April 7, 2026

VDH: The Left Is Baffled—but Still Repulsed—by the White Working Class.

Democrats realize that their fixations on biological males competing in women’s sports, open borders and millions of illegal entries, radical green agendas, DEI-driven racial essentialism, and massive government entitlements rife with fraud have alienated the middle classes in general and white middle- and working-class voters in particular.

But since Democrat ideologues cannot shed their ideological straitjackets, they have instead tried to finesse the very problem that cost them the 2024 election.

They recall, in particular, the successful blueprint that won them the 2020 election. During that campaign, Joe Biden largely remained out of public view, hiding in his basement, while his handlers reconstructed him as a kind of waxen effigy of “good ol’ Joe from Scranton,” a throwback to the 1970s.

Once the cognitively diminished Biden was elected, his hard-left, Obama-era operatives behind that ossified, working-man veneer enacted the most radical four-year agenda in modern American history.

On the one hand, Democrats claim they will field candidates who can at least playact as good ol’ boy farmers and salt-of-the-earth welders.

The 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate, Humpty Dumpty lookalike Tim Walz, talked incessantly about driving a pickup truck. He assured us he could change its oil and tried to portray himself as a genuine hunter. Yet these claims often came across as inauthentic, strained, and condescending; the more Walz tried to present himself as a man of the people, the more he appeared buffoonish.

The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg, became a caricature of the sanctimonious, credentialed technocrat—self-righteously and arrogantly projecting expertise without much humility or even a shred of the common touch. As transportation secretary, Buttigieg used to pontificate about racist freeway clover leaves, rather than addressing the more immediate problems posed by the gridlocked and decrepit condition of the nation’s highways.

Now, as the 2028 election looms, Buttigieg has followed Democratic central casting and undergone a complete reboot, reemerging with a beard, a trucker cap, and a flannel shirt.

No matter, he still sounds as pedantic as ever in his riff on green energy and “diversity.”

Does Buttigieg’s love of green energy and hatred of racist roads mean he won’t be eating many carburetors for breakfast in his campaign ads?

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

JUDGE HIM BY THE WAR-CRIME APPLAUDING COMPANY HE KEEPS:

Posted at 4:04 pm by Stephen Green

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: A deep dive into Colorado’s billion-dollar budget deficit.

In a recent episode of Independence Institute’s* public affairs TV show, Devil’s Advocate, host Jon Caldara and the state’s chief economist, Greg Sobetski, dive deep into Colorado’s more than one billion-dollar budget shortfall, finding, among other things, pandemic-era funding, rising Medicaid costs, and federal tax changes as major culprits.

Sobetski explains that during COVID, Colorado enjoyed a glut of federal aid and higher-than-expected revenues. Rather than using that money for short-term needs, the legislature instead spent down those reserves propping up ongoing spending obligations, leaving lawmakers scrambling to sustain a bigger state budget without the one-time money that had been keeping things afloat.

The two also look at runaway Medicaid spending, with Caldara arguing Colorado expanded the program too far, including able-bodied adults and illegal immigrants, and now risks harming more vulnerable recipients when the inevitable cuts come.

The podcast is titled, “Is Colorado Broke?”

We’re still on the “gradually” part, but the “suddenly” part always comes, well, suddenly.

Posted at 3:49 pm by Stephen Green

COLONIALISM, STRAIGHT UP:

Ask yourself why Western elites freak out about any kind of colonialism — except Islamic.

Posted at 3:02 pm by Stephen Green

RELIGIOUS FERVER: The Legacy of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” 20 Years Later. “Gore’s orations perfectly followed the script of the “New Apocalypticism”: The identification of an existential crisis, the diagnosis of human sin as its cause, the urgency of transformation, and the comfort of redemption for those who heed the warning. The climate science community readily embraced this script and adopted the language of believers and deniers to differentiate those with faith and those yet to be converted, and who risked excommunication.”

Whatever that is, it ain’t science.

Posted at 2:47 pm by Stephen Green

ARTEMIS RETURNING STUNNING NEW IMAGES FROM THE FAR SIDE:

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

GRAY ZONE? NO, THAT’S RIGHT IN THE RED:

Posted at 2:31 pm by Stephen Green

BREAKER MORANT: THE NEXT GENERATION. Australia’s most decorated living veteran to be charged with committing 5 war crime murders in Afghanistan.

Australia’s most decorated living veteran, Ben Roberts-Smith, faces war crime charges on allegations that he killed five unarmed Afghans while serving in Afghanistan from 2009 and 2012, police and media reported on Tuesday.

Police have not confirmed the name of the 47-year-old former soldier who was arrested on Tuesday. But he has been widely reported in the media to be Roberts-Smith, a former Special Air Service Regiment corporal who was awarded both the Victoria Cross and Medal of Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan.

He is expected to appear in a Sydney court late Tuesday or Wednesday, police said.

Plus, great moments in DEI:

 

Maybe she’s just back from Stalingrad:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

BUT OF COURSE!

Posted at 1:57 pm by Glenn Reynolds

MORE FROM DOWN UNDER:

Key bit:

It is 2026. The accused, who happens to be the most decorated Australian living veteran, was arrested for accusations dating back 16 and more years ago.

This isn’t justice in any way shape or form. This is something else altogether.

If he were to be charged, it should have been a decade and a half ago, at the latest.

They’ve already bankrupted him last year with legal fees in a defamation trial where he has been asked to pay $30 million dollars (Australian) in legal fees.

Between this and what the UK is doing to pensioners who served in Northern Ireland decades ago, there is something very wrong in the Commonwealth with our Five-Eyes allies.

“Allies” is pushing it these days. Which feels very strange to say, after growing up with the “special relationship” and the knowledge that Australia fought alongside us in all of our wars since 1945, including Vietnam.

Posted at 1:57 pm by Stephen Green

WELL, YES: Europe should secure the Strait. “The US has too many other interests — both in the Middle East and beyond — to be Israel’s unconstrained ally in its endless fight for survival. And then there is the sharp “post-heroic” asymmetry between the two nations. American tolerance for war casualties is certainly still higher than Europe’s, where President Macron abandoned 1.9 million square miles across the Sahel, long secured by just 5,000 French troops, to the jihadis, apparently terrified that 10 might be killed at once. When that number of French troops died on a single day in Afghanistan, President Sarkozy’s presidency was irredeemably ruined.”

Europe should, but can’t.

Posted at 1:45 pm by Stephen Green

FINALLY, BRITAIN HAS CLOSED ITS BORDERS: Kanye West banned from Britain.

Kanye West has been blocked from entering Britain after a row over his anti-Semitic comments.

Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, prevented the American rapper’s visit to headline the Wireless Festival on the grounds that his presence would “not be conducive to the public good”.

The organisers of the north London music festival said the entire event had been cancelled as a result.

It is understood that West had applied for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) to enter Britain on Monday, but sources confirmed that the Government had denied him entry.

The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism said the Home Office had “clearly made the right decision”.

A spokesman added: “It’s nice that now Wireless is saying anti-Semitism in all its forms is abhorrent, when just a few hours ago the festival promoter was saying we all need to forgive Kanye for declaring himself a full-blown Nazi, only recently.

Exit quote:

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

NOPE, NEVER WAS:

But this is illegal:

Posted at 1:29 pm by Stephen Green

JOHN NOLTE: Newsom’s Wife Wants Legislation to Stop Boys from Becoming Right-Wing.

She wants to “institutionalize” her and her husband’s values so that they “carry on beyond our term.”

OUR term, she says, because she sees herself as co-governor.

Gavin Newsom is a lot of things, all of them terrible, but he is not dumb, so he must understand the damage his narcissistic wife is doing to his 2028 presidential aspirations. For all the mistakes made by the 2024 Kamala Harris presidential campaign, they were at least smart enough to hide running mate Tim Walz’s dreadfully unappealing wife.

This is the second video in less than a week that reveals Jennifer Lynn Siebel Newsom-Ocasio-Rodham as something of a loon and wildly out of touch with mainstream America.

Last week, a video surfaced of her bragging about giving her sons dolls and gender-swapping bedtime stories.

The real question is, why is she doing this? Why is she inserting herself into her husband’s presidential campaign?

Her husband’s presidential campaign?

And if you missed it this morning, further thoughts from Steve at the PJ Mothership: Jennifer Siebel Newsom Is the Crazy Rich White Lady Your Mother Warned You About.

“The gov and I, we have three more years,” as Siebel Newsom said in that clip. “We’re trying to institutionalize our values so that they carry on beyond our term.”

I mean, couldn’t we just teach little boys to read and let them make up their own minds as they reach adulthood?

The question is rhetorical, of course. Siebel Newsom doesn’t even allow that with her own children — according to Newsom, herself. This next clip is undated, but in it, she boasts about how she reads to her young sons: “If I’m reading a book and the protagonist is a male, I just change the he to a she.”

Maybe that seems like a small thing. But I say that taking male heroes away from little boys through gender-swapping is a form of ideological emasculation. You want your sons to turn pimps like Tate for role models? That right there is how you do it. If our little boys are becoming radicalized, it’s crazy rich Democrat ladies like Siebel Newsom doing it.

The bad news is there’s no way the decent people of this country can allow her to become First Lady.

The good news is… have you seen her husband? He’s the crazy rich dude too awkward — and too white and straight — for Democratic presidential primary voters.

I bet that drives her crazy.

Exit quote:

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll