VDH: The Newsom Nightmare: Why California’s Elites Refuse to Face Reality.

Every time Gov. Gavin Newsom is presented with a critique of his leadership, he said, “We’re the fifth-largest economy in the world.” He never says that I’ve driven out oil refineries. I prohibited pipeline construction. I drove out the timber industry, and that I, as a San Francisco County official, as a mayor of San Francisco, as a lieutenant governor of the state, and as governor, I’ve had over 32 years, and no one is more responsible for California as it is today than Gavin Newsom.

No, he won’t talk about any of these problems. He just talks about Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump. He has these nasty sort of Truth Social people who use capital letters, foul language, and threaten people. I’m gonna hit Trump in the mouth, or people in Europe got on their knee pads, kind of foul imagery, thinks it’s really neat.

He gives these interviews where he kind of wiggles his shoulders, but he doesn’t talk about his record. So how did we get here if they didn’t tell us? How did a state that was well-governed and had a natural paradise and was the envy of all 50 states in matters of energy production, defense, production, tripartite higher education system, a solid K-12 educational, system, great infrastructure—

Why would the American Trucking Association say, “I don’t want you driving on the 99 or north-south lateral”? Most dangerous highway in the nation per miles driven. What happened? Well, how did these people come to power? The first thing was that we had an explosion in technology in the 1970s and ’80s, and due to the location of Stanford University and UC Berkeley, in between was Silicon Valley.

And that boomed as the creators of everything from computers to iPhones to iPads to Adobe to everything. Now it’s AI, and that has now ballooned to $14 or $15 trillion in market capitalization, and it’s left-wing. At least it was until recently. The state has turned on them. We’ll see what happens.

The short version is that California’s elites refuse to face reality because it still remains profitable not to.

But as VDH said, we’ll see what happens.

AN INDUSTRY THAT PRODUCES TOXIC INTELLECTUAL WASTE: The connection between academia and political violence, explained.

ROBERT SPENCER: Waging War on the Time Clock. “The November election is coming, and Iran will be an issue. It could still be an issue in the 2028 presidential election. The Democrats are certain to claim, whatever is really happening, that Trump has gotten us mired in a needless ‘quagmire’ there.”

DIVERSITY PROBLEM: Faculty at largest U.S. Catholic university donated over $140k to the left during 2026 cycle, analysis finds.

NO MORE FREE RIDES: Saudi warplanes struck Iran-backed militias in Iraq during war, sources say.

Saudi fighter jets bombed targets linked to powerful Tehran-backed Shi’ite militias in Iraq during the Iran war, while retaliatory strikes were also launched from Kuwait into Iraq, multiple sources familiar with the matter said.

The strikes are part of a broader pattern of military responses around the Gulf that remained largely hidden during a conflict that began with US-Israeli attacks on Iran and has spread to the wider Middle East.

For this report, Reuters spoke to three Iraqi security and military officials, a Western official, and two people briefed on the matter, one of them in the US.

The Saudi strikes were carried out by Saudi air force fighter jets on Iran-linked militia targets near the kingdom’s northern border with Iraq, one Western official and the person briefed on the matter said. The Western official said some strikes took place around the time of the April 8 US-Iran ceasefire.

They targeted sites from which drone and missile attacks were launched at Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, the sources said.

Plus: UAE secretly launched strikes on Iran during war, attacked oil refinery.

THAT’S HOW THEY KNEW HE WAS TALKING ABOUT THEM, DUH:

He literally says “fraudsters” in the video that this tweet sits above. https://t.co/qoEqqTxPCy

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) May 15, 2026

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: We Never Want to Hear ‘House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries.’ “One thing is fairly certain, however. If the Republicans don’t manage to pass the SAVE America Act, it won’t be long before the Democrats get their one-party rule fantasy and we’re all wearing Pride flag gulag jumpsuits.”

I HOPE OTHER RESERVOIRS ARE NOW BEING CHECKED AND GUARDED:  ‘Unprecedented Threat:’ Routine Maintenance Found an IED at an Alabama Dam.

SKIN IN THE GAME: Trump, Bessent Say China May Help Reopen Strait of Hormuz.

Bessent, speaking to CNBC from Beijing, said reopening the waterway is “very much” in China’s interest and predicted Beijing would work “behind the scenes” to influence Iranian leaders. Reuters reported Bessent said, “I think they’re going to do what they can” to help reopen the strait.

Trump, in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, said Chinese President Xi Jinping “would love to be a help” and wants to see the strategically vital shipping lane reopened.

But China itself has not publicly committed to any concrete intervention or mediation effort aimed specifically at forcing Iran to reopen the strait.

Instead, Beijing has issued broader diplomatic statements calling for stability, restraint and the preservation of commercial shipping routes.

Iran is a global pariah and China wants to be a global player.

Maybe Beijing can and will help promote freedom of navigation in an internationally responsible way.

Or maybe inviting PLAN in to help will turn out to be a big mistake.

ROGER SIMON’S “FANTASTICALLY IMPORTANT POLITICAL NOVEL.”

KILLER INSTINCT: Republicans Move To Wipe Out Democrat Seats In Louisiana, South Carolina: Republican-led Southern states have raced to redraw their congressional maps after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision two weeks ago.

WHY WOULD DEMOCRATS ATTACK THEIR OWN?

The America-hating Left is not attacking Tucker, Megyn, Fuentes, or Candace. They’re attacking Ben.

Understand what’s going on here. https://t.co/aRyWjmeJXu

— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) May 15, 2026

Earlier: Tucker Carlson Gets His Big-Media Smooch from the New York Times.

ICYMI: Wait, China Is Gonna Buy Oil From WHERE?

AT AMAZON, Shop the Memorial Day Sale. #CommissionEarned

COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: Times Columnist Kristof’s Father Fought on Nazi Side in World War II: Hamas prison-rape-dog propagandist’s dad also defended Vichy war criminal, then committed suicide after decades of nightmares.

IMPRESSIVE. MOST IMPRESSIVE:

AOC will look at this and unironically declare that Elon is one of the stupidest people alive and not an engineer pic.twitter.com/KbLp8COMPQ

— Arthur MacWaters (@ArthurMacwaters) May 14, 2026

The New Space Race really is SpaceX vs. the world.

SHARK SANDWICH:

Spencer Pratt: “We need to clean up homeless camps, get rid of the drug addicted everywhere, prepare for fires better, and lower taxes.”

Nithya Raman: “We need to ban the normals from cooking hamburgers.”

The right vs. left paradigm perfectly illustrated. https://t.co/MyroYSR76X

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) May 15, 2026

Okay, but to be fair, given L.A.’s perilously high concentration of Democrats, Raman may simply trying to protect them from themselves:

WHCD ATTACK REVISITED: One Loser Got Far Too Close… So What Happens When Four Pros Show Up? “The mental lightweight amateur was stopped cold the first time around. But four trained professionals? You know America’s enemies are thinking about it after watching the near success of Mr. Call of Duty. Pros wouldn’t be livestreaming or hesitating. They’d roll up on that checkpoint locked and loaded with suppressed rifles, plate carriers, comms, and a plan honed from hard experience in real war zones.”

JOHN ROBERTS COULD PUT A STOP TO THIS: SCOTUS Liberals Caught Slow-Walking Another Ruling To Help Dems.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE:

NEW: In a mandatory anti-racism class, Penn State told 1L law students they must "acknowledge the reality of systemic racism" and "dismantle systems that racialize, subordinate, and oppress."

One student withdrew from the law school over the class. We obtained shocking audio.🧵 pic.twitter.com/zPxbqVY0K8

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2026

“Credentialed, not educated” has rarely seemed so relevant.

THE CHICAGO WAY: Spencer Pratt Can Win Because Angry People Vote. Just Ask Former Chicago Mayor Michael Bilandic.

DISHONESTY:

This overt racism would be bad enough in ordinary university admissions. It is made so much worse by the fact that it's a prestigious medical school that trains the doctors we will one day trust with our lives. pic.twitter.com/vffOlBt7Rs

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) May 14, 2026

FROM L. A. GREGORY:  Hawkwing: A Novel of the Bitterlands.

#CommissionEarned

Kestrel’s land is scarred in ways its inhabitants cannot begin to understand, built on long-poisoned earth and menaced by twisted plants and animals. Farmers, hunters, and magic-users fight a long battle to create safe havens and reclaim lost ground, but their casualties mount over generations. Kestrel knows little and cares less about the patterns that shape her world. She’s a shapechanger and healer who has spent the handful of years since reaching womanhood cleansing the wildlife of her blighted land with medicine and magic. Sure of her place and confident in her skills, she takes care of her own and doesn’t poke at things that don’t concern her. But when she returns from a routine journey with her brother to find her home ransacked and empty, Kestrel must gather her remaining family and search for new allies before old magic and older hatred rob her kin of their freedom, their lives, and possibly their souls.

AND IT WILL HAVE THE SAME RESULTS:  New York Following Cuba’s Strategy For Powering The Electrical Grid.

BEHOLD, MY SHOCKED FACE:  Democrats Tell Pollsters They’d Happily Ditch Black Districts To Get More Power.