March 15, 2026

WAKE-UP CALL FOR A SLEEPING GIANT: Review: Mobilize: How to Reboot the American Industrial Base and Stop World War III by Shyam Sankar and Madeline Hart.

With the Cold War’s end, the triumphant West indulged in what Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently called “dangerous delusions.” The United States and its compatriots believed that every nation would eventually become a liberal democracy, that trade and commerce would be liberalizing forces, and that “international law” and not military force would be the final arbitrator.

All of these beliefs have been proven false. China and Russia and their allies in Iran, North Korea, and elsewhere don’t want to join the family of nations. Rather, they want to tear down the American-led global order. While the United States and its allies pretended that the basic rules of geopolitics didn’t exist, their enemies knew otherwise.

The West was outsourcing a key component of national power—manufacturing—that China wholeheartedly embraced. Beijing made itself the “factory of the world” using its industrial power to gain leverage over huge swaths of the globe, the United States included. And that leverage comes with a steep cost.

While we believed that manufacturing and tech could be separated, China was busy building. By some estimates, China now has 232 times the shipbuilding capacity that America possesses. In 2024 alone, it’s estimated that one Chinese firm built more ships by tonnage than the United States has in the eight decades since World War II. We now find ourselves in a place where, according to most war games, this country would run out of key munitions in a war with China in mere weeks, perhaps even days.

The Allies won World War II thanks to America’s fabled “Arsenal of Democracy.” We outproduced the Axis powers, fielding munitions and weapons that were essential to a hard-fought victory. In 1943, Joseph Stalin acknowledged as much, toasting “American production, without which this war would have been lost.”

The victors of that war knew something that future generations in the West would tragically forget: Industrial power wins wars.

Related: War Factories: YouTube Documentary Series Explores How the Allies’ Assembly Lines Pulverized the Axis.

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

ROGER SIMON: What US Taking Kargh Island Will Mean.

U.S. Marines taking control of Kargh Island, from which Iran exports 90% of the oil products that dominate its economy, might not end the war altogether—there will still be outliers; Iran is a big place—but it would go a long way towards doing so.

It would virtually put the already-wobbling mullahs out of business and have myriad ramifications, from quickly lowering oil prices and inflation with it for the world, not to mention making Donald Trump a hero as we head into the November elections, thus driving the Democrats crazy.

No wonder many of them want Iran to win, covertly or overtly. For others, the self-described “liberals,” it must be more than a little disconcerting for them not to engage in full-throated condemnation of a regime led by sadistic misogynists who murder wounded protestors in their hospital beds. Supporting freedom was always their self-image.

Be that as it may, at this moment it looks as if it is full steam ahead, figuratively and literally, for the invasion of Kargh. The U.. S. force, featuring the USS Tripoli, left Japan March 14 and should reach the island by late March, just before President Trump is scheduled to meet with President Xi in Beijing. A squadron of F-35B Lightning IIs that are capable of vertical takeoffs will doubtless be in the vicinity sooner.

“Just before President Trump is scheduled to meet with President Xi in Beijing,” huh? Why, it’s as if: Trump’s ultimate target in this war is China.

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

SUCKING IN THE SEVENTIES:

Tweet concludes, “‘Why don’t we know this? Why does no major book teach it?!’ Well, now — THAT’S a damn good question.”

To answer that question, let’s explore a similar one:

Hollywood has actually made two films on this topic — and both times, their directors, industry superstars Sidney Lumet in 1988, and Robert Redford in 2012, made the most sympathetic characters the bad guys setting the bombs. Why, it’s as if:

UPDATE: George MF Washington from 2023 on Hollywood’s change of worldview: When the Bad Guys Became the Good Guys.

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE: Tucker Carlson Claims He’s the Subject of Criminal Probe Over Iran.

Tucker Carlson claims the CIA is preparing a criminal referral against him to the Department of Justice. For what, exactly? Well, according to Tucker, it’s for talking to people in Iran before the war started.

“So the other day I found out that the CIA is preparing some kind of criminal referral against me, a crime report, to the Department of Justice on the basis of a supposed crime I committed,” Carlson said in a video posted to X. “What’s that crime? Well, talking to people in Iran before the war.”

The potential charge, according to Tucker, is a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which would classify him as an agent of a foreign power.

“They read my texts,” he alleged. “So the crime under consideration apparently would be the Foreign Agent Act or something like that, acting as an agent of a foreign power.”

Despite this, Tucker insists he’s not losing sleep over it. “I don’t expect this to go anywhere,” he said. “I’m not too worried about an actual criminal case against me for a bunch of reasons. One, I’m not an agent of a foreign power, unlike a lot of people commenting on U.S. politics and global affairs. I have only one loyalty, and that’s the United States, and have never acted against it.”

More here: Did Tucker Carlson Just Get Caught Giving the Iranian Regime Intelligence?

 

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

DO BETTER DOED: Education Department sits on nearly 400 college discrimination complaints from one activist. “The U.S. Department of Education has not been responding to questions about a backlog of complaints, including nearly 400 from civil rights activist Mark Perry alleging race and sex-related discrimination in higher education.Some disability rights organizations have also expressed frustration with the office, agreeing its response time is slow. Perry flags programs that are open only to female students, or only to students of color, in violation of federal civil rights laws.”

Posted at 10:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT THE WAY I HAD HOPED: Meta Glasses Send Nude, Bathroom Photos Unknowingly to Kenyan Workers for Review.

Meta Glasses sends video and audio recordings to human reviewers in Nairobi, Kenya, according to a recent investigative journalism report from Svenska Dagbladet, a Swedish outlet. This includes sensitive recordings of naked bodies, bathroom activities, and unblurred bank card numbers. “In a large office complex, long rows of employees sit in front of computer screens,” Svenska Dagbladet reports. Thousands of people work at this center for a Meta subcontractor, Sama. They review the images and audio sent across the world by often unsuspecting users of Meta’s innovative VR Glasses.

The investigation included interviews with workers at the data annotation center who have all signed non-disclosure agreements and thus are speaking anonymously to the journalists.

“We see everything – from living rooms to naked bodies,” one worker said. “Meta has that type of content in its databases. People can record themselves in the wrong way and not even know what they are recording. They are real people like you and me.”

* * * * * * * *

This report comes as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is facing multiple lawsuits alleging failures to keep children safe on his social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook.

Flashback to 2019: Facebook Paid Contractors to Transcribe Users’ Audio Chats:

Facebook Inc. has been paying hundreds of outside contractors to transcribe clips of audio from users of its services, according to people with knowledge of the work.

The work has rattled the contract employees, who are not told where the audio was recorded or how it was obtained — only to transcribe it, said the people, who requested anonymity for fear of losing their jobs. They’re hearing Facebook users’ conversations, sometimes with vulgar content, but do not know why Facebook needs them transcribed, the people said.

Facebook confirmed that it had been transcribing users’ audio and said it will no longer do so, following scrutiny into other companies. “Much like Apple and Google, we paused human review of audio more than a week ago,” the company said Tuesday.

As Christine Rosen of Commentary wrote that year in an article titled “What Is To Be Done About Facebook?” This is a standard pattern for Facebook when caught: “From the company’s earliest days, Facebook’s leaders have adopted a remarkably consistent approach to the exposure of problems and missteps: a mercenary variation of the ‘ask for forgiveness, not permission’ strategy. Any time the company does something irresponsible or privacy-violating, Zuckerberg issues an apology on Facebook and Sandberg appears on television programs to reassure an anxious world that Facebook will do better. As Zeynep Tufekci observed in Wired: ‘By 2008, Zuckerberg had written only four posts on Facebook’s blog: Every single one of them was an apology or an attempt to explain a decision that had upset users.’”

(Via Small Dead Animals.)

 

Posted at 10:14 am by Ed Driscoll

PAST PERFORMANCE ART IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Shot: Sweden charges Greta Thunberg for blockading oil port.

—The BBC, July 6th*, 2023.

Chaser:

Earlier: Cuba Becomes The First Country To Reach Net Zero. Shouldn’t We Be Celebrating?

* Greta found a new grift after October 7th of that year: Israeli official slams Greta Thunberg after she backs Palestinians in Gaza.

Posted at 10:14 am by Ed Driscoll

I SUSPECT THAT MONEY, AND POSSIBLY BLACKMAIL, ARE BEHIND THIS:

Posted at 9:47 am by Glenn Reynolds

PRIORITIES:

You don’t have to be paranoid to read something sinister into that.

Posted at 9:36 am by Stephen Green

NEO: One movie after another.

The Oscars are tomorrow, and about a week ago I watched the first half hour of the movie One Battle After Another, nominated for Best Picture and several other awards. I was visiting a friend who lives at one of those large complexes for older people, and they show a movie for free every week. She wanted to take a look at that one, and so I went too.

But after a half hour of the movie we both left.

Simply put, it was the worst movie I’ve ever seen, bar none. Let me count the ways in which it was bad – no, maybe that’s impossible, because it was awful in every way. Its terribleness was absolutely astonishing.

Earlier: ‘One Battle After Another’ Is Irredeemable.

And from the Critical Drinker:

Posted at 8:44 am by Ed Driscoll

STRATEGERY:

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

IT’S THE DEMOGRAPHY, STUPID:

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 8:14 am by Ed Driscoll

MUCH MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE:

Tweet continues, “You do get he’s basically walking on water. Making every elected hack, bureaucrat and diplomat of the last 40 years or so look like dithering incompetent fools, when they weren’t actively and despicably enabling said dictatorships, that is. Could it all go wrong? Yeah. But for the first time since Ronald Reagan blew up the Soviet Union, someone’s trying.”

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Related thoughts here. “If the public realizes you can actually solve problems, there will be more pressure to do that — rather than just manage them endlessly.”

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll

LOCK THEM UP:

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

DISPATCHES FROM M-SNOW:

But Democrats with lavaliers and Chyrons already took us down this route 14 years ago: Mark Steyn: Racist dog whistles and the men who hear them.

And so it goes with American racism: The less there is, the more extravagantly the racism-awareness lobby patrols its beat. The Walmart carding clerks of the media are ever more alert to those who “appear to be” racist. On MSNBC, Chris Matthews declared this week that Republicans use “Chicago” as a racist code word. Not to be outdone, his colleague Lawrence O’Donnell pronounced “golf” a racist code word. When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell observed that Obama was “working to earn a spot on the PGA tour,” O’Donnell brilliantly perceived that subliminally associating Obama with golf is racist, because the word “golf” is subliminally associated with “Tiger Woods,” and the word “Tiger” is not-so-subliminally associated with cocktail waitress Jamie Grubbs, nightclub hostess Rachel Uchitel, lingerie model Jamie Jungers, former porn star Holly Sampson, etc, etc. So by using the word “golf” you’re sending a racist dog whistle that Obama is a sex addict who reverses over fire hydrants.

Last year, MSNBC considered Sydney Sweeney’s jeans a racist dog whistle: MSNBC Goes Full Racist, Attacking Sydney Sweeney Ad Campaign.

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll

THE GREATEST ENTHUSIASM FOR COMMUNISM REMAINING IS FOUND AMONG UNDERGRADUATES AND THEIR PROFESSORS:

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds