California Dreamin' Isn't What It Used To Be

Authored by Kenin M. Spivak via RealClearPolitics,

California’s elected Democrats can’t move beyond pandering. Gov. Gavin Newsom is fixated on reparations for African Americans, and the legislature’s Democratic Party majority is once again trying to divide Californians by race, sex, and gender orientation.

In 1996, California stunned the nation when 55% of voters approved Proposition 209, which amended the state’s constitution to prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex or ethnicity in employment, contracting, and education. Ten years later, the United States Supreme Court confirmed its right to do so.

As the state moved further left, in 2019, the Democratic controlled legislature placed Proposition 16 on the ballot to repeal Proposition 209. That effort failed in 2020 when more than 57% of voters rejected it, despite widespread support of elected officials and opponents being outspent nearly 20 to 1.

Undeterred, in 2020, the legislature enacted laws that required California-headquartered public companies to include up to three directors who “self-identify” as women and up to an additional three directors from “underrepresented communities.” In 2022, California state judges enjoined that social engineering for violating due process under California’s constitution. California lost its appeals.

Also in 2020, Newsom signed into law a requirement that the state develop reparations proposals for black Californians. In 2022, he issued an executive order directing all state agencies to reorder their missions and hiring practices “to advance equity” while also establishing a commission to develop policies based on the reparations proposals. Among dozens of preferences, it recommended payments exceeding $1 million for each descendant of slaves, as well as housing assistance, guaranteed wages, racially segregated education, and overturning Proposition 209. Earlier this year, Newsom established a bureau to develop programs to implement the commission’s report.

Inevitably, those programs will violate the California and U.S. constitutions. At a USC Dornsife event last week, a panel of recently retired top Democrat officials acknowledged that the state could not afford reparations and that it would be far more productive for it to focus on improving academic and vocational education.

In 2021, Newsom signed into law AB 101, making California the first state to require ethnic studies for all high school students. The California Department of Education issued a Mathematics Framework that rejected “natural gifts and talents,” called for de-emphasizing calculus, ended classes for gifted children to eliminate “inequity,” and directed teachers to move away from focusing on correct methods or answers. After pushback from parents, the state abandoned the most extreme aspects of the Framework. But AB 101 took effect this school year, requiring a curriculum based on Critical Race Theory, with an emphasis on “equity” and “people of color.”

Following the Newsom commission’s report on reparations in 2023, the California Assembly passed Assembly Constitutional Amendment 7 to indirectly repeal most of Proposition 209 and allocate state funds to so-called marginalized minorities. Last month, the Assembly passed a modified version of ACA-7 that preserves race-based funding, and may still repeal some of the other protections accorded by Proposition 209. The California Senate is now considering that legislation.

If ACA-7 is enacted by the legislature, it will be placed on the ballot in November.

Reparations based on race are unconstitutional. More insidious, compelling middle class and poor families to subsidize affluent students is contrary to the principles of most Americans of every race, gender identification, and economic strata. Countless polls over many years show that Americans overwhelmingly oppose using affirmative action and DEI in hiring, admissions, promotions, and contracting. Only progressive activists believe otherwise.

In a 2016 Gallup poll, a 2019 Pew survey, and a 2021 College Plus survey, about 70% opposed the use of race and ethnicity in admissions decisions, including about two-thirds of Latinos and a majority of blacks. In a January 2024 CRC survey of 1,600 registered voters, 66% disapproved of relying on race, sex, or gender identity for hiring or promotion. The results were similar among men, women, Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, and moderates. Even liberals disapproved by a margin of 54% to 34%.

In a July 2024 survey of 2,100 likely voters by the Manhattan Institute, respondents across the partisan spectrum rejected race-conscious policies. Just 21% (including 36% of Democrats, 35% of Latinos, and 37% of blacks) agreed that “We should focus on creating a race-conscious society to repair the harms of the past by developing policies that benefit marginalized groups.” Majorities across all demographic groups agreed that “We should focus on creating a color-blind society where everyone is treated equally regardless of the color of their skin.”

A survey of 3,262 voters after the last presidential election conducted by Blueprint, a polling organization that helps Democrats, found that 67% of swing voters who chose Trump viewed Democrats as “too focused on identity politics.”

In 1860, there were 395,216 slave owners in the 15 states that permitted slavery and none in the other 18 states. In total, about 5% to 6% of all U.S. households owned slaves. Today, most blacks are at least middle class, live in diverse suburbs, and pursue the same careers as do people of other races.

When California was admitted in 1850, slavery was prohibited. No Californian has ever participated in America’s ugly legacy of slavery – whether as a slave, slave trader, or slave owner. None of their grandparents did. Very few of their great-great-great-grandparents did. More than a quarter of the state’s population is foreign-born. That means California’s elected Democrats are asking recent immigrants to subsidize the children of affluent, educated black Americans.

In a 2019 Associated Press-NORC poll, just 29% of Americans favored the payment of cash reparations to descendants of black slaves. In 2024, a Princeton University-Liberations poll found 36% approval for some form of reparations. A 2022 Rasmussen poll and a 2025 YouGov poll had similar results. Even a quarter of blacks oppose reparations. A search found no polls in which any meaningful percentage of Americans favor reparations to blacks who are not direct descendants of slaves.

Polls aside, the 14th Amendment prohibits governments from allocating benefits based on protected class, most notably race. Eliminating discrimination means eliminating all of it.

With a Republican leading the polls for the next governor of California, and many California Democrats opposed to reparations and racial pandering, more far-left virtue signaling is unlikely to benefit Democratic candidates. DEI and reparations deprive blacks of agency, penalize Americans with no connection to slavery, and represent racial politics at its worst.

Kenin M. Spivak is founder and chairman of SMI Group LLC, an international consulting firm and investment bank. He is the author of fiction and non-fiction books and a frequent speaker and contributor to media, including RealClearPolitics, The American Mind, National Review, television, radio, and podcasts.

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California Dreamin' Isn't What It Used To Be

AP Shills For Big Pharma Antidepressants With 'Bewildering' Hit Piece

Check this out... The Trump FDA's top drug regulator, Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, is working to hire a researcher and friend who strongly believes the agency should add new warnings about antidepressants and pregnancy risks. 

So what does the Associated Press do? They pen a hit piece, smearing Hoeg, her associate, and suggesting that peer reviewed studies over the risks are 'unproven.' 

This is how the medical arm of the blob works, and Paul Thacker of the DisInformation Chronicle is calling them out... 

* * *

Associated Press Cannot Explain Bewildering Reporting on FDA’s Tracy Hoeg and Antidepressant Risks

By Paul D. Thacker

Cruising through X last week a weird story caught my eye: it reported that The Food and Drug Administration’s top drug regulator, Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, was trying to hire a “friend” who wants the FDA to add warnings to antidepressants about “unproven pregnancy risks.” The story makes several claims that are bewildering and appear to be fabricated. I sent several questions to AP’s global health editor Jonathan Fahey, but he did not respond to repeated requests to explain the article’s puzzling errors.

AP reporter Matthew Perrone later blocked me on X. I’ve pasted my email to Fahey at the bottom of this article.

The person AP’s Matthew Perrone identifies as a “friend” of FDA’s Hoeg is Dr. Adam Urato, chief of maternal-fetal medicine at Metro West Medical Center in Massachusetts.

One passage in the AP story stood out to me:

Within the agency, Hoeg’s close relationship with Urato is viewed as a clear conflict of interest that, under normal FDA standards, would result in her recusing herself from any work on the petition. But Hoeg is actively working to speed up the agency’s review of her friend’s proposal, according to the people familiar with the situation.

I have never seen the term “friend” defined as a “conflict of interest” by any federal agency. Nor have I run across “friend” defined as a “conflict of interest” in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. It’s a conflict of interest that doesn’t seem to exist.

And I happen to know quite a bit about conflicts of interest in science, because I’m an expert on the matter.

While I was a Senate staffer, I wrote a law on conflicts of interest called the Physicians Payments Sunshine Act. The bill I wrote was later passed into law and you can now go look up doctors on the government’s Open Payments website to see who is giving them money. I’m sure AP reporters use this website all the time. During my time in the Senate, I also helped to reform conflicts of interest at the National Institutes of Health. This took thousands of hours, untold numbers of meetings, and years of work to complete.

When I left the Senate and joined the Safra Ethics Center at Harvard, I was celebrated as the “Father of Sunshine” for this work to reform conflicts of interest in medicine.

Confused by the AP’s confusing reporting, I contacted Health and Human Services (HHS) and FDA, sending them almost the exact same questions that I sent to AP’s Jonathan Fahey.

“Being a friend is not a violation of ethics or conflicts of interests’ laws,” wrote HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon, in an email. Several senior FDA officials told me that HHS doesn’t even have a legal definition for what a “friend” is and no government conflict of interest form asks people to identify who their friends are.

“It’s a hit piece from industry against Dr. Hoeg, who is doing an amazing job at the FDA,” said one FDA official.

Hoeg did not respond to requests for comment, but during a phone call, Urato told me the AP story was filled with fake facts. The FDA has not offered him a full-time job as AP reported, and if they did, he couldn’t take it as he has a full-time clinical practice with hundreds of patients. FDA has expressed interest in offering him a limited, part-time position as an “advisor,” but nothing has been formalized.

He’s known Hoeg for only a couple years, and met her once when he went to DC to testify in favor of a labelling change for antidepressants that warns pregnant women about the documented risks for fetuses.

“This whole thing is being made up, and it’s an absurdity,” Urato said. “I’m not close friends with her as we’ve only discussed work. But If I say I’m not friends with her, then it’s like saying I’m her enemy.”

In his practice, Urato treats depressed women who are on antidepressants and always advises them of the research that has found risks for these drugs to developing fetuses. To ensure all women are warned, he has started a petition that asks the FDA to place a formal warning on the label for antidepressants. READ PETITION HERE.

“There’s 12 MRI studies in humans that show brain alterations found in offspring who were exposed in utero to antidepressants, and the corporate media has ignored this,” Urato says.

The AP falsely states in their story that Urato is making up “unproven pregnancy risks” but Nature Communications published a peer-reviewed study last May that found these exact risks that AP denies. The children of pregnant mothers on antidepressants later exhibited higher anxiety and depression symptoms than unexposed kids. Kids exposed to antidepressants while in utero were also found to have different brain activity when shown photos of fearful faces.

“These findings have potential implications for the clinical use of [antidepressants] during human pregnancy and for designing interventions that protect fetal brain development,” the authors concluded. The study appears in Urato’s petition along with dozens of other peer-reviewed studies.

“What a woman should do varies from patient to patient,” Urato told me. “But the first thing is to inform them. We know that cancer drugs are toxic, but we don’t ignore that and hide it from patients for fear they won’t get treated for cancer.”

Urato says he doesn’t know if the FDA will act on his petition, despite the evidence. “What the FDA will do with that, I don’t know.” However, Urato has had success with a prior FDA petition.

Urato partnered with Public Citizen in 2019 to petition the FDA to withdraw the drug Makena, because it had been approved to stop premature births without adequate data showing it helped pregnant women. The FDA later agreed with the petition and withdrew Makena from the market in 2023.

Oddly enough, AP’s Matthew Perrone covered Urato’s success at getting the FDA to remove Makena from the market, which you can read here: “FDA forces unproven premature birth drug Makena off market.”

“This is all a distraction,” Urato told me. “It’s so stupid. Of course we need to warn women.”

FULL DISCLOSURE: While working in the Senate, I was invited to give the keynote address at a conference on conflicts of interest in medicine and research hosted at Tufts University. Administrators later withdrew my invitation, causing one of the organizers to resign and creating a minor scandal that made news in the Boston Globe.

“It’s too bad a reform perspective has been removed from the program,” the Senate Committee’s spokeswoman told the Globe.

Some days later, I got a call from a physician who said Tufts organizers chose him to give the keynote speech in my place. I remember him being irate that Tufts had silenced me. He told me he wanted to know exactly what I was going to say, as he was going to give my exact same talk. He then took notes as I explained my speech. I may have also sent him my slide deck, but I can’t remember as this conversation took place in 2009.

I do remember laughing during the conversation at the thought that Tufts administrators were going to hear exactly what I was going to say, although it was coming from the mouth of someone they deemed more acceptable.

When I called Urato for this story, I thought it was the first time we had ever communicated. However, he reminded me during our conversation that he was the physician who called me all those years back, angry that Tufts had cancelled my keynote address. And he was the person who gave my talk at Tufts about the importance of conflicts of interest in medicine. Urato sent me this article in the Tufts newspaper to show this was the case.

I have no clue if AP or other reporters believe this makes Urato and I “friends” but feel free to discuss in the comments below.

* * *

Below is the email I sent to AP asking them to explain their bewildering article.

Hello Jonathan,

I’m working on a story about this AP article that claims FDA’s Tracy Hoeg is bringing a “friend” to FDA and that this is an FDA conflict of interest. That story is here https://apnews.com/article/hoeg-urato-fda-drugs-antidepressants-pregnancy-warnings-a2a48cd2285f5b33aef2d390b5b60d0c

While I was a Senate staffer, I wrote a law on COI called the Physicians Payments Sunshine Act that many reporters now use through the government’s Open Payments website. I also helped to reform NIH COI regs. I also wrote an award winning series for the BMJ on FDA COVID vaccine approvals by digging through FDA COI disclosures.

The AP alleges in this passage, which I’ve put in italics:

Within the agency, Hoeg’s close relationship with Urato is viewed as a clear conflict of interest that, under normal FDA standards, would result in her recusing herself from any work on the petition. But Hoeg is actively working to speed up the agency’s review of her friend’s proposal, according to the people familiar with the situation.

I have never seen the term “friend” defined as a COI for any federal agency. Nor have I run across this claim in the peer-reviewed literature. I also don’t know what “friend” means as I spoke to Adam Urato and he said he’s met Hoeg only a few times and it was only over professional matters.

Senior FDA officials have contacted me and explained that the FDA General Counsel has no legal definition of “friend” and no record of “friend” appearing in any COI policies. I have a couple questions, please.

1. Can you provide me with any evidence FDA/HHS has a legal definition for the term “friend”?

2. Can you provide me with an FDA/HHS policy that lists the term “friend” as a conflict of interest, as AP reports?

3. AP states that Urato wants FDA to add new warnings to antidepressants about “unproven pregnancy risks.” Nature communications published a study about the pregnancy risks to fetuses and SSRI use last May. Can you explain to readers why AP thinks this study is false? Has it been retracted? This is one of many studies showing effects to fetuses from SSRI use.

Again, we need a response by COB today.

Thank you for your time,

Paul

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AP Shills For Big Pharma Antidepressants With 'Bewildering' Hit Piece

Oracle Jumps On Solid Earnings And Guidance Boost Despite Soaring CapEx And Cash Burn

There was much anxiety ahead of Oracle's Q3 earnings release: yes, revenue growth would be solid but would it come at the expense of even more capex, which has sent the stock price tumbling more than 50% since its record high on Sept 10. In the end, it turned out the company had learned from recent mistakes and projected a goldilocks future: strong revenue and just right capex.

Here is what Oracle reports for Q3:

• Adjusted EPS $1.79 vs. $1.47 y/y, beating estimate $1.70
• Adjusted revenue $17.19 billion, +22% y/y, beating estimates of $16.89 billion (Revenue in constant fx +18%, in line with estimate +18.8%)
  • Cloud revenue (IaaS plus SaaS) $8.9 billion, +44% y/y, beating estimate $8.84 billion (in constant currency +41%, estimate +41.7%)
  • Cloud Infrastructure revenue (IaaS) $4.9 billion, +81% y/y, beating estimate $4.74 billion (in constant currency +81%, estimate +82.2%)
  • Cloud Application revenue (SaaS) $4.0 billion, +11% y/y, in line with the estimate $4 billion (in constant currency +11%, estimate +11.6%)
  • Software revenue $6.12 billion, +3.3% y/y, beating estimate $5.97 billion
  • Software Support revenue $4.97 billion, +3.6% y/y, beating estimate $4.89 billion
  • Software License revenue $1.15 billion, +1.9% y/y, beating estimate $1.1 billion
  • Hardware revenue $714 million, +1.6% y/y, missing estimate $724.6 million
  • Service revenue $1.44 billion, +12% y/y, beating estimate $1.36 billion

Of note here, sales in the company’s closely watched infrastructure business gained 81% to $4.9 billion in the period ended Feb. 28, the company said Tuesday in a statement. That marked a faster increase than estimate of 79% and compared with a 68% revenue rise in the previous quarter.  Going down the line: 

• Adjusted operating income $7.38 billion, +19% y/y, estimate $7.21 billion
• Adjusted operating margin 43% vs. 44% y/y, estimate 42.7%
• Remaining performance obligations $553 billion vs. $130 billion y/y

And while the above is all good, what wasn't so good is that ORCL's Q2 capex came in at a stunning $18.6 billion, triple the number from a year ago, and 50% higher than the Q1 capex print. To say that the company is incinerating money is doing a disservice to incinerators.

Elsewhere, the company's remaining performance obligation, a measure of bookings, were $553 billion, compared with the $523 billion reported in the prior quarter.

Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, the company's guidance range came above estimates: 

• Revenues to grow from 18% to 20% in constant currency (grow 19% to 21% in USD): 
• Adj. EPS to grow between 15% to 17% and be between $1.92 and $1.96, beating estimates of $1.95 (grow between 15% to 17% and be between $1.96 and $2.00 in USD)
• Cloud revenue to grow between 44% to 48% in constant currency (expected to grow from 46% to 50% in USD)

Adding across, this means that for fiscal 2026, Oracle expects revenue of $67 billion and capital expenditures of $50 billion, which is unchanged from our most recent previous guidance. Incidentally, there is no way in hell ORCL's full year 2026 CapEx is only $50 billion since its LTM capex is already $48.25 billion.

Perhaps most importantly, Oracle also published its fiscal 2027 guidance which is as follows:

• For fiscal year 2027, Oracle is raising total revenue guidance to $90 billion, beating estimates of $86.7 billion.

There was no mention of what 2027 capex will be, so expect some very pointed questions on the call because alongside massive capex comes just as massive cash burn, which, as shown below... is terrifying. As readers are well aware, the question for the past 6 months has been: just how much debt will ORCL need to fund it? 

Cash burn aside, Oracle's earnings were solid, with the company posting cloud revenue that was better than expected and projected strong sales in the upcoming fiscal year, a sign the company is turning its massive AI bookings into revenue.

Oracle is working to deliver on massive cloud infrastructure contracts with customers like OpenAI and Meta. Known for its namesake database software, the company’s cloud business has found major success by providing chip-filled data centers and other equipment for training and deploying AI models.

The shares increased about 7% in extended trading after closing at $149.40 as the kneejerk reaction to the company's earnings was viewed as favorable. Let's see if this continues into tomorrow's session.

As a reminder, the stock has lost more than 50% of its value from a September peak as Wall Street has grown worried about the costs and logistics associated with the massive build-out.

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Oracle Jumps On Solid Earnings And Guidance Boost Despite Soaring CapEx And Cash Burn

Watch: Antifa Activist Accidentally Sets Himself On Fire While Burning American Flag

In a stroke of karmic hilarity, an Antifa activist briefly caught fire while attempting to burn an American flag outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland, Oregon.

The incident, which occurred last week, was captured on video during a livestream of the Antifa-led protest. Footage showed a far-left activist dousing an American flag in accelerant and attempting to set it ablaze, according to The Post Millennial. The flames spread to his clothing for several seconds before he extinguished them.

Portland, Ore. — Antifa militant accidentally lights himself on fire while torching an American flag outside the ICE facility. pic.twitter.com/rJs6VVuvPv

— Katie Daviscourt 📸 (@KatieDaviscourt) March 8, 2026

This isn't the first time retards in Portland have set themselves on fire. 

As protests continue to rage against ICE, last week, U.S. District Judge Amy Baggio issued an order restricting federal officers’ use of tear gas and other chemical munitions at the facility while a related lawsuit proceeds, the Post Millennial reported. The ruling allows their use only when officers face a reasonable fear for their lives. In her decision, Judge Baggio described the situation as “an extraordinary case,” noting that prior deployment of chemical agents had made it “difficult or impossible for [nearby] tenants to eat, sleep, or simply breathe normally while in their own homes.”

The Post Millennial notes:

Portland has continued to face backlash from anti-ICE agitators. In February, protesters disrupted a Portland City Council meeting that resulted in four arrests, which city officials called a “mini insurrection.” The disruption was organized by the Antifa-affiliated group "Revoke ICE Permit PDX,” and the meeting had to be shut down for 45 minutes as police removed demonstrators. At least 26 officers were mobilized to clear agitators from the council chambers and the lobby.

In September 2025, President Donald Trump designated Antifa a domestic terrorist organization, slamming the radical anarchist group for its years of violent riots, attacks on law enforcement, and efforts to overthrow American institutions. The executive order branded Antifa a "militarist, anarchist enterprise" that explicitly calls for the destruction of the U.S. government, law enforcement, and the rule of law itself. The president declared that the group's pattern of political violence, designed to suppress free speech and intimidate law-abiding Americans, amounts to clear domestic terrorism, and he directed federal agencies to use every tool available to investigate, disrupt, and dismantle its operations. The decisive action comes after Antifa's long history of chaos, from burning cities during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots to assaults on ICE facilities and conservative figures, proving once and for all that this shadowy network poses a serious threat to public safety and constitutional order.

Last month, FBI Director Kash Patel said that the law enforcement agency uncovered what he said are funding sources tied to Antifa organizations, suggesting that more enforcement actions could come against the left-wing movement.“

"Whether it’s ANTIFA or any other violent criminal organization - we know their operations don’t exist alone; they operate with heavy funding streams," Patel wrote in a post on X, along with a clip from an interview with former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, on his popular program on Rumble.

This @FBI is following the money.

Whether it’s ANTIFA or any other violent criminal organization - we know their operations don’t exist alone, they operate with heavy funding streams.

We’re finding them and those who fund their criminal activity. @dbongino pic.twitter.com/37pAHATufA

— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) February 18, 2026

Patel also said that the FBI is "finding them and those who fund their criminal activity."

Patel did not provide more information about the organizations, the source of the funding, or specific donors who may be involved. However, the FBI chief said that the Bureau is looking into any financial backers linked to violence committed by Antifa operators.

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A Cycle-Low For Public Rectitude: Anything Goes To Maintain Democrats' Matrix Of Moneygrubbing

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

Farther Along

Don’t lose the plot. Embrace the suck. This is the world’s hard time, for now. The birth of anything can be a bloody horror. It can even look like death. Don’t be too afraid to see what comes on the other side of this awful spectacle.

So many Americans are rooting and wishing for the Iran war to turn out badly for Western Civ. And why? Because Trump. And why? Because at the same time he is ending Iran’s long-running nuclear blackmail game, he is terminating the rackets of the Democratic Party. The incipient changes in operational order create new categories of winners and losers.

Now you know why Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists run on the same track as America’s Woke-Jacobin-Marxists, including the pitifully deluded wine ladies of posh West LA, Grosse Point, Beacon Hill, Fairfax County, et cetera, whose brains have been hijacked by the cable news demon factory (and their sponsors). Chaos does everything possible to avoid meeting order.

And this is why passing the SAVE Act is as consequential as ridding the Middle East of its chief chaos agent. Do you realize how perfectly insane our country’s election procedure has become? The fraud is titanic and right in your face, and the remedy is so plain and simple. What possible excuse is there to thwart it? Non-citizens have no right to vote. Mail-in ballots are patently subject to chicanery. Vote tabulation machines are demonstrably hackable. 80-percent of Americans know this is the truth. How is there controversy over this?

How? Because among all the broken institutions in our country, Congress is the worst. The Congress of our time is demonstrating that we might not be worthy of governing ourselves. We are at a cycle-low for public rectitude. Anything goes and nothing matters as long as the campaign contributions keep rolling in.

You see how this has been going.

But mark this: we are going to get election reform one way or another. It’s that urgent, and failure to accomplish it by legislation will warrant a national emergency. And when the election machinery has been fixed, we had better do something about the plague of corporate money that runs like poison through our politics because of the Supreme Court’s foolish decision in the 2010 Citizens United case. They decided (by a slim 5-4 majority) that limitless campaign contributions by corporations amounted to free speech under the Constitution.

I will tell you concisely why this was tragically fallacious. Free speech in our country is a God-given right of sovereign citizens. Corporations are not citizens. Corporations don’t have obligations, duties, and responsibilities to the public interest (a.k.a. the common good). Corporations explicitly, by law, have obligations, duties, and responsibilities solely to their share-holders. The interests of corporate share-holders and the nation’s public interest are manifestly oppositional. Perhaps now you can see why this was such a dreadful invitation to political chaos.

So, Mr. Trump, for all his flaws, attempts to bring order out of chaos at home and in global relations, and the agents of chaos mightily resent the shut-down of their precious chaos. With Iran, it has come to fighting fire with fire. It’s unlikely that most of the people in that country seek to become martyrs. The cult of martyrdom is strictly the business of the maniacs who seized power there in 1979, a reign of terror, extended by proxy around the whole Middle East and beyond.

Entwined with Iran’s oil business, and the energy security of many nations, the mullahs inflect the trade of this primary resource with their chaos. The world cannot cope with chaos in the oil trade. The collapsing regime of the mullahs wants to go out turning the entire world into a martyr. Just like the Democratic Party wants to martyr the founding principles of the USA to preserve its matrix of moneygrubbing and power-seeking.

These are two forces that require the most severe discipline and Mr. Trump is acting to impose exactly that. It’s painful to witness, but it must happen if we want to continue the human project as a reality-based enterprise.

So, heed what is at stake in the events unspooling. This is a dark moment in a journey back to daylight. Have faith. As the old American hymn goes: Farther along we’ll know more about it; farther along we’ll understand why.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

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A Cycle-Low For Public Rectitude: Anything Goes To Maintain Democrats' Matrix Of Moneygrubbing