
Gavin Newsom’s wife empathized with San Quentin inmates by sharing shocking story of killing her sister
A video making the rounds on social media Tuesday shows Jennifer Siebel Newsom — the proudly woke filmmaker and wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom — detailing how she used the story of accidentally killing her sister as a child to relate to youth offenders in San Quentin state prison.
Siebel Newsom, who was 6 years old at the time of the deadly accident involving a golf cart in Hawaii, says in the video that she blamed herself for her sister Stacey’s death, and the story “shocked” the inmates who were juvenile offenders.
The governor’s wife suggested in the video she was a “blonde lady” with a “similar story” as the inmates, as the incident was a situation of “wrong place, wrong time.” She added that she wasn’t punished “because clearly it was an accident, but there’s was probably an accident, too.”
The resurfaced video adds to a pattern of candid — and at times cringey — public remarks that have generated headlines and debate over Siebel Newsom’s tone and politics as her husband gears up for an expected presidential campaign in 2028.
In 1981, Siebel Newsom was reportedly playing with her 8-year-old sister, Stacey, near golf carts during a family vacation. A cart Siebel Newsom was in went into reverse, fatally striking her sister, who had been behind the vehicle, according to reports.
The comments suggesting some of the state’s most dangerous offenders were placed in prison by accident are the latest in a string of cringey moments by SIebel Newsom, who has been mocked on social media as tone deaf and out of step.
“Newsom’s wife’s latest virtue signal is telling San Quentin lifers that she faced zero consequences when her sister was killed because it was an accident then telling them their life sentences are probably for “accidents” too,” wrote Riley Gaines, the former collegiate swimmer turned conservative political activist.
Gaines added, “Peak elite tone-deafness.”
Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general in charge of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, deadpanned: “What the …”
Turkish police kill 1, wound 2 in shootout outside building housing Israeli consulate in Istanbul
urkish police on Tuesday killed one person and wounded two others in shootout outside of a building housing the Israeli consulate in Istanbul.
The gunmen were wearing backpacks and firing automatic rifles and handguns, according to Reuters. They reportedly have ties to a group that “exploits religion,” Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci said.
The gun battle reportedly lasted for about 10 minutes outside the glass-tower building in Turkey’s main financial district. Two police officers were slightly wounded.
Turkish and Israeli authorities said no Israeli staff were at the consulate at the time of the attack. Israeli diplomats left Turkey shortly after the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza began in late 2023.
US Strikes 50 Military Targets on Kharg Island, Spares Oil Terminal Again
The United States struck more than 50 military targets on Kharg Island on April 7, the second systematic destruction of Iranian defense infrastructure on the island since February 28, while again leaving intact the oil terminal that handles approximately 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports and generates an estimated $139 million per day in revenue.
A US official confirmed to NBC News that the strikes “did not involve oil assets.” The operation came roughly 12 hours before President Trump’s self-imposed 8pm ET deadline for Iran to accept a deal or face escalated consequences.
Satellite imagery published by TankerTrackers.com within hours of the strikes showed Kharg’s oil loading terminals “fully operational,” with a VLCC actively taking on cargo and smaller tankers queued nearby.
The combined toll from both Kharg strikes — March 13 and April 7 — now exceeds 140 confirmed military installations destroyed, based on CENTCOM’s individual strike counts. The oil infrastructure sits untouched beside the wreckage.
Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency, citing local sources, confirmed “no damage to critical oil infrastructure” — a rare point of agreement between Washington and Tehran on the same operational facts.
The US official who confirmed the operation to NBC News described the April 7 strikes as “re-strikes on what we hit previously” — a description that frames the attack as a second pass on targets that had been rebuilt, reinforced, or reconstituted since the March 13 operation.
That earlier strike, led by CENTCOM under Admiral Brad Cooper, destroyed more than 90 military targets including what CENTCOM described as “naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, and multiple other military sites.”
Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency, cited by CNN, reported that the April 7 targets included air defenses, a naval base, an airport control tower, and a helicopter hangar.
Al-Monitor reported strikes on “bunkers, radar stations, and ammunition storage sites,” placing the attack at approximately 1:30 p.m. local time — 6:00 a.m.
EST. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a statement released on April 7, said the day would see “the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes” since the war began, with “intelligence more refined and better than ever.”…
Report: Teacher’s union gives nearly 2M to org that trains for May Day protests
An education group has uncovered that teacher’s union the National Education Association has given nearly two million dollars in donations since 2020 to an organization that trains for May Day school “walk-in” protests, as well as demands agendas such as “tax the rich” and the removal of ICE.
Defending Education – the organization that released the report – director of research Rhyen Staley told The Center Square that “teachers unions turning children into far-left political pawns is a betrayal of the public trust.”
“Gone are the days of these public sector unions simply fighting for better wages, insurance, and working conditions,” Staley said. “They are leftwing political activist organizations who benefit fiscally from taxpayer dollars.”
Staley made the point that “roughly 70% of American students are not proficient in reading and math, yet the teachers unions are using their influence and positions of power and authority to train children to protest and agitate for far-left causes.”
“This reinforces that the unions’ priorities are about advancing a radical political agenda, not the education of America’s children,” Staley said.
Defending Education’s report revealed that “a May Day 2026 Host Toolkit includes training information for a ‘coordinated day of action’ that demands taxing the rich, removal of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and ‘expanding democracy.’”
The toolkit additionally “promotes tactics such as a school ‘walk-in’ where participants enter a building to ‘protest harmful school conditions and policies.’”
Defending Education’s report showed that the National Education Association (NEA) has provided “$1,735,000 in funding to one of the organizations behind the training efforts” since 2020.
Staley told The Center Square “it should be deeply concerning that one of the suggested tactics is to enter schools to protest against policies they don’t like.”
“Putting children’s education and safety at risk for political gain is unethical and immoral,” Staley said.
“This is yet another example of how activists and teachers unions view schools as a tool to advance their political agenda,” Staley said.
The May Day 2026 Host Toolkit uncovered by Defending Education states that May 1 will be a “coordinated day of action” where “tax the rich” will be demanded, along with “ICE Out” and “expand democracy, not corporate power” – the latter in the name of defending “free and fair elections, not a rigged disaster.”….
The Truth About Taxing the Rich: Deficits, Migration, Fewer Jobs
Some people in America are really rich.
So some states plan to tax them more.
But don’t politicians realize that Americans can move?
Steve Forbes explains why “tax the rich” always fails:
Human chains form around power plants in Iran as deadline looms
‘Outnumbered’ reacts to Iranian citizens forming human chains around power plants in Tabriz as the U.S. issues an ultimatum to the regime.
Truckers shut down highways to protest robberies, extortion
Mexican truck drivers are blocking highways leading to the U.S. border to protest robberies by criminals and alleged extortion by authorities at checkpoints.
Several semis parked across the Pan American Highway south of Juarez just before noon on Monday. They targeted commercial trucks and passenger buses, although they allowed personal vehicles to squeeze by their trucks.
“What we want is an end to the violence, to the death and disappearance of truck drivers. We have had up to 200 operators who went missing and the government does nothing,” said David Ortiz, vice president of the National Transport Operators Association, which organized the protest.
Association members also blocked stretches of highway outside Chihuahua City, Camargo, Parral and Villa Ahumada.
Ortiz said the blockade 20 miles south of Juarez would continue until the Mexican government meets with truckers’ leaders in good faith.
He said no disruptions were planned at international bridges linking Juarez and El Paso, Texas.
“We need a trust fund. We need to protect the widows, the (relatives) who were left unprotected. We need that support and, above all, that the government improves safety on highways,” Ortiz said.
Trucker Jaime Gomez Gonzalez said he wants the Mexican government also to do something about rising gasoline and diesel prices and the “bad roads” that cause unnecessary wear on their vehicles.
Ortiz said one of the trucks in his fleet was hijacked recently and that it took a week for his driver to get Mexican authorities to start a search.
The association first aired its complaints last year and the Claudia Sheinbaum administration formed a working group of truckers and government officials to look into the issue. But Ortiz said the officials “just wanted to take a picture” and did not provide solutions to the truckers.
US Deadline for IRGC capitulation imminent; IDF eliminates senior IRGC leaders TV7 Israel – 7 Apr.
1) A deadline set by President Trump for the Ayatollah regime to accept defeat is set to expire, tonight.
2) The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps defiantly claims it will persist in its blatant belligerence against civilian targets in the region.
3) The IDF urges the residents of Israel to adhere to the Home Front Commands instructions.
Hard-to-Recycle Waste Forms Lightweight Concrete for Paving Roads and More in Hungary
A Hungarian firm is adding shredded, hard-to-recycle waste into a light concrete mixture for use in paving roads, building houses, and insulating structures.
The firm based in Budapest, called Makropa, utilizes many unrecyclable waste streams that would otherwise be destined for landfills or the incinerator.
It says it can entrap between 3,000 and 4,000 tons of trash per kilometer of road.
Makropa’s (WLC) Waste Light Concrete has been available since 2021. The WLC is a blend of proprietary binding additive, shredded waste, and standard concrete mixing ingredients.
WLC can contain a variety of materials, including polystyrene foam, mixed-ester plastics that are hard to recycle, rigid plastics, but also non-plastic waste like furnace ash, sawdust, and cigarette butts.
The shredded components take the form of the stones that would normally be used in standard concrete.
Károly Bus, the founder of Makropa and patent holder of WLC, says the worst thing that can happen is for these materials to be buried or incinerated.
“I don’t know anyone else utilizing it in the way we are. So far, no one else has found a solution at this scale and quantity,” Mr. Bus told Reuters.
Plastic roads, including made of unrecyclable plastic are not a new phenomenon, but they are melted typically into an asphalt mixture.
Makropa’s method sees the product maintain its concrete chemistry, making it more durable and longer-lasting, as well as more versatile.
WLC has been used to construct building foundations, and has showed impressive resistance to projectiles and greater soundproofing potential than normal concrete.
CA Wastes $20M on Consulting to…Cut Waste
John Hart joins Chanel Rion to talk about systemic waste in California. It doesn’t take $20M to find it!
Birthright Citizenship + The War for our Borders – #937
‘ANGRY TAXPAYER’: Spencer Pratt BLASTS LA mayor for ‘absolutely zero’ action
Los Angeles mayoral candidate and former TV star Spencer Pratt joins ‘Mornings with Maria’ to sound off on crime, homelessness and voter frustration, while outlining his bid to unseat Mayor Karen Bass.
