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Today, I recorded a Substack Live with Mike Pesca of The Gist. Mike’s a great interviewer, and in contrast to the previous Lives I’ve posted here, this was more of him interviewing me than the other way around. Still, I think you’ll enjoy the conversation; the full video is above. We touched on a bit of poker at the beginning, and New York mayoral stuff at the end. However, most of the conversation centered on the differences in mental attitudes between liberals and conservatives and how this may be affecting political outcomes. Mike had reached out after I published my...

Not long ago, blue states typically outperformed red ones when it came to education. That is changing. Blue states like Oregon and Washington experienced significant drops in reading and math scores for both fourth- and eighth-graders between 2015 and 2024, worse than the national declines during the same period. Mississippi, meantime, gained five points in fourth-grade reading and math and held steady in eighth-grade performance. Louisiana also maintained its scores, defying the negative national trends. Whether you call it the “Mississippi Miracle” or the “Southern Surge,” Republican-led states are rapidly improving student outcomes relative to blue states, thanks to a...

[snip] On Friday's edition of CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish described the anti-ICE activity in L.A. as "one of the kind of ultimate split-screen stories," in which some people see protests, while others see "fires and disorders." Responded CNN media analyst Sara Fischer: "The misinformation split screen reminds me a lot of January 6th . . . We had a very similar dynamic as well during the George Floyd protests, where it was a question of whether or not this was left-wing Antifa destroying stores, destroying glass fronts, or if it was folks on the right."Get the rest of...

According to political analyst Nate Silver, "the problem Democrats are having attracting male voters is that they are too mentally healthy to vote for Democrats. The Cooperative Election Study survey showed that 40% of Generation Z males consider their mental health to be "very good" or "excellent." In contrast, only 20% of Generation Z females say theirs is "very good" or "excellent." The same survey found that 51% of conservatives say their mental health is excellent. Only 20% of liberals say the same. When asked whether they have "poor mental health" 45% of liberals said yes. Only 19% of conservatives...

The problem with the courts is the same as the problem with many of our other institutions. Called the Skinsuit Phenomenon, after the great @Iowahawk’s famous tweet that perfectly sums up the leftist approach to marching through our society: “1. Identify a respected institution. 2. Kill it. 3. Gut it. 4. Wear its carcass as a skinsuit, while demanding respect. #lefties.” The courts are supposed to have respect because they’re supposed to do their job, but, as is so common these days, they’re not doing the job, yet they still expect the respect. That’s just not in the cards. Things...

In the United States, if Americans know anything about the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, it’s that the AfD are a bunch of Nazi-adjacent hooligans who threaten to return Germany to Hitlerism. They know this because that’s what the American media tell them. Very few will bother to go online to find the English-language version of AfD’s party platform. If they did, they would find a wealth of common sense, and proposals that sound like ordinary GOP positions, even before the Trumpening of the Republican Party. It’s the same thing in Europe, of course. In her speech last week at...

A June 2021 memo obtained by Just The News reveals the Biden Regime ordered federal prosecutors to investigate conservatives who spread disinformation, gun owners and active-duty servicemembers. Per John Solomon of Just The News: A newly released memo from June 2021 shows the Biden administration authorized federal law enforcement to target Americans engaged in “concerning non-criminal behavior.” According to declassified documents, Biden officials directed law enforcement to investigate individuals such as active-duty servicemen, gun owners, and people deemed to be spreading “disinformation.” No other information about the June 2021 memo was released as of Tuesday evening. BREAKING: Biden admin ordered...

Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre lost his own seat in Parliament in Monday’s election, but he has not resigned as leader of the party and some prominent Conservatives have spoken up to defend his position. “There is no doubt that Pierre Poilievre and his team ran an incredible campaign,” former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said in a post on social media platform X on Tuesday. Scheer noted that while the Conservatives came up short of forming a government, they won “the highest vote percentage in modern Conservative history” and “the most amount of total votes for our party,...

More Gen Z voters are shifting Republican, challenging past trends Gen Z was key in re-electing President Donald Trump JD Vance leads GOP among young voters; Kamala Harris tops Dems A growing political divide is emerging among Americans under 30, as more young voters are shifting toward the Republican Party, according to a recent poll. If the trend continues, it could significantly reshape the future of U.S. politics. While younger voters have traditionally leaned Democratic, Generation Z played a crucial role in reelecting President Trump last November. A new Yale Youth Poll, affiliated with the Yale Institution for Social and...

New FBI and Justice Department leadership is facing blowback from conservative activists for slow-walking a Freedom of Information Act request about Biden-era retaliation against agents with conservative views. FBI Director Kash Patel and his team are also being criticized for promoting an FBI official who led the hunt for Jan. 6, 2021, offenders. The conservative activists at Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Justice Department for FBI section chief Dena Perkins’ emails about whistleblower retaliation. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck E. Grassley identified Ms. Perkins as an official who retaliated against FBI agents for their conservative political beliefs, support...

The D.C. establishment seems confused about why President Donald Trump and his administration are doing so well with American voters. Still, if they had been paying attention, Vice President JD Vance explained this months ago. A post from a left-wing account came across my X feed over the weekend. It included a screenshot of an interview with Vance discussing how older Ohio voters understand national conservatism even if they don’t follow along online. [snip] “The left is committed to brain-dead Bidenism,” Vance said. “Biden’s entire political project is harmonizing various parts of the American left that don’t make any sense....

If you’ve ever had a rug pulled out from under you, then you know how it feels to suddenly lose access to your own bank account. That’s what happened to me in 2022, when JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank, abruptly canceled our newly opened account for the National Committee for Religious Freedom. I started NCRF after spending decades in public life, including three years in the first Trump administration serving as ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. The group proactively defends the constitutional freedom of religion so that all Americans can peaceably live according to their faith. Our advisory board includes...

A well-funded, highly organized effort is underway to destabilize the United States and crush conservative voices. This is not the organic unrest of grassroots activism. This is a calculated, strategic assault executed by Soros-funded NGOs, their operatives working in concert to disrupt, intimidate, and silence. From violent attacks on Tesla dealerships to the swatting of conservative influencers, from the hijacking of GOP town halls to the doxxing of DOGE employees, this effort bears all the hallmarks of an orchestrated conspiracy. If these actions are coordinated and funded with the explicit goal of suppressing political opposition, they are not examples of...

Significant updates are happening as the violent swatting epidemic targeting conservative influencers continues to unfold. As The Gateway Pundit reported, several conservative figures including Nick Sortor, Gunther Eagleman, and Shawn Farash have been swatted over the last couple of days. This comes after Infowars journalist Jamie White was brutally murdered in Austin earlier this week while another journalist from the organization got swatted twice. Now, independent journalist Breanna Morello has discovered an important clue: the individuals swatting conservative influencers are sending pizza delivery orders to their homes before placing the distress call to 9-1-1. Specifically, the orders are coming from...

Five conservative influencers have been swatted in recent days, as Democrats ramp up their invectives against President Donald Trump and DOGE chief Elon Musk amid their work to downsize the government and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. Swatting is a form of domestic terrorism where someone makes a false report to emergency services, often targeting a political opponent, leading to a police Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team or other law enforcement response at the victim’s location. The malicious tactic can and has led to fatalities. The victims this week include Info Wars reporter Chase Geiser, conservative radio talk show...

Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre on Monday rolled out his “Canada First” response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, borrowing Trump’s branding strategy while insisting his tariffs on Canadian goods are “unjustified.” Part of Poilievre’s strategy includes faulting the Liberal Party of outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for doing “nothing” to make Canada less dependent upon the U.S. economy, even though the threat of Trump’s tariffs was painfully clear. “They’ve left us helpless,” Poilievre complained before debuting his own strategy, blasting the Liberals for weakening the Canadian economy with high taxes and heavy regulations that pushed Canadian businesses across the border...

Conservatives on social media praised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday after he responded to an attack from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with a photo that was seen over 2 million times on X. "Wouldn’t want to hurt Putin’s feelings," Clinton posted on X over the weekend along with a Gizmodo headline that read, "Trump’s Defense Secretary Hegseth Orders Cyber Command to ‘Stand Down’ on All Russia Operations." Hegseth responded to the post with a photo of Clinton smiling with Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov in March 2009 in which the two are holding a "reset" button...

Canada's ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback ...

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has cemented its lead in the polls and has begun to pull ahead of the Westminster establishment parties, according to a survey from YouGov. Just over seven months after the leftist Labour Party swept to power in the UK following the collapse of the neo-liberal “Conservatives”, Nigel Farage’s insurgent sovereigntist-populist Reform party has begun to entrench itself as the preferred party of the British voter. According to a poll conducted this week from top survey firm YouGov, Reform UK has increased its lead over other parties and now stands clearly on top at 27 per cent,...

The more often Americans attend virtually any Christian denomination, as well as Jewish services, the more likely they are to adopt conservative political views, according to a recent statistical analysis. “The more Democrats go to church, the more they look like Republicans,” states the study. “Being politically liberal and being highly religious are just not compatible,” wrote Ryan Burge, an associate professor of Political Science at Eastern Illinois University and research director for Faith Counts. “Among white people who never attend: 45% are liberal. Among weekly+ attenders: 11% are liberal. That same pattern is there for every single racial group.”...