Month: April 2026

U.S. Army survivors of a deadly Iranian drone strike accuse Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of misleading the public about their unit’s vulnerability, exposing potential leadership failures under Trump administration oversight.

Attack Details and Survivor Accounts

On March 1 at approximately 9:15 a.m., an Iranian drone struck the tactical operations center at Port of Shuaiba, a Kuwaiti port facility south of Kuwait City. Around 60 troops from the U.S. Army’s 103rd Sustainment Command endured fires, shrapnel, head injuries, and heavy bleeding. Hours earlier, missile alarms had sent them to a cement bunker, but an all-clear allowed return to the site. Survivors self-applied tourniquets and commandeered civilian vehicles to rush wounded to hospitals in Fahaheel.

Pentagon Narrative Faces Backlash

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the drone as a “squirter” that penetrated defenses of a “fortified” unit during a Washington press conference. Survivors rejected this portrayal, stating the outpost had only vertical blast barricades with no overhead protection—”about as weak as one gets” against drones. They emphasized the unit was unprepared to defend itself, despite intelligence identifying the port as a potential target. The Pentagon declined comment, citing ongoing operations.

Risky Relocation Sparks Questions

Commanders ordered the unit to “Get off the X” from a major U.S. base, relocating to Shuaiba closer to Iran and within drone range. Troops questioned the unstated rationale for moving to this “deeply unsafe area,” a classic older facility lacking robust defenses. Survivors praised comrades’ valor in chaos but criticized higher decisions that positioned them vulnerably. This deadliest strike since 2021 highlights force protection gaps in the Gulf sustainment operations.

Amid rigid media restrictions, injured survivors spoke anonymously to CBS News, sharing exclusive photos and videos—the first public eyewitness accounts. They sought to honor the six killed and over 20 wounded without diminishing sacrifices, unified in rejecting the “fortified” claim while stressing pride in their response.

Implications for Military Readiness

The dispute amplifies scrutiny on war leadership, potentially prompting reviews of outpost security and Iran strategy. Short-term, it exposes lapses; long-term, eroding trust in official accounts could impact policy. Families and communities grieve losses, yet celebrate soldiers’ heroism in self-triage and evacuations. In an ongoing conflict, these revelations demand accountability to protect American troops serving under Trump administration responsibility.

Conservatives value strong defense and truth from leaders. Survivors’ testimonies underscore the need for transparent command, limited government overreach in narratives, and robust protection for those defending freedom against Iranian aggression. Political debates on preparedness intensify as questions linger on relocation rationale and media controls.

Sources:

Army survivors of deadly attack in Kuwait dispute Pentagon’s account, say unit “was unprepared” to defend itself

One day shy of his first 100 days in office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was hit with his first potential political scandal.

A lawsuit filed by a subordinate of a woman Mamdani appointed to run the city’s department of probation — and clean up ethical messes from the previous administration — claims she was fired for blowing the whistle on an “intimate relationship” between her boss and the agency’s top attorney, according to Politico.

And Mamdani himself is already facing public questions about it.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday by now-former city Department of Probation chief investigator Ebony Huntley.

According to the New York Post, Huntley claimed that the Department of Probation Commissioner Sharun Goodwin was engaged in a personal relationship with Wayne McKenzie, the agency’s general counsel.

NYC probation staffer was sacked for blowing whistle on alleged tryst between Mamdani appointee and top aide: suit https://t.co/sbXvxYWljk pic.twitter.com/SBblQEwKTZ

— New York Post (@nypost) April 10, 2026

According to Politico, Huntley learned of the relationship from an anonymous complaint.

The complaint, received in late March, said that the relationship “may present a conflict of interest and impact impartial decision-making,” according to Politico. The alleged relationship was in place before McKenzie was hired as general counsel, according to the New York Post.

The allegation was accompanied by other complaints, such as accusing the agency’s human resource director, Zenia Melendez, of engaging in “verbal and physical violence” targeting staff members.

“Collectively, these concerns have created a workplace environment where employees feel uneasy, discouraged from speaking openly, and uncertain about their job security,” the complaint said, according to Politico.

“Many employees simply want to perform their duties in a professional setting without fear of retaliation or favoritism. If the goal is to move the Department of Probation forward, there is a strong need for leadership that reflects professionalism, objectivity and accountability.”

After she forwarded the complaint to the city’s Department of Investigation, Huntley apparently discussed the matter with an attorney in her own department. The attorney said he was going to inform McKenzie about the complaint, over Huntley’s objections.

The next day, according to Politico, Huntley was called into a meeting McKenzie organized. There, McKenzie said he could not trust her and that she was being fired, according to Politico.

Huntley maintains she was only doing her job.

“I did what I was supposed to do,” she told Politico. “I didn’t do anything wrong and I definitely shouldn’t have been fired.”

She is asking for unspecified monetary damages, according to Politico. However, the New York Post reported that Huntley maintains the firing cost her $170,000-a-year salary for the city.

Mamdani himself was questioned about the case at an unrelated news conference on Friday, the day that marked his 100th in office since his Jan. 1 inauguration.

“I take any allegations of misconduct incredibly seriously,” Mamdani said, according to the New York Daily News.

“I’m not going to be weighing in on any ongoing investigation. However, New Yorkers should rest assured that there is an investigation.”

According to a Politico report from January, Goodwin was named to head the Department of Probation amid accusations that the previous commissioner — an appointee of now-former Mayor Eric Adams — mismanaged the department and used it as a source of jobs for her family and friends.

At the time, Mamdani said he had appointed Goodwin to the post because of her commitment to “fairness,” along with “efficiency and excellence.”

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post Scandal Hits Mamdani Administration – NYC Employee Says She Was Fired for Blowing the Whistle appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire

By Emzar Gelashvili

Introduction: A Confession

Let us begin with a confession. I am a devoted admirer of NATO. I believe in collective defense, in transatlantic solidarity, and in the sacred principle that an attack on one is an attack on all. I believe in this the same way I believe in Santa Claus — with great warmth, considerable nostalgia, and the quiet understanding that the evidence has become somewhat inconvenient.

So let us examine the evidence together. Calmly. Without partisan affiliation, without personal animosity toward any leader, without the fog of political preference. Just facts. You may draw your own conclusions.

The Birth of a Great Idea

On April 4, 1949, twelve nations gathered in Washington and signed the North Atlantic Treaty. The logic was elegant in its simplicity: the Soviet Union was expanding, Europe was exhausted, and America was the only power capable of holding the line. Collective defense would deter aggression. An attack on one would be treated as an attack on all.

It was, by any measure, one of the most successful security arrangements in history. For forty years, it worked. The Soviets did not march west. Europe rebuilt. The alliance held. And then the Soviet Union collapsed. This is where our story gets interesting.

No Action, Talk Only”

There is a phrase that circulates quietly among senior military officials within NATO itself — not in press releases, not in summit communiqués, but in the corridors where people speak honestly. They call the alliance “No Action, Talk Only.”

I have heard this personally from sources inside the organization. NATO. No Action, Talk Only. It is, as acronyms go, devastatingly accurate.

When the Soviet threat disappeared, NATO faced an existential question: what are we for? The answer, delivered by President George W. Bush after 2001, was that NATO would now fight terrorism. This sounded decisive. It was, in practice, philosophically catastrophic. NATO’s post-Cold War strategists decided that the enemy was a tactic. They would fight “terrorism” — an abstraction, a method, a fog. Predictably, they could never agree on what terrorism actually was.

Meanwhile, in 2008, Russia attacked Georgia. The alarm bells rang. NATO remembered, briefly, what it existed to do. But only briefly.

The 2% Fiction

NATO’s financial model is, in theory, straightforward. Each member maintains its own military and is expected to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense. In practice, during Donald Trump’s first presidency, a rather uncomfortable truth emerged: almost no one was paying.

Trump’s assessment was direct: You are not paying your dues. The United States finances 80% of this alliance. You have dismantled your own defense forces, confident that America will protect you. Biden arrived, reassured everyone that America would always be there, and NATO’s member states promptly resumed their previous arrangements — paying less than required.

Article V: A Clause in Search of a Country

Let us count. Because counting is instructive.

Iran struck a British military base in Cyprus. Both Britain and Greece are NATO members. Article V — not invoked.

The Royal Navy’s Scheduling Conflict: Britain agreed to send a single frigate to protect its base. It was discovered that the vessel required repairs. The trade unions refused to authorize overtime. A British warship could not be repaired because labor regulations did not permit workers to exceed eight hours per day.

The Turkish-Polish Incident: Iran struck Turkish territory multiple times with ballistic missiles. Turkey requested a single Patriot battery from Poland. Poland said no. The United States intervened. Poland said no again. Three NATO members struck by Iranian weapons. Zero invocations of Article V.

Coalition of the Willing — To Watch

When Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, global oil prices surged. Trump called on NATO allies to protect their own tanker routes. The response was instructive.

Spain refused American forces use of its bases. France did the same. Italy declined refueling.

Germany’s Chancellor Merz offered to send one warship — provided the United States guaranteed its safety, and provided Iran gave its permission first. France, at the United Nations, voted alongside Russia and China to block a resolution that would have authorized forcible reopening of the Strait.

The Question Americans Are Asking

The American taxpayer is beginning to ask: Why exactly are we in this alliance? We pay 80% of NATO’s collective costs. We maintain the nuclear umbrella. And when we ask our allies to protect their own tanker routes, they cite scheduling conflicts and labor regulations.

The Monroe Doctrine — which some in Washington now call the “Donroe Doctrine” — has returned to American strategic thinking. The premise is simple: America’s primary interest is America’s hemisphere. Everything else is a choice, not an obligation.

What Is NATO For?

In 1951, General Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote: “If in ten years, all American troops stationed in Europe… have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project will have failed.” That was 75 years ago. American troops are still in Europe.

There are two possible arrangements. First: America is NATO’s client (Europe hires protection). Second: America is NATO’s ally (partners share risks). NATO has spent thirty years insisting on the second arrangement while practicing the first — without paying for it.

Conclusion

I have presented you with facts. Dates, amounts, decisions, votes, labor disputes, and ballistic missiles. I have offered no verdict. I would ask only that you read what you have read again and draw your own conclusion. Some conclusions write themselves.

---

Emzar Gelashvili is a former Member of the Georgian Parliament (7th convocation) and a former senior official across Georgia’s Special Services, including the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of State Security, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He is an independent security and intelligence analyst based in California and publishes regular geopolitical insights on Substack.

The post NATO: No Action, Talk Only — The Alliance That Forgot How to Fight appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The Iranian regime is once again proving exactly why Americans, and the world, cannot trust a word coming out of Tehran.

Just hours before high-stakes peace negotiations with the United States were set to begin in Pakistan, Iran abruptly issued a list of demands, threatening to derail the entire process before it even starts.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf took to X and delivered a blatant ultimatum: the United States must release billions in frozen Iranian assets, and a full ceasefire must take hold in Lebanon before any talks can proceed.

Ghalibaf wrote on X:

“Two of the measures mutually agreed upon between the parties have yet to be implemented: a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets prior to the commencement of negotiations. These two matters must be fulfilled before negotiations begin.”

Two of the measures mutually agreed upon between the parties have yet to be implemented: a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets prior to the commencement of negotiations.

These two matters must be fulfilled before negotiations begin.

— محمدباقر قالیباف | MB Ghalibaf (@mb_ghalibaf) April 10, 2026

The talks in Islamabad were supposed to build on the fragile two-week ceasefire President Trump forced through Pakistan’s mediation after weeks of escalating conflict.

Vice President JD Vance is already en route to lead the U.S. delegation and turn that temporary pause into a permanent deal.

The Guardian reported:

JD Vance has warned Iran not to “try and play” the US at talks planned for Saturday in Islamabad, while Tehran said it would not take part until Israel stopped bombing of Lebanon.

The US vice-president made the comments as he boarded a plane to Pakistan for negotiations that could determine whether a ceasefire holds or the war on Iran resumes with grave implications for the global economy.

With hours to go before the talks were scheduled to start, doubts remained as to whether they actually would.

[…]

It was unclear on Friday evening whether Qalibaf and Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, were still planning to fly to Islamabad to lead their delegation. It was reported last month that Israel had taken Qalibaf and Araghchi off the target list of its bombing campaign at Washington’s request.

Donald Trump fuelled the uncertainty by saying US forces were rearming and ready to return to the attack if the negotiations failed.

“We have a reset going. We’re loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made – even better than what we did previously and we blew them apart,” the US president told the New York Post. “And if we don’t have a deal, we will be using them, and we will be using them very effectively.”

The post Iran’s Terror Regime Throws Last-Minute Tantrum — Demands Release of Billions in Blocked Assets and Full Ceasefire for Hezbollah in Lebanon Before Peace Talks Can Proceed appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Hunter Biden has reportedly fled the US and is $17 million in debt.

Why doesn’t Hunter Biden just sell a few pieces of his highly coveted art? Don’t each one of Hunter Biden’s art pieces cost more than a Degas?

It is unclear where Hunter Biden is currently residing, however, last March he was spotted out and about with his wife in South Africa.

Hunter’s wife, Melissa Cohen, is from South Africa.

Last year Laura Loomer obtained photos of Hunter Biden, his second wife Melissa Cohen, and their toddler son, Beau, on a lavish vacation in Cape Town, South Africa, with US Secret Service agents in tow.

EXCLUSIVE In an international investigation with my contacts on the ground in Cape Town, South Africa, I have captured exclusive photos of @HunterBiden this morning with his Secret Service detail— PROVING that he fled the country right after he was served a deposition notice… pic.twitter.com/PM8cYIMeFI

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) March 14, 2025

Additional photos of Hunter Biden and his wife, Melissa Cohen surrounded by taxpayer-funded Secret Service:

EXCLUSIVE

I have captured more photos today of @HunterBiden’s wife Melissa Cohen with her US @SecretService protection detail on the ground in Cape Town, South Africa where she is currently vacationing with her husband HUNTER BIDEN.

This comes just 9 days after Hunter… pic.twitter.com/YwcmPIEoNB

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) March 14, 2025

Shortly after Laura Loomer and The New York Post reported that Hunter Biden fled the US and was in South Africa last year, Trump stripped the former First Son’s Secret Service protection.

“Hunter Biden has had Secret Service protection for an extended period of time, all paid for by the United States Taxpayer. There are as many as 18 people on this Detail, which is ridiculous! He is currently vacationing in, of all places, South Africa, where the Human Rights of people has been strenuously questioned,” Trump said last year on Truth Social.

“Because of this, South Africa has been taken off our list of Countries receiving Economic and Financial Assistance. Please be advised that, effective immediately, Hunter Biden will no longer receive Secret Service protection. Likewise, Ashley Biden who has 13 agents will be taken off the list,” Trump said on Truth Social.

According to The Daily Mail, Hunter Biden is being sued by his former lawyers for outstanding legal fees.

The Daily Mail reported:

Hunter Biden has quietly pulled up stakes and left the country amid claims he is $17 million in debt and living overseas, the Daily Mail can reveal.

The disclosure came in a new legal filing submitted by his attorney Barry Coburn on April 6, in Washington DC, where the first son is being sued by his former attorneys at Winston & Strawn.

The court filing bluntly states ‘Mr Biden lives abroad’, and argues that the former First Son ‘cannot afford’ to pay off his outstanding legal fees.

The law firm defended Hunter, 56, in his tax and gun crimes cases, as well as other legal battles, but claims he failed to pay bills ‘substantially in excess of $50,000’.

On a podcast appearance last year Hunter himself claimed he was in ‘$17 million of debt.’

Coburn declined to comment to the Daily Mail, and did not specify where in the world Hunter, 56, now lives – but it’s not America.

However, last year Hunter was spotted spending time in South Africa, the birthplace of his wife Melissa, 39, the mother of his youngest child.

The post Hunter Biden Flees US, Claims He’s $17 Million in Debt appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

What happened to believing all survivors?

Eric Swalwell, Democrat Rep. and current California gubernatorial candidate, released a desperate and unhinged video denying the sexual assault allegations against him which prompted high-profile Democrats to withdraw endorsements.

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.

“A woman who worked for nearly two years for Rep. Eric Swalwell, a leading candidate for California governor, said she had sexual encounters with him while he was her boss and alleged he twice sexually assaulted her when she was too intoxicated to consent,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Swalwell denied the allegations in a written statement earlier Friday.

Swalwell’s lawyers also intimidated the alleged sexual assault victim and sent her a cease-and-desist letter, accusing her of making false statements.

“These allegations are false and come on the eve of an election against the frontrunner for governor,” he said.

High-profile California Democrats like Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi turned on Swalwell and called for him to drop out of the gubernatorial race.

Schiff withdrew his endorsement of Swalwell and called on him to drop out of California’s gubernatorial race.

Swalwell’s campaign staffers resigned and he lost other endorsements after the San Francisco Chronicle published the story about the sexual assault allegations.

Later Friday night, facing mounting pressure to drop his gubernatorial bid, Swalwell released a desperate statement in response to the sexual assault allegations.

“These allegations of sexual assault are flat false. They’re absolutely false,” Swalwell insisted in the video he posted to social media. “They did not happen. They have never happened and I will fight them with everything that I have.”

He continued, “They also come on the eve of an election where I have been the front-runner candidate for the governor in California.”

Swalwell seeming admitted to having extra marital affairs and apologized to his wife.

Eric Swalwell concluded his short video message by telling the public that he will spend the rest of the weekend with his friends and family.

WATCH:

The post WATCH: Swalwell Releases Desperate Video Denying Sexual Assault Allegations as High-Profile Democrats Call for Him to Drop Out of California Governor’s Race appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

UK Special Coverage

UK Labour Refuses to Relieve the Energy Crisis

The Starmer government is more interested in anticapitalist posturing than in helping the British people.

UK Special Coverage

When Labour was restored to government in July 2024 after nearly a decade and a half in the political wilderness, Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised that economic growth would be his government’s number one priority. Chancellor Rachel Reeves conducted seminars with prominent business figures, insisting that Labour understood that businesses must make profits to survive and invest.

Starmer said “wealth creation” was Labour’s “defining purpose”, and private sector investment would be the “engine of growth and productivity”. Many businesses believed him. The Confederation of British Industry welcomed this social democratic party’s pragmatic approach. They were to be disappointed.

The accommodation with capitalism was only skin deep. Most Labour members and many Labour MPs still regard profit as a dirty word. They believe capitalism is morally wrong and that economic growth should ideally come through public sector investment, if at all. This aversion to business is confirmed by Reeves’s latest initiative in the deindustrialization of the North Sea.

After the start of the Iran war in early March, oil and gas companies beat a path to her door, hoping that this global disruption to supply might encourage the Labour government to renew exploration licenses in the North Sea and scrap the punitive 78 percent tax on oil and gas profits, which had made investment commercially unviable. Scrapping the tax regime the energy companies said could unleash over £17 billion in investment. They thought they had got their message across. They hadn’t. Rachel Reeves has just announced that the 78 percent tax will remain.

Her justification for this is that the oil and gas companies are making windfall profits from the global increase in the oil and gas price following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Therefore, she believes, there is no justification for relaxing the profits tax on activity in the North Sea. It is true that some oil companies are making big profits right now, but they are assuredly not making big profits in the North Sea, as companies like Harbour Energy have been making clear.

It has been shedding hundreds of jobs recently as a direct result of the 78 percent profits tax. Aberdeen and Grampian Chambers of Commerce say around a thousand jobs a month are being lost in the North Sea. Even the SNP government, which used to be ideologically opposed to fossil fuels, is now saying that the tax should be scrapped, if only to save jobs.

But Labour is currently being threatened by the rise of the Green Party under its new anticapitalist leader, Zack Polanski. The Greens won the recent Gorton and Denton by-election in Manchester, a seat that has been Labour-controlled for decades. Clearly, Reeves has been advised that any apparent let-up in the drive to achieve net zero could boost the Green Party in the forthcoming regional elections on May 7.

But this is not just electoral calculation. Most Labour members are as hostile to Big Oil as the Greens and believe that they have been robbing working people for decades by extracting super-profits and deploying legions of lobbyists to protect their interests.  Clive Lewis is one of 50 Labour MPs who have signed up to the campaign group Uplift’s petition to oppose development of the Rosebank oil field off Shetland. The Norwich South MP says, “We must stand our ground against Trump, Reform and their fossil fuel paymasters.” This romantic anticapitalism dies hard.

The case for resuming exploration and production in the North Sea is, of course, unanswerable. Oil and gas are strategic resources, as the Iran war has confirmed. The UK depends on fossil fuels for nearly 80% of its energy. To import LNG from abroad, as has increasingly been the case, is not only costly to the consumer but is also more damaging to the environment.

Labour’s most successful former leader, Tony Blair, has been trying to get his successor to change tack. One of Britain’s biggest unions, the GMB Union, has too. And even net zero-supporting Lord Browne, the former head of BP (which he renamed “Beyond Petroleum”), has called on Rachel Reeves to abandon Labour’s irrational and unsustainable prejudice against oil and gas.  But to no avail.

There had been reports last week that the hardline, net-zero evangelist Ed Miliband, Labour’s secretary of state for energy, was minded to allow production to proceed, at least in the Jackdaw gas field off Aberdeen. But this is being strenuously denied by his spokespeople. His aversion to exploration and support for punitive taxation will remain so long as he remains in office. Miliband is far and away the most popular minister in the government among Labour members and could pose a threat to Starmer’s leadership.

So this is really about ideology. The justification for allowing this precious resource to remain undeveloped, even at a time of a global energy crisis, arises directly from Labour’s profound suspicion of capitalism. Their hatred of Big Oil is quixotic, since most of the oil majors, like Exxon, have left the North Sea because it is no longer commercially viable. What activity takes place in existing fields is down to a handful of nimble independent operators like Harbour and Ithaca, working on the margins of profitability.

It is perhaps the biggest failure of the center-right in recent years that it has failed to make any kind of moral case for capitalism. The UK Conservatives sometimes seemed as hostile to growth as Labour. Indeed, it was Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a Tory, who first introduced the windfall tax on oil and gas profits. It was Prime Minister Boris Johnson, another Tory, who said Britain could “lead the world in building a net-zero economy.” He also increased UK taxation to the highest levels since the 1950s.

The result has been a stagnant economy and an angry electorate. Industries, such as pharmaceuticals, are halting investment in the UK because their electricity bills  are three to four times what their competitors are paying in the US. Voters are fed up hearing that green energy is so much cheaper than oil and gas when they pay some of the highest energy bills in the developed world.

It can’t go on like this. But it probably will.

The post UK Labour Refuses to Relieve the Energy Crisis appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs

Mark Levin Seems Upset We Haven’t Nuked Iran

The neoconservative talk host tried to normalize the use of nuclear weapons and now appears irate that the president hasn’t taken his advice.

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s greatest fear was nuclear war.

On Easter weekend 2026, neoconservative talk host Mark Levin’s greatest wish seemed to be nuclear war.

On Tuesday, Donald Trump appeared on the brink of giving Levin that wish, with the president writing of Iran, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

By Wednesday, it hadn’t happened—and Levin was fuming.

If this sounds crazy or barbaric, congratulations on having a moral compass. But it’s worth examining this neoconservative, war-eager mindset and how dismissing human life and leveling basic norms and standards, even in war, is integral to it.

On Mark Levin’s weekend Fox News show Life, Liberty and Levin, he appeared to insinuate that using nuclear weapons on Iran would be justified.

Levin read off death and casualty numbers from the Second World War, and did so with a specific message in mind to the president: “And the casualty numbers, as horrible as any casualty is, need some context.”

Levin’s “context” included noting that the Battle of the Bulge had “80,000 to 90,000-plus casualties, deaths and injuries and so forth,” and the Battle of Okinawa had “50,000-plus casualties, over 12,000, nearly 13,000 killed on that island…”

So what was his point? He said these numbers are “what convinced Truman that we would lose a million men if we didn’t drop the atomic bombs that we did.”

The neocon pundit concluded, “So this is a war or a peace mission to stop nuclear weapons that can blow away millions of Americans.” 

“Every bit as important as World War II,” he insisted.

Levin seemed to suggest that dropping a nuclear weapon in Iran would be an act of “peace.”

Who would buy this rationale? Levin appeared to hope Trump would.

A noticeably disgusted Tucker Carlson played Levin’s video clip on Monday and responded, “Did you catch that? Did you make it through the whole clip? It’s not easy. It’s not easy.”

“But embedded in there, and that’s why we prefer a transcript over the actual audio, embedded in there is something you need to know,” Carlson said. “It’s an argument that is being test-driven.”

It certainly did seem like Levin was putting nuclear war in the president’s mind.

Carlson continued, “And since no one, to our knowledge, has pushed back against it, maybe in full operation now, it’s an argument for nuclear weapons against Iran.”

“That’s Mark Levin’s counsel to our sitting president, Donald Trump, right now,” Carlson added. “That the most humane thing you could do is to end this now with nuclear weapons.”

“That’s the case Mark Levin is making to the president who just last week recommended that all Americans watch Mark Levin’s show,” Carlson said. “Okay,” Tucker added. This is not like crazy dot-connecting here,” Carlson added. “This is one to one.”

Carlson and other observers believe that since Trump is such a fan of Fox News and Levin’s show in particular that the bloodthirsty host is constantly messaging to an audience of one.

To that point, after Levin’s episode aired is when Trump vowed civilizational destruction if Iran’s leaders did not open the Strait of Hormuz by 8 PM ET on Tuesday.

Right before that deadline, it was announced that the U.S. and Iran had reached a ceasefire deal. That deal didn’t last long, but the brief break in fighting sent Levin spiraling.

A visibly flustered Levin said on Fox News, “What about the people of Iran, what are we gonna just leave them there? There’s nothing that we can do and we’re gonna wash our hands over that? That, to me, is it’s morally, very difficult, very difficult to accept.”

For Levin, it’s morally “difficult” to accept that hostilities might be ending.

One of Levin’s earlier justifications for U.S.-led regime change in Iran was to supposedly save the lives of Iranians protesting their government, despite his more recent recommendation to drop nuclear bombs on them instead.

The independent journalist Megyn Kelly played some clips of a frustrated Levin during her interview with The American Conservative’s Executive Director Curt Mills, and said, “Mark Levin is unhappy, which makes me happy.”

“But he and Lindsey Graham are both, of course, they’re truly in love with President Trump right now,” she continued. “These original never Trumpers are very much in love with President Trump because he did this. But they’re having to really reconcile with it, Curt, because he’s not ending it the way they want. They don’t want it ended at all. They want it to keep going and going and going.”

She was talking about endless war—the kind of war Levin loves and Trump once vowed to stop.

Of Levin’s recent appearance on Hannity, Kelly said “Mark Levin was on Hannity last night. And honestly, you can see like near tears, like really trying to control his emotions over the fact that President Trump is trying to wrap this up now.”

Levin said, excitedly, “They’re not going to go away if there’s not regime change. And we’re going to have to figure out, and it’s not going to be easy, how to keep our foot on their throat.”

“And I pray this enemy drops dead,” Levin flailed. “How do you like that? I kind of like it.”

Kelly reacted, “You see him at the end where he’s blinking his eyes. He’s doing deep breathing.”

The huffing and puffing has not stopped.

The week began with Mark Levin pushing for a spectacular, even nuclear escalation with Iran. This war remains a mess, but that definitely, and thankfully, did not happen.

This might have made Ronald Reagan happy. Mark Levin? Not so much.

The post Mark Levin Seems Upset We Haven’t Nuked Iran appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics

Cesar Chavez Was No Border Hawk

The labor organizer has been outed as a sex predator. 

The venerable Hispanic activist Cesar Chavez is venerated no more. After the New York Times reported that he sexually abused women and girls, the union organizer was posthumously cancelled. States and cities announced they would stop celebrating Cesar Chavez Day and many streets and plazas dropped his name.

The sudden cancellation likely marks the end of attempts to turn Chavez into the Hispanic MLK. Some conservatives see something else at work here. They claim Chavez was a border hawk and imply the sexual abuse claims were a convenient way to get rid of an unreliable leftist icon. That’s the argument put forth by Mark Krikorian, executive director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, in National Review last week.

“Chavez really was a border hawk, because illegal immigration (and guest worker programs) really did undermine the efforts of U.S. citizen farmworkers to better their lot,” Krikorian writes. “And it wasn’t just some ancillary thing — fighting illegal immigration was at the center of his advocacy for American farmworkers.”

Krikorian says that the evidence for Chavez’s opposition to illegal immigration made him “ripe for cancellation.” He suggests, partly in jest, that conservatives should still try to turn the labor organizer’s birthday into National Border Control Day.

It’s a common meme for immigration restrictionists to point to Chavez as one of their own. The Hispanic activist did at times oppose illegal immigrants taking jobs from the farmworkers he represented. It makes political sense to claim a left-wing hero as an advocate for sensible immigration policies, to give the position broader appeal. That’s why immigration hawks are also eager to put forth liberal Democrats Barbara Jordan and Eugene McCarthy as prominent exemplars of immigration restriction. No one would call those two reactionary bigots. 

But unlike Jordan and McCarthy, Chavez did not remain an immigration hawk. He came to embrace illegal immigration, and his one-time opposition was only concerned with the immediate interests of his labor union. When those interests changed, he came to see illegal immigrants as potential members of his union and defended them. 

With his cancellation, conservatives can finally be honest about Chavez’s opinions. We gain nothing by pedestaling a child sex abuser as an immigration patriot.

Krikorian finds ample evidence that Chavez opposed illegal immigrants in the ’60s and ’70s. The Hispanic organizer publicly opposed the Bracero Program that brought migrant workers to the U.S., reported illegal alien strikebreakers to the feds, created the United Farm Workers’ “Campaign against Illegals,” and even helped form a vigilante Border Patrol unit to use violence against border crossers. He used terms like “wetback” and “illegal” to describe these migrants and made at least one comment that sounded like he opposed all illegal immigration.

Krikorian concludes that Chavez’s position was more than just being opposed to illegal alien strikebreakers. But that’s not really true.

As early as the 1970s, Chavez and the United Farm Workers made it clear that they supported illegal immigrants and wanted them legalized. They just opposed employers using them to replace UFW members. 

Chavez laid out his immigration stance in a 1974 letter to the San Francisco Examiner. The newspaper had said in an editorial that his union opposed illegal immigrants and supported the federal government’s efforts to deport them. But Chavez denied the claim. In the letter, he advocated for amnesty and “the liberalization of immigration laws to make immigration from Mexico more equitable with that of immigration from Europe.” He just didn’t like when illegals, whom he called “our brothers and sisters,” were used as strikebreakers.

Moreover, the UFW fought to ensure that legislation, such as California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act, did not exclude migrants from its protections. As early as 1973, it opposed federal efforts to ban the hiring of illegals in farm labor. 

Left-wing activist David Bacon, who worked for Chavez as a UFW organizer in the ’70s, wrote in 2011 that the union had long been composed largely of illegal immigrants and that it opposed immigration raids:

Undocumented workers have always made up most of the members of the UFW, because they make up a majority of the farm labor workforce. Chavez and the UFW organized all farm workers, people with visas and the undocumented alike. Many of the union’s most active members and leaders have been undocumented, and the union fought to make sure that California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act didn’t deny workers their organizing rights based on their immigration status. It fought against immigration raids, especially during strikes and organizing drives.

In 1975, the UFW passed a resolution welcoming illegal immigrants into the union. The union accelerated its recruitment of this group that Chavez once thought of as “scabs.” By the 1980s, Chavez had dropped any pretense of opposing illegal immigration and fully embraced the cause. He championed the 1986 amnesty act, and fellow UFW leader Dolores Huerta lobbied Washington lawmakers to pass the bill, which legalized millions of illegal immigrants. 

This record should undermine any claims that Chavez was a border hawk. Of course, any hint of opposition to open borders is enough to make leftists queasy, and some of Chavez’s past actions and comments cause them discomfort. Nevertheless, he only opposed illegals so far as they undermined the UFW’s interests, and he came around to the left-wing view eventually.

Before this year, there was political utility in repurposing Chavez as a border hawk. But now that he stands in the public eye as a sex predator who targeted children, he’s no longer useful for the immigration restriction cause. If one wants to find a liberal hero who made the case for serious immigration reform, Barbara Jordan and Eugene McCarthy are still useful. Both made strong cases for reducing immigration to benefit America, and neither was credibly accused of pedophilia.

The Border Hawk Cesar Chavez meme can be put to bed.

The post Cesar Chavez Was No Border Hawk appeared first on The American Conservative.

Vance goes to Pakistan.

As the world watches in anticipation if the US-Iran ceasefire will hold, and if peace can be negotiated, it arises that a key official in Donald J. Trump’s cabinet will head the peace negotiations.

Vice President JD Vance left today (10) for Islamabad, Pakistan, towards the biggest challenge of his career.

Vance will attempt to negotiate a deal with Iran to put an end to the conflict over Tehran’s nuclear program and end the war.

.@VP: “@POTUS has made very clear that the United States has a lot of leverage here. We have economic leverage; we’ve got military leverage… If they break their end of the bargain then they’re going to see some serious consequences.” pic.twitter.com/vKpHp0khmt

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 8, 2026

.@VP: “We don’t want Iran to have the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. @POTUS has also said that we don’t want Iran enriching towards a nuclear weapon, and we want Iran to give up the nuclear fuel. Those are going to be our demands during the negotiation.” pic.twitter.com/UUcSxJyyCh

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 8, 2026

Axios reported:

“’This is a big deal for JD. He is going to the Super Bowl’, one U.S. official told Axios.

Vance will be joined by Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, as well as officials from the National Security Council and departments of State and Defense.

.@VP departs for Islamabad, Pakistan: “As @POTUS said, if the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand. If they’re going to try to play us, then they’re going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive.” pic.twitter.com/9nNDGsMmId

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 10, 2026

“’We are looking forward to the negotiation. I think it is going to be positive’, Vance said before departing Andrews Air Force Base. He said Trump gave the negotiating team ‘pretty clear guidelines’.

‘If the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we are willing to extend the open hand… if they try to play us, they are going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive’, Vance said.”

Read more: JD Vance’s Task Force Uncovers $6 Billion in Potential Fraud, Begins Taking Action: Report

The post VP Vance To Lead US Negotiators in High-Stakes Peace Talks With Iran (VIDEOS) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.