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Feds Subpoena Reporters Who Questioned Security Features of Qatari Force One

The Trump administration has issued subpoenas to four reporters for the New York Times who wrote a piece questioning safety features on the Qatari-gifted new Air Force One. Reporters Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager, and Eric Schmitt were served subpoenas, in some cases by federal agents at their homes on Friday, according to the Wall Street Journal. The article was spurred by President Trump’s switching to the old Air Force One — pre-Qatari — on returning from the NATO summit in Turkey, then switching back to the new one in Great Britain. The switcheroo came after Israel warned of new Iranian threats on Trump’s life. Widespread reporting on the plane switch, in print and on TV and not just by the NYT, questioned whether the refurbished new Boeing was up to snuff on all the necessary security features found on the older version. The New York Times called the subpoenaing  a “brazen act.”  The National Press Club issued a statement, saying: “The National Press Club calls on the Justice Department to immediately withdraw these subpoenas and reaffirm a principle that has long distinguished the United States: a free and independent press serves the people, not the government.” The Justice Department responded by saying the

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My Take

Do ‘Threats Away!’ Outnumber ‘Bombs Away!’ in Epic Fury?

By the numbers, President Donald Trump may have threatened Iran more times than he actually bombed it. Since Operation Epic Fury launched on February 28, 2026, Trump has issued what experts estimate to be dozens—perhaps even hundreds—of verbal and written threats against the Islamic Republic. They’ve come via Truth Social posts, televised addresses, press briefings, and off-the-cuff remarks to reporters. They’ve targeted everything from Iranian power plants to oil wells, from naval bases to the Supreme Leader himself. The actual bombs? Those numbered in the thousands during the initial 38-day campaign. But the threats to drop bombs? Those may have been even more numerous. This raises a provocative question about modern warfare and presidential communication: In an era of social media and 24/7 news cycles, can the threat of military action become as central to strategy as the action itself? And when does aggressive rhetoric cross the line from diplomatic pressure to potential war crimes?

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Current Affairs

Lose All Battles, Win All Wars with Word Play: Iran 101A

When Western diplomats finally emerge from marathon negotiation sessions with Iran, exhausted but triumphant, they often believe they’ve secured a binding agreement. They haven’t. What they’ve actually signed is the opening move in an entirely different game—one where the rules are fluid, the language is deliberately vague, and patience isn’t just a virtue, it’s a weapon. Iranian negotiators are widely regarded by international relations experts as some of the most skilled, patient, and precise dealmakers in the world. But their genius isn’t in what they agree to. It’s in how they’ve already planned to reinterpret it. Rather than viewing an agreement as a final, static contract, Tehran treats every signed document as a fluid baseline for the next phase of competition. This approach is deeply rooted in a blend of traditional bazaar-style haggling, historical grievances, and specific cultural and religious concepts that most Western negotiators barely understand—and certainly don’t anticipate. The result? Iran consistently “loses” individual negotiating battles—and often the battlefield ones too—while positioning itself to win the longer war. Here’s how they do it.

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Current Affairs

The Saad Truth Meets 21st Century America: Suicidal Empathy and Our Demise

Gad Saad (pictured in an illustration with President Trump) is an evolutionary behavioral scientist, marketing professor at Concordia University in Montreal, and host of The Saad Truth podcast. He has become one of the most provocative cultural critics of modern American progressive ideology. Building on his 2020 book The Parasitic Mind, which argued that political correctness and “idea pathogens” are destroying Western reason, Saad’s focus has increasingly centered on a specific framework outlined in his work on suicidal empathy. His central thesis is straightforward yet explosive: America is engineering its own civilizational decline because its greatest virtues—compassion, tolerance, and empathy—have been weaponized by progressive elites and pushed into pathological extremes that threaten the nation’s survival. In the 2020s, as American cities grapple with rising crime, universities become battlegrounds over free speech and identity politics, corporations implement sweeping DEI mandates, and progressive antisemitism surges on college campuses, Saad’s framework has gained remarkable traction among conservatives, tech leaders, and cultural commentators who see his theory as explaining the seemingly inexplicable self-destruction of American institutions. The Core Theory: What is ‘Suicidal Empathy’? Saad defines suicidal empathy (or “maladaptively irrational altruism”) as the psychological inability to make rational, self-preserving decisions because a society has

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Is This for Real?

Airliner Over Greece Suffers Engine Problem and Window Pops Out to Suck in a Passenger’s Head

I may be going a bit too sensationalist here with my illustration, but I couldn’t get any image-rendering application to show an airline passenger’s head stuck in a broken-open cabin window. But that’s exactly what happened to one man when a Ryanair Boeing 737 suffered an engine problem that resulted in collateral damage. The unfortunate passenger had his head sucked into the window opening; his wife quickly pulled him back to safety. The man, a Serbian national, was wearing his seatbelt at the time of the accident. The airliner was flying at 350 knots at an altitude of 15,000 feet when a right engine fan blade evidently became dislodged. Perhaps that or something else caused the window to break open, resulting in cabin decompression and the unfortunate passenger’s accident. N.B. My illustration is not meant to recreate what actually happened, just to show broken windows and cabin decompression.

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SAVE
My Take

Hell, No, He Won’t Sign! The Housing Bill, That Is

President Trump has again refused to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which passed both Houses of Congress with huge margins. When it was sent to him a couple of weeks back, he said he wouldn’t sign it unless Congress passed the SAVE America voting rights act. Trump then attended a lunch with Senate Republicans, where he got in a shouting match with outgoing Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana over the war with Iran. He again pushed for the SAVE Act, but again to no avail. Now that time is running out to sign the housing legislation, Trump has said, “Hell, no, I won’t sign!” in so many words. But he hasn’t indicated if he will let it become law without his signature, or whether he will veto it and force Congress to vote on it again. The SAVE bill will require voter ID at the ballot box and will eliminate almost all vote-by-mail options. The president has demanded that Republicans in the Senate get rid of the filibuster and pass the SAVE Act over Demofiend objections. Majority Leader John Thune has said he lacks the votes — and the desire — to end the filibuster. The GOP

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Debtors
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Filling in the Blanks of the Ratified U.S. Constitution Part III: Keeping You Out of Prison, Debtors or Otherwise

The Third through Ninth Amendments—often called the “core of the Bill of Rights”—weren’t born in philosophical debate or academic theory. They emerged from something far more visceral: the daily humiliations and abuses colonists endured under British rule. Each amendment represents a specific wound that needed healing, a particular tyranny that demanded a remedy. Fortifying the Castle: Protection of Home and Property The story begins at the threshold of the home. During the colonial era, British authorities wielded their military and legal power like a battering ram against the most intimate spaces of colonial life. Parliament’s Quartering Acts of 1765 and 1774 forced colonists to house and feed British soldiers in their private homes—an expensive burden that felt like occupation from within. Imagine redcoats sleeping in your spare room, eating at your table, their presence a constant reminder that your home wasn’t truly yours. The Third Amendment answered this invasion with a simple, absolute principle: the government cannot force you to quarter soldiers in your home during peacetime, and even during war, it requires specific legal authorization. Your home became your castle in law, not just in metaphor. But the British assault on privacy didn’t stop at the front door. Tax

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