April 13, 2026

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Eric Swalwell’s Gubernatorial Bid Gets Hit By the #MeToo Train. “Getting Swalwell completely out of politics seems like it would be overwhelmingly positive for the United States of America, but these are the 21st century Democrats we’re talking about here. As I have written on many occasions, the Democrats always have someone worse waiting in the wings. In this case, someone much, much worse.”

Posted at 9:05 am by Stephen Green

OOF:

There’s also this:

Partly because so much of government is made up of people like Swalwell and Porter — everybody has something on everybody.

But maybe mostly because Swalwell was useful, but now he isn’t.

Posted at 8:49 am by Stephen Green

JONATHAN LEAF: News That’s Been Drowned Out By The Sound of Battle, Part III.

Under pressure from the United States, the government of Cuba pardoned and released 2,010 political prisoners.

The total number of people who have died in Canada in legal assisted suicides may soon pass 100,000. That’s more than twice as many Canadians as lost their lives in World War II. Moreover, in 2025 roughly one of every twenty Canadians who passed on did so in a case that the Canadian government labeled as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID).

There’s been a dramatic change in the rate of acceptance of American immigration asylum claims. During the Biden administration, the rate went up and down, but it was typically around 50%. This led to some embarrassing cases in which immigrants were granted asylum in the United States and then publicly endorsed the oppressive policies of the countries that they claimed to have been obliged to flee. The Trump administration has fostered a much more restrictive regime, and approval rates have dropped all the way down to 7%.

The U.S. Postal Service is rapidly going broke. Its losses are piling up so fast that it’s asked Congress if it can stop putting money aside for its contributions to its workers’ pension plans. It’s also seeking a $19.4 billion boost in the amount of debt it can carry on its books and a 4-cent increase in the cost of a regular postal letter stamp, which would go up in price to 82 cents.

If you’re wondering why so much business and so many people are re-locating to Austin, Texas, you might wish to take note of a recently published study by the Pew Research Center on apartment and home construction in the city. As in much of Texas, this is relatively unregulated. The study found that over a nine-year period concluding in 2024, 120,000 new units of housing were built in Austin. This increased the total by 30 percent. During that same period, average monthly rents in the city fell from $1,546 to 1,296. The average monthly rental in Manhattan costs more than $5,000 per month.

If you build it, they will come.

Posted at 8:41 am by Glenn Reynolds

EPIC FURY: This Is No Longer a Ceasefire — It’s a Strategic Pause.

The brief ceasefire announced on April 8 serves distinct strategic purposes. While Iran utilizes this window to recover from initial kinetic impacts, the U.S. decision to pause is a calculated combination of military, economic, and political factors:

• Stabilization and Battle Damage Assessment (BDA): Following successful strikes, military logic dictates a pause to secure achievements. This window allows U.S. intelligence to analyze material and personnel losses, assess remaining resistance capacity, and re-coordinate forces for the next phase.

• Managed Warfare: By demonstrating the ability to halt and restart operations, the U.S. signals that this is a “controlled war.” This was immediately reflected in the stabilization of global oil prices, mitigating market panic.

• Diplomatic Ultimatum: In high-level geopolitics, a pause initiated by the stronger side is a method of “Pressure Through Pause.” It allows Washington to present final diplomatic ultimatums while simultaneously finalizing logistics and ally coordination.

• Domestic Political Signaling: Internally, the pause reassures the American public that the administration is avoiding an open-ended entanglement, framing the conflict as a precise, results-oriented operation.

• Psychological Disruption of the Ruling Elite: President Trump’s repeated signals that current Iranian negotiators are viewed by Washington as part of Iran’s future governance add a profound layer of psychological warfare to this ceasefire. By engaging the “next generation” of leadership, the U.S. intentionally sows seeds of distrust and paranoia within the current hierarchy. This window is designed to trigger internal friction, suspicion, and potential fractures among the ruling elite, as they begin to question each other’s loyalty to the current order.

More to come…

Posted at 8:34 am by Stephen Green

I GUESS WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE ANY WARSHIPS, CALLING A CONFERENCE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO.

Posted at 8:29 am by Glenn Reynolds

IT’S A REGION WITH LONG MEMORIES:

But, hey, if the Turks want to play the nationalist card, why not the Greeks, too?

Posted at 8:18 am by Stephen Green

THIS IS THE MORAL STRUCTURE OF HIS PARTY:

Posted at 8:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

DON’T ASK HER TOUGH QUESTIONS, SHE’LL JUST CACKLE AND CHANGE THE SUBJECT:

Posted at 7:56 am by Glenn Reynolds

VICHA RATANAPAKDEE’S KILLER SHOULD BE IN PRISON:  One of my favorite tech titans–Garry Tan–writes here about one of the reasons Grandpa Vicha’s vicious killer Antoine Watson walked free:  The organizations that led the “Stop AAPI Hate” campaigns a few years back (and purported to represent the Asian American community on crime issues) were left-wingers–like the ridiculous “Chinese for Affirmative Action”– with a deep belief in the progressive “deincarceration” agenda.  They liked to complain about crime (especially “hate crime”), but they didn’t really want to do anything about it other than make money off it and force law-abiding citizens to sit through tedious “anti-hate training.”  I wrote about the same issue here.

Posted at 7:54 am by Gail Heriot

WELL, TRUMP DID JUST KNEECAP A COMPETITOR:

Posted at 7:47 am by Stephen Green

THE NEW SPACE RACE: The Artemis II mission has ended. Where does NASA go from here?

The biggest questions for Artemis III and Artemis IV involve the development of lunar landers by SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Ars recently interviewed NASA’s chief of exploration, Lori Glaze, and she said both companies are making a “real commitment” toward meeting NASA’s needs. But both companies have a long way to go from the prototype hardware they’re currently testing to specialized landers capable of safely landing on (and taking off from) the Moon.

Even for Artemis III, a simpler mission closer to Earth, there are serious challenges. SpaceX and Blue Origin must go through NASA’s extensive “human rating” process for their Starship and Blue Moon vehicles, respectively, before they can approach and dock with Orion.

Also, it is non-trivial for SpaceX and Blue Origin to integrate with Orion, which has fairly strict limits for thermal management and other issues. Even ensuring roughly equivalent cabin pressures between two vehicles is a significant task. Completing all of this within the next 12 to 18 months will be a difficult hill to climb.

Then, for Artemis IV, there are even greater hurdles. For SpaceX, the company must test and then become efficient at refueling Starship in low-Earth orbit for a trip to the Moon, and back. And Blue Origin, which has very limited experience in spaceflight operations, must develop a more capable version of its Blue Moon Mk. 1 lander, which is itself untested.

Both companies must also learn to operate in lunar orbit, and master landing their vehicles on the Moon and then subsequently lifting them off from the lunar surface.

There is no question that lunar lander readiness is the longest pole for both Artemis III and Artemis IV.

Starship development has been in a bit of a lull, but this looks promising:

“The best part is no part.”

Posted at 7:32 am by Stephen Green

JUST ASSUME EVERYTHING FROM THEM IS A LIE AND YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG:

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO SENT EMAIL MESSAGES ON SATURDAY TO DEFEAT THE NEW ACA7:  If you didn’t see my post on Saturday and would like to help me out by sending an quick email to 10 California state senators opposing ACA7, you can still access that post here.  There were several incorrect email addresses in my post on Saturday morning, but they have since been fixed.

I have a second request for those of you who are on Twitter/X.   I need my last four tweets/posts to be “liked” and “re-tweeted/reposted” as many times as possible.  Unfortunately, my tech skill leave something to be desired, and I have forgotten how to embed things, so all I can do is link to them.

Here they are:  Tweet #1, Tweet #2, Tweet #3, and Tweet #4.  (If you’re interested in my issues and want to follow me while you’re at it, that would be swell too.)

Loyal Instapundit readers may recall that I asked you to do this two years ago too, and it worked splendidly.  It was hugely important in showing the California legislators who were tagged that ACA7 was going to face stiff opposition.  These days Twitter/X works a little differently.  Elon Musk’s reforms were actually good, but they make it impossible to bury the tagged persons in little alerts in quite the same way.  Even so, getting a large number of “likes” and “re-tweets/re-posts” will be a big help.

For those of you who just woke up and have no idea what I’m taking about, here is the description, I gave of ACA7 in an earlier post:

THEY’RE BAAAACK!! AND NOW THEY WANT TO DISCRIMINATE BY RACE IN STUDENT FINANCIAL AID!!:  Legislators in the California Assembly are at it again—trying to gut Proposition 209, the history-making ballot initiative that amended the state constitution in 1996 to ban state-sponsored preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, or ethnicity.  And I literally mean “history-making.”  Paul Johnson’s History of the American People tells the story of America from the late 15th century to the end of the 20th.  Somehow (bless him) he found a wee bit of room to discuss Prop 209.  As the co-chair of that 1996 campaign, I’m darn proud of that.

This is the third time in six years that the Cal Legislature has moved to gut Prop 209’s ban on affirmative-action preferences.  In 2020, the Legislature put a referendum on the ballot to repeal Prop 209 entirely.  But it was THUMPINGLY defeated—over 57% of voters said NO—even though YES Campaign spent 14 times more than we did.  (I’m proud of having co-chaired that campaign too.)  In 2024, the Assembly approved a trickier version that would have empowered the governor to make an unlimited number of EXCEPTIONS to Prop 209.  But that version never made it past the Senate. Cooler heads prevailed there—largely because we descended on their offices, held rallies, and buried them in letters, emails, and tweets.

But they just can’t stop.  The newest effort would exempt public education from Prop 209’s coverage.  Given the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in the Harvard case, this bill does not try to exempt admissions in higher education.  But it exempts everything else.  The big-ticket items would be (1) discrimination in admission to programs for gifted and talented students at the Kindergarten-12th grade level; (2) discrimination funding of K-12 schools based on the racial composition of the students there; and (3) discrimination in financial aid in higher education.

I am confident ACA7 can be defeated in the Senate if we make enough noise.  Given what happened in 2020, they would have to be very silly to want to put this turkey on the ballot.  We will probably win at the ballot box (as we did in 2020).  Even if we don’t, any program established under ACA7 will likely be defeated in court.  And the Trump Administration will undertake to cut off the federal funding of California’s public universities and schools under Title VI.  All we have to do is remind the California Senate of that over and over again until it finally sinks in.

Posted at 7:27 am by Gail Heriot

NOAH SMITH IS ONE OF THOSE ENGAGEMENT FARMERS I USUALLY TRY TO AVOID:

Posted at 7:16 am by Stephen Green

AS USUAL IF YOU IGNORE THE NEWS YOU ARE UNINFORMED, IF YOU FOLLOW THE NEWS YOU ARE MISINFORMED:

Posted at 7:03 am by Glenn Reynolds