Javier Bardem Says Hollywood Blacklisters Who Condemn Actors Speaking up for Palestine “Will Be Exposed”

Posted on May 18, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

They will be the ones suffering the so-called consequences,” the Oscar-winner said. “This is a major change”

Javier Bardem believes the tide is turning for actors speaking up for Palestine, and has said that “everyone is beginning to realise” that Hollywood blacklisting was “unacceptable”.

The Oscar-winner is at Cannes for his latest film, The Beloved, and was asked today (May 17) if he ever feared the consequences of denouncing the war in Gaza. Bardem has long been a vocal supporter of Palestine, most recently using his platform at the Oscars to declare “no to war and free Palestine”.

“The fear does exist, granted, but one has to do things even if you feel a bit scared or afraid,” he replied, per Variety. “You have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror, look at yourself in the eyes, and that was my case. My mother taught me to be the way I am. There is no plan B. This entails consequences, which I am fully ready to shoulder.”

Bardem then spoke about changes he felt were happening across Hollywood, which comes just months after Susan Sarandon said she had been blacklisted after calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in 2023.

Bardem, however, said he had “a whole host of offers” come in from across the US, Europe, South America, and in Spain. “That made me think that in narratives things are changing,” he said.

“Everyone is beginning to realise, thanks to the younger generation, which is more aware of situations, situations we’re experiencing quite directly on our phones and on other screens.

“Therefore, I think what is happening is quite the contrary. I believe that those who are drawing up the so-called blacklists will actually be exposed, and they will be the ones suffering the so-called consequences, at least on a public and social level. And this is a major change.”

He went on to say that genocide being committed in Gaza was an unequivocal fact. “You can fight against it, you can try to justify it, explain it,” he said. “You can be against it, or you can justify it,” Bardem said. “If you justify it with your silence or with your support, you are pro-genocide. Those are facts, for me.”

Last September, the United Nations found that Israel had committed genocide. At the time, Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission, said it was “clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.”

“The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons who have orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza,” Pillay said. “The Commission also finds that Israel has failed to prevent and punish the commission of genocide, through failure to investigate genocidal acts and to prosecute alleged perpetrators.”

Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations of waging genocide, and denies committing any war crimes, maintaining that its operations are lawful acts of self-defence following Hamas’ attack on Israeli citizens at the Nova Music Festival on October 7 2023, which killed over 1,100 people and saw 250 taken as hostages.

Bardem’s statement follows him clarifying his support for Film Workers for Palestine. He was among a number of fellow entertainment world figures, including Olivia Colman, Mark Ruffalo, Tilda Swinton and Ayo Edebiri, who vowed not to work with Israeli institutions amid the conflict in Gaza.

Explaining that the group holds “companies and institutions” to account rather than “individuals”, he told CNN: “I want this to be very clear. We do not discriminate against any person based on their nationality, race, religion, or gender. We of course believe discrimination of any kind is wrong and do not support that and have continued to reiterate this.

“We support holding companies and institutions all over the world accountable, not individuals, for their complicity and participation in the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and the illegal settlement of the West Bank.”

Sarasota woman gets 14 months in prison for threats against MAGA supporters

Posted on May 17, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

SARASOTA, Fla. (WFLA) — A Sarasota, Florida, woman has been sentenced to over a year in federal prison after being found guilty of making threats against MAGA supporters on social media, the Department of Justice said on Monday.

Desiree Segari, 41, was indicted in September 2025 after posting a TikTok the month prior, calling for supporters of President Donald Trump’s agenda to be “shot on sight,” according to evidence presented at trial.

She was found guilty of interstate communication of a threat to injure on Jan. 13, 2026.

The DOJ quoted Segari’s video, “MAGA people deserve to be terrified and scared to walk in the streets because they should know that real Americans are gonna [mouths expletive] kill them.”

She also mimicked firing a gun with hand gestures during the video and captioned the post “#seemagapewpewmaga starting a new trend, hope it catches on. Please spread the word. Share this video. Repost it. Use the hashtag all over the internet. Let’s go guys. It’s time to fight back in a potentially effective manner.”

Segari posted another video the next day, the DOJ said.

“See MAGA pew pew MAGA, see MAGA pew pew MAGA, see MAGA pew pew MAGA so these [expletive] know we ain’t here to play,” she said while again mimicking firing a gun.

The charge carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Segari was sentenced to 14 months.

Reports Say Keir Starmer May Be Preparing to Stand Down as Labour Revolt Hits Critical Mass

Posted on May 17, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

A post moving fast across X on Saturday claimed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer “has announced he is standing down.”

That is not the confirmed position. No official resignation announcement has been verified from Downing Street.

But the reports underneath the viral claim tell a story that is almost as dramatic.

According to a Daily Mail report from columnist Dan Hodges now circulating widely on the platform, Starmer has “told friends he intends to stand down and set out an orderly timetable for his departure.”

That language is sourced to private conversations, not to a formal public statement from the prime minister.

Still, the leadership crisis engulfing Starmer is real, and the reporting from established British outlets paints a picture of a prime minister losing control of the timeline.

ITV News political editor Robert Peston wrote that the departure timetable question is already dominating the top of Labour politics:

Peston wrote that the consensus at the top of the Labour Party appeared to be that Starmer would not announce a timetable for his departure until Andy Burnham fights the Makerfield by-election.

He argued that waiting makes very little sense because the probability that Starmer can survive as prime minister, even if Burnham loses the by-election, is low.

Peston said Starmer’s cabinet colleagues and trade union leaders had made that clear to him.

He also wrote that the timing and manner of Starmer’s exit are now at the mercy of events, leaving him a lame duck prime minister whose policy statements risk being drowned out by speculation over how and when he will go.

That is the serious version of the viral claim: not an official resignation announcement, but a prime minister whose allies and enemies are already planning around his exit.

The ITV analysis is important because it does not depend on one anonymous Daily Mail column.

It says the same pressure is now baked into the political conversation around Starmer’s premiership.

The revolt inside Labour has been building in public.

The Guardian reported earlier this week that cabinet pressure and backbench pressure were hitting Starmer at the same time:

Starmer’s grip on power appeared to be slipping as cabinet ministers urged him to set out a timetable for his departure.

More than 70 Labour MPs publicly called for him to stand down after heavy election losses.

Several senior cabinet ministers were said to have spoken to Starmer, with some telling him he should oversee an orderly transition of power.

Starmer’s answer at the time was defiance. He warned Labour would never be forgiven for plunging the country into leadership chaos and said he intended to prove his doubters wrong.

His speech did not stop the flow of Labour MPs calling for an orderly transition.

That means the current Daily Mail report is landing in the middle of an already-open revolt, not a normal Westminster rumor cycle.

The practical question inside Labour is no longer only whether Starmer can survive, but how long the party can tolerate him staying while rivals maneuver around him.

By Thursday, the story had moved beyond anonymous grumbling.

Associated Press described the leadership crisis after one of Starmer’s own Cabinet ministers walked out:

Health Secretary Wes Streeting quit Starmer’s Cabinet on Thursday in what was expected to be a precursor to challenging his leadership.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner had resolved the tax issue that forced her resignation the previous year, allowing her to consider a challenge.

More than 80 lawmakers had urged Starmer to set a timetable for his departure.

At that point, Starmer was still publicly saying he had no intention to stand down.

That public line is why the distinction matters now. A report that Starmer has privately decided to set a timetable would not be the same as an official resignation, but it would mark a major shift from the position he was taking only days earlier.

The AP account also placed the crisis after Labour’s heavy local and regional election losses, which turned a simmering leadership problem into a direct challenge to Starmer’s authority.

Streeting, Rayner, Burnham, cabinet pressure, and the backbench revolt together form the real pressure system around No. 10.

That is why a timetable rumor now carries real political weight.

So the careful bottom line is this: Downing Street has not confirmed a Starmer resignation.

Reports now say he may be preparing to set out a departure timetable, and the wider evidence shows Labour’s revolt has reached the point where even his allies are talking about how he leaves.

That is usually what the end looks like in parliamentary politics.

First comes the public denial. Then the private timetable.

Then comes the formal announcement.

If these reports are right, Starmer may already be somewhere between step two and step three.

Staff, One-Hundred Per Cent Fed Up

America’s Medicine Supply Chain Is A National Security Vulnerability

Posted on May 17, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

The Chinese government is tightening the screws on American investment in its artificial intelligence sector. The core purpose is to keep U.S. capital out of technologies it deems “strategically sensitive” to national security. The protective action is a reminder that Washington also needs to prioritize insulating our own critical sectors from foreign adversaries.

Few industries are more important to our national security than healthcare. More than 131 million people – nearly two-thirds of all U.S. adults – use prescription medications. Yet the United States has allowed its pharmaceutical supply chains to become dangerously dependent on foreign rivals – particularly China.

That vulnerability became strikingly clear during the pandemic, when U.S. leaders scrambled to secure masks, gloves, and other protective equipment from overseas. But our overreliance on China runs far deeper than just rubber and fabric.

Today, China produces an outsized portion of the world’s Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). These are the chemical backbone of most medicines, from insulin to antibiotics to asthma treatments. In a crisis—whether military confrontation, sanctions escalation, or a broader trade disagreement—Beijing would have us by the pills.

It’s not theoretical. China has already demonstrated its willingness to weaponize supply chains. During recent trade disputes, Beijing leveraged its control over rare earth minerals—critical inputs for everything from aerospace systems to consumer electronics—to strengthen its negotiating position against the United States.

This kind of market dominance is by design. Every five years, leaders from across China congregate to decide a new national development plan. Because of the country’s highly-centralized structure, the government systematically targets strategic industries.

In 2020, that five-year plan focused on electric vehicles and semiconductors. Now, Beijing is expanding its ambitions into biotechnology and “frontier science.” China is positioning itself not just as a pharmaceutical inputs supplier, but as a potential gatekeeper of future medical breakthroughs.

Washington cannot let that happen. Fortunately, the U.S. has a powerful tool that our chief competitor across the Pacific doesn’t. Free market capitalism—as opposed to a top down, state-directed economy—is America’s competitive edge against China. Congress just needs to provide the right incentives so we can maximize on that advantage.

Recent tax reforms that allow manufacturers to immediately expense some of the costs associated with research and development are a strong start. These legislative changes are providing businesses with greater certainty to invest in domestic production and expand “Made in America” pharmaceutical capacity.

President Trump is adding fuel to that momentum through his pro-business agenda. A 2025 order that streamlines approvals for companies looking to onshore drug production is a prime example. But executive action is fragile. America’s next leader could reverse that progress with the stroke of a pen. As the Trump administration continues to hack away at layers of red tape, lawmakers should codify these reforms.

America already has a strong foundation to build from. Indiana, North Carolina, and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, among other areas, anchor a significant share of existing American pharmaceutical production. By encouraging more innovation in our own backyard, these hubs can be strengthened to secure supply chains and reduce our dependence on China.

Recent investments—including $300 million committed to Puerto Rico to expand domestic drug manufacturing capacity—are proof of concept.

U.S. Congressman Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) recently said it best when he warned “America’s medicine cabinet runs through Beijing.” As China tightens its grip, securing America’s healthcare supply chains against foreign disruption is not just sound economic policy—it is a national security imperative.

Will Coggin is the managing director of the American Security Institute.

The plug-and-play stealth Marxists running as Republicans

Posted on May 17, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

It’s time to crack down.

M.B. Mathews | May 17, 2026

or too many years, congressional “Republicans” have been voted into office who are really stealth Marxists or Democrats. Local or worldwide Marxists buy a candidate, run him, then plug him into office, where the money determines the agenda. This is what happened with Biden. He had no idea what was going on while the people who bought the election for him just plugged him in, then played him like a thumb drive.

Samuel Ronan and Kate Barr in North Carolina are two more recent examples. Ronan, a former Democrat candidate for the DNC chair, ran in the 2026 GOP primary for Ohio’s 15th District but was disqualified by SCOTUS after evidence showed that he had urged Democrats to “infiltrate Republican spaces.”

Similarly, Barr openly declared herself a “fake Republican” while running in N.C.’s GOP primary, admitting she had always voted Democrat and was running strategically in a gerrymandered GOP stronghold. Ronan had to sign a sworn declaration affirming Republican Party support, which courts found false. Barr’s campaign stated she was a progressive entering the GOP primary because it was the only viable path to power in her district.

But these two got caught. Most did not.

Democrats running as Republicans is a form of shape-shifting, a strategic and deliberate deception to get into the power-brokering halls of Congress to make laws that favor Marxism. Mamdani can be considered an offshoot of this kind of lie: He ran as a “democratic socialist,” but he governs like a full-blown communist.

Ohio secretary of State Frank LaRose called such cases “political transgenderism,” warning of strategic party-switching. I’ll call the party-crashers “TransPols.” These people, exorbitantly funded by SorosCo, have little to do but run the race on autopilot. After the election is purchased by a flood of money flowing into cheating techniques, bribery, and graft, the faux official then carries out the marching orders of the one-world communists whose raison d’être is world domination and power. And we get stuck with the cultural, economic, and political detritus left behind, like snail slime.

It’s not as though this is all a mystery, but it seems that Republican conservatives are not doing their due diligence by asking the right questions of these TransPols: “What is your voting record?” “How long have you been in American politics?” “Do you have a track record we can check to see if you’ve got any conservative cred at all?” “Where is your funding coming from?” “Are you even an America citizen?”

There is no sense asking them what they stand for or how they plan to craft legislation, because the TransPols will lie.

We are steeped in a political crap bath of fetid liars who have a moral code that eschews truth. We must stop taking the word of candidates for whom the truth is inconvenient and start asking hard questions, the answers to which are then seriously scoped out for truth claims.

Are we not yet tired of being Charlie Brown to Lucy?

American Thinker

Weekend Beacon: A History of (Leftist) Violence

Posted on May 17, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

In yesterday’s subscribers-only newsletter, I posited that Tommy Robinson is to the Islamo-socialist government of the UK what Lech Walesa was to the communist government in Poland. Through his courage, Walesa managed to knock down the first domino that led to the Soviet Union’s collapse. Robinson’s courage shows signs of doing the same against the UK’s current morally corrupt government, as evidenced by the absolutely massive Unite the Kingdom rally in London today.

The rally wasn’t just humongously large; it was also openly pro-Christian. This Christian element is important because the rally is a pushback against the British government’s open-door policy to mass Islamic immigration (both legal and illegal) and its obeisance to Muslims once they arrive, a policy invariably at the expense of non-Muslim British subjects of all races, colors, and creeds.

It should be said that the British government did its best to shut down the event, and at least one Muslim knew why:

How commonplace is political violence these days? A man shooting at federal officers near the White House as JD Vance’s motorcade passed by was barely mentioned in the papers. Still, the timing could not be better for Noah Rothman’s new book, Blood & Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence in America. Ian Haworth returns to the Weekend Beacon with a review.

Since World War II, economists have developed theories to try and explain the business cycle’s ups and downs. They have also identified indicators to give us a sense of what phase of the business cycle we may be in.

“But what if it is the case that there is nothing cyclical at all about the economy’s fluctuations? This is a key question raised by the economist Tyler Goodspeed in his new book, Recession: The Real Reasons Economies Shrink and What to Do About It. A former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and presently chief economist at ExxonMobil, Goodspeed is an accomplished scholar who has published books on topics ranging from the Keynesian revolution in economics to 18th-century Scottish banking.

“In all these works, Goodspeed integrates attention to economic theory and history with analysis of existing datasets. But he is also adept at deploying language and concepts drawn from other disciplines to add precision to his arguments.

“This way of proceeding is replicated in Recession. The book’s core thesis is that recessions are usually sparked by unforeseen external shocks to the economy in the form of events such as natural disasters, the outbreak of war, plagues, or pandemics. Goodspeed also regards many such jolts as emanating from mistaken government interventions that end up inducing and prolonging periods of economic contraction.

“To make his case, Goodspeed looks primarily at major recessions that have occurred in Britain and America going back to the 18th century. The available data, Goodspeed argues, makes it difficult to discern any business cycle-like patterns to the process of economic growth and contraction. He also maintains that ‘the forecasting record of the business cycle indicators’ initially developed by the National Bureau of Economic Research in the late 1950s ‘is unimpressive.’ This and other critical datapoints illustrate, according to Goodspeed, that the causes of recessions are better described as idiosyncratic.”

We were entirely different people. She was born in Hamburg just after World War II (or 11, as our better public intellectuals might put it). Her father was one of 5,000 or so German survivors of the Battle of Stalingrad, where hundreds of thousands of fellow soldiers died. After the family came to America, her mother got a job at the Tolstoy Foundation, run by the great writer’s daughter. By contrast my dad served in the Pacific theater, then started out his career in a gas station. My mother was a public school teacher.

“Manuela was bright and ambitious. She wrote a few articles for William F. Buckley’s National Review and then, in 1975, joined the Wall Street Journal, where she stayed for over 20 years in various capacities, including book editor. She won a Pulitzer in 1983 for criticism, in which she truly excelled, once writing of a Metropolitan Opera performance that ‘the place was so empty I thought I’d missed an air-raid drill.’

“She also had a heart as warm as a Christmas fire.”

“I had just finished (I hope) rewriting a novel the day Manuela died. I hadn’t talked to her in a while. Her love life had gone bad, her beloved Beagles had died, she’d been battling cancer, and I wasn’t feeling that great myself. I might have dared to send her the title page (Three Clicks Past the Paraclete) to see what she thought.

“I can imagine her response. ‘Shiflett—you’re groping for profundity. Try again. But don’t give up!’

“She now belongs to the ages, and the ages had better watch their step.”

“

Happy Sunday.

Vic Matus

Arts & Culture Editor

Washington Free Beacon

173 House Democrats Refused to Vote for a Resolution Honoring Law Enforcement Officers During National Police Week

Posted on May 17, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Democrats don’t want to admit it publicly, but they are still the same party that tried to ‘Defund the Police’ a few years ago.

We know this because last week was National Police Week, and a Republican rep. from Iowa named Zach Nunn introduced a resolution to honor law enforcement officers. 173 Democrats voted against it. Every single Republican voted for it.

This would seem to indicate that the Democrats have not changed at all. How else can their behavior be interpreted?

FOX News reported:

173 House Democrats vote against resolution honoring police amid rising attacks

House Democrats split over a resolution backing law enforcement as assaults on officers surged last year.

Just 29 House Democrats on Wednesday voted for a GOP-authored measure paying tribute to the “extraordinary sacrifice” law enforcement officers make and criticizing the defund the police movement for jeopardizing public safety.

Meanwhile, 173 Democrats voted with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., against the resolution, while every GOP lawmaker present supported it.

“We want to take that best practice of respecting law enforcement in Iowa to the nation’s capital, and I was thrilled that we got bipartisan support,” Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, who introduced the measure, said in an interview with Fox News Digital.

But the Iowa Republican said he expected his resolution to receive unanimous backing.

“I think it unfortunately puts a real spotlight on a chasm we have between those who support law and order and those who are supporting those who undermine it,” Nunn said.

The vote comes as assaults against law enforcement officers climbed to a 10-year high last year, according to an FBI report released Monday. The number of officers killed saw a slight decrease between 2024 and 2025.

Zach Nunn put out this statement:

“It shouldn’t be controversial to stand with the men and women who put their lives on the line to keep our communities safe,” said Rep. Nunn. “But from the ‘defund the police’ radicalism to sanctuary city policies that prevent cooperation with federal law enforcement, too many politicians have put ideology ahead of public safety — and Americans are paying the price. This Police Week, the House sent a clear message: we back the blue. I’m proud to have led that effort.”

This is all about the base. The Democrat base.

The far left, radical faction of the Democrat party is in charge and the House members who voted against this resolution are absolutely terrified of them.

Warren Buffett Advice: 5 Daily Habits That Will Improve the Quality Of Your Life

Posted on May 16, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

By Steve Burns

Perhaps the most counterintuitive of Buffett’s habits is his commitment to keeping his schedule mostly empty. While most successful people treat a packed calendar as a badge of productivity, Buffett treats white space as a competitive advantage.

He has maintained this habit throughout his career, insisting that unscheduled time is where his clearest thinking happens. Busyness, in his view, is often just a substitute for judgment.

“You’ve got to keep control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.” — Warren Buffett.

The daily habit is to reclaim at least one unscheduled block in your day. Use it for reading, reflection, or simply letting your mind work without an agenda imposed by someone else.

A high-quality life is not one where every hour is accounted for. It is one in which you decide how your hours are spent, rather than simply reacting to others’ demands.

Conclusion

Warren Buffett’s advice on improving the quality of your life has nothing to do with hacks, shortcuts, or routines borrowed from someone else’s morning. It is about compounding good habits: protecting your health, mastering your emotions, anchoring your behavior to your own values, choosing your company wisely, and owning your time.

Most advice about improving your life comes packaged as a system—a morning routine, a productivity framework, an app that tracks your habits down to the minute. Warren Buffett’s philosophy runs in the opposite direction.

His actual guidance, drawn from decades of shareholder letters, university lectures, and annual Berkshire Q&A sessions, is built on a single idea: compounding. Small, consistent choices made in the areas of knowledge, character, and health produce results that no shortcut can replicate.

Here are five of his most practical daily habits for improving the quality of your life.

Guard Your Body and Mind Like Your Life Depends on It

Buffett uses a striking metaphor to explain why daily self-care is not optional. He compares your body and mind to a single car you receive at sixteen years old, one that has to last you the rest of your life.

“Let’s say that I offer to buy you the car of your dreams. You can pick out any car that you want, and when you get out of class this afternoon, that car will be waiting for you at home. There’s just one catch… It’s the only car you’re ever going to get in your entire life.”

“Now, knowing that, how are you going to treat that car? You’re probably going to read the owner’s manual four times before you drive it; you’re going to keep it in the garage, protect it at all times, change the oil twice as often as necessary. If there’s the least little bit of rust, you’re going to get that fixed immediately so it doesn’t spread — because you know it has to last you as long as you live.”

Practice the 24-Hour Rule Before Responding in Anger

One of Buffett’s most practical lessons on emotional control came from his friend and longtime business partner, Tom Murphy. The lesson is deceptively simple: you can always say something harsh tomorrow, but you can’t unsay it today.

Responding in anger almost always costs you more than the situation was worth. A lost relationship, a damaged reputation, or a deal that collapses because of words spoken in the heat of the moment are all avoidable costs.

“You can always tell someone to go to h*ll tomorrow.” — Warren Buffett

The daily habit is to pause. When someone insults you, when a deal goes sideways, or when frustration peaks, commit to waiting twenty-four hours before responding.

You lose nothing by waiting. You gain clarity, composure, and the ability to respond from reason rather than emotion, which Buffett considers the most important trait in long-term decision-making.

Follow Your Inner Scorecard

Buffett draws a sharp distinction between two ways of moving through the world. An outer scorecard means you measure your worth by what others think of you. An inner scorecard means you measure your worth by your own standards of integrity and behavior.

Most people spend enormous energy chasing the outer scorecard—the titles, the praise, the appearance of success. Buffett argues that this is the slower, far more exhausting path to a life you can be proud of.

“The big question about how people behave is whether they follow an inner scorecard or an outer scorecard. If I do something that others don’t like but I feel good about, I’m happy.” — Warren Buffett.

Audit Your Inner Circle

Buffett has spoken extensively about the underrated role that your social environment plays in shaping who you become. The people you spend the most time with are not neutral forces in your life. They pull your habits, your thinking, and your ambitions in a direction.

The question is whether that direction is where you actually want to go. Most people never stop to ask it. “You will move in the direction of the people that you associate with. So it’s important to associate with people who are better than yourself.” — Warren Buffett.

The daily habit is to audit your inner circle honestly. Are the people closest to you modeling the character, discipline, and perspective you want to develop?

This is not about abandoning loyalty or cutting off old friends. It is about being intentional with the hours you invest in relationships, since those relationships are quietly shaping who you are becoming.

Protect Open Space in Your Calendar

He has maintained this habit throughout his career, insisting that unscheduled time is where his clearest thinking happens. Busyness, in his view, is often just a substitute for judgment.

“You’ve got to keep control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.” — Warren Buffett.

The daily habit is to reclaim at least one unscheduled block in your day. Use it for reading, reflection, or simply letting your mind work without an agenda imposed by someone else.

A high-quality life is not one where every hour is accounted for. It is one in which you decide how your hours are spent, rather than simply reacting to others’ demands.

Conclusion

Liberal \’Historian\’ Claims Republicans Accuse Other People of What They Are Doing, Just Like the Nazis

Posted on May 16, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Heather Cox Richardson is a historian and academic who teaches at Boston College. In a recent video made for her subscribers, she claimed that Republicans use a ‘propaganda technique’ of accusing other people of what they themselves are doing.

There are MOUNTAINS of evidence that show this is actually, exactly what the left does, but it gets even worse. She goes on to suggest that this makes Republicans just like the Nazis because that’s where she claims this tactic comes from.

Now before you dismiss this woman as the idiot she clearly is, you should know that she holds a tremendous amount of influence on the left. Her Substack site has hundreds of thousands of subscribers and she is reported to earn almost a million dollars a year from that alone.

It’s just amazing that she can say these stupid and untruthful things with a straight face:

“The Republicans have perfected a technique for a long time now which really became obvious in the 2000 presidential election, but it’s an old propaganda technique in which you accuse your opponent of what you yourself are doing.

And we tend to identify that in modern politics with Karl Rove, who’s a Republican operative, but in fact, it’s an old propaganda technique that is often identified with Nazi Germany.

And the idea behind it is that if you accuse your opponent of what you are doing, it’s very difficult then for people to understand when the opponent comes back and says, well wait a minute, you’re doing it too.

And what that does is create confusion so that people tend to throw out both sides of the equation and say, well they’re both corrupt.”

Fake asylum claims go ‘poof’ as illegals skip their asylum hearings in droves

Posted on May 16, 2026 by theartfuldilettante

Suddenly, they aren’t so terrified of returning to their home countries anymore. And they are skipping their bogus asylum hearing cases left and right.

Monica Showalter | May 15, 2026

The most infuriating thing about the border surge is not simply the breach of the unguarded border, but the string of lies that premised it — the fake claims of asylum of the illegal migrants, claiming to be persecuted and terrified of returning to their home countries, which as anyone with a lick of sense could surmise had no merit whatsoever.

It was obvious enough in the absence of crises around the world, in the country-shopping of the migrants for the best benefit packages which real refugees seeking any port in a storm would never do, in the payments to cartels, and in the fact that most asylum seekers came from full-blown democracies where they had the right to vote their governments out if there was a problem.

But none of that speaks quite like the behavior of migrants, responding to incentives handed to them from the Joe Biden side of the equation, where everyone who broke into the country was allowed to apply for asylum and offered a full-ride benefit package, including transport, hotels, work permits, free education, free medical care, free food, free Obamaphones, and free housing. All, that, plus ‘coaching’ by federally funded legal service NGOs, including Catholic Charities, for illegals, on how to successfully game the system in order to win their phony asylum cases, as some did.

We can see how fake it all was now in the second year of the Trump administration: The illegal border crossers are now skipping their asylum hearings. Asylum hearing skippings went from 4,000 a month in 2025 to 8,000 a month this year, according to the Center of Immigration Studies, which found it fairly easy to find that data based on the numbers ordered removed in absentia.

The Center for Immigration Studies writes:

As that [asylum court] process continues and Biden’s border removal cases are nearing final adjudications, no-show asylum applicant removal orders are quickly increasing.

In FY 2025, immigration judges ordered more than 50,000 respondents who had filed I-589s but then failed to appear in court removed in absentia — one in six of all no-show orders issued last fiscal year (306,500-plus), and an average of nearly 4,200 orders per month.

That trend is only increasing. Through the end of March (the midway point of FY 2026), immigration judges issued in absentia removal orders to more than 48,000 respondents who had come to court in the past, filed asylum applications, but then ultimately failed to appear.

That’s an average of more than 8,000 no-show orders per month for respondents with pending I-589s, and lest you think this figure simply reflects the increase in the overall backlog, here are the facts: The total number of pending cases in immigration court has risen nearly 257 percent since FY 2019, but the monthly average of in absentia orders for aliens with pending asylum applications has ballooned by more than 900 percent over that same period — 3.5 times quicker than the overall backlog rate.

It also corresponds with a report last year that illegal immigrants self-deported at a record rate, preserving their right to reapply to come to the U.S. legally.

CIS continued:

Throughout the Biden administration, DHS and most in the media portrayed the illegal migrants pouring into this country as bedraggled innocents fleeing from persecution, war, famine, gripping poverty, and/or “climate change”, cast into a bewildering and complex legal system they needed government-paid lawyers to navigate.

Respectfully, those migrants’ ability to contract with criminal smuggling organizations and evade authorities on the journey to the United States should have called such characterizations into question from the beginning, but if you really want to understand how savvy many of those illegal entrants really were, just look at the EOIR stats.

Here’s the cold reality: Millions of aliens came illegally under Biden, were released by DHS under the ruse of being “asylum seekers”, and were placed into removal proceedings to seek protection; tens to hundreds of thousands of them realized they could get work permits if they simply applied for asylum; and now — in increasing numbers — they aren’t coming to court because they never wanted asylum — they wanted to work.

There is no reason for an alien with a legit claim to skip court, because an asylum grant unlocks countless government benefits, places the beneficiary on a path to a green card and citizenship, and allows aliens to bring their immediate family to the United States.

The fact that they aren’t showing up in court and abandoning their applications underscores what their real intentions were all along.

If the American people didn’t feel like suckers before, when they were paying billions per month to care for tens of thousands of so-called “asylum seekers” arriving monthly, they should now. We all got played by migrants who claimed to seek protection but really wanted work permits, and the worst part is that the Biden administration likely realized what was happening in real time — and simply didn’t care.

And that’s what it’s really about — cheating the American voters into providing full rides for the world’s persecuted when in fact they weren’t persecuted at all/ They just wanted a full-ride whole-life foreign aid package including the promise of a U.S. passport and U.S. voting rights instead of living their lives in their home countries. We can also see the fakery exposed in the record numbers of self-deportations of the migrants, which was reported a couple weeks ago. If one is so scared of returning to one’s home country, why would it be a good idea to go back to it in order to preserve one’s right to apply to come to the U.S. legally?

It’s all coming out in the wash — and the press, the pols, and the NGOs which promoted this phony narrative about a global upsurge in persecution have a lot of explaining to do.

Image: Screenshot, VOA video, via YouTube.

Related Topics: Illegal Immigration

View & Add Comments10

SUPPORT AMERICAN THINKER

Now more than ever, the ability to speak our minds is crucial to the republic we cherish. If what you see on American Thinker resonates with you, please consider supporting our work with a donation of as much or as little as you can give. Every dollar contributed helps us pay our staff and keep our ideas heard and our voices strong. Thank you.https://givebutter.com/embed/c/WhA2EO?goalBar=false&gba_gb.element.id=gkx27p