CUBA: When ‘If We Need to Die, We’ll Die’ Doesn’t Quite Mean What He Says It Does.

ALSO KNOWN AS A GOOD START: Two Slimeballs Depart Congress.

THIS:

Property ownership gives people a share in the status quo and is a material interest that supports a critical baseline of reactionary political sentiment.

‘Cea Weaver-style’ housing policy is an insidious and purposeful effort to shift that political power to the state and make…

— Coddled Affluent Professional (@feelsdesperate) April 15, 2026

More:

‘Cea Weaver-style’ housing policy is an insidious and purposeful effort to shift that political power to the state and make people dependent on the state either directly through more public housing OR indirectly through price controls that make housing ‘affordable.’ Either way this policy seeks to effectuate a huge power transfer from individuals (homeowners) to the state who ‘provides’ or ‘ensures’ housing.

That’s why I generally think blue states are fine with no housing being built and real estate prices being out of control: the more desperate people are for housing and the more dependent they are on the state for housing, the more power government can arrogate.

Creating a permanent underclass of reliable Democrat voters is what Democrats do best.

THE COUNTER-RECONQUISTA: With Amnesty Passed, Is This the End of Spain?

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Collateral Damage: States’ 3D Printed Gun Code Bans Squelch Innovation, Research, Speech. “The rapid expansion of regulations targeting 3D printed firearms is increasingly raising justifiable concerns apart from the Second Amendment community. As lawmakers venture beyond tradition gun control efforts into the realm of limiting digital code and hardware functionality, the collateral impact on others, including across various facets of computer culture, is obviously being felt. Case in point: World of Software’s April 7 article: Lawmakers want to restrict 3D printing to stop ghost guns. Critics say it won’t work, which notes, ‘the discomfort reaches beyond the right to bear arms.'”

THAT WAS TAME, REALLY, CONSIDERING THE THINGS HE COULD HAVE SAID:

BEASTMODE: Israel's ambassador to the U.S. addresses France's exclusion from peace talks with Lebanon.

"We'd like to keep the French as far away as possible from pretty much everything, but particularly when it comes to peace negotiations. They're not needed." pic.twitter.com/KapFbhZAY4

— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) April 15, 2026

USUALLY IMAGINED: When ‘Racism,’ Real Or Imagined, is a More Egregious Crime Than Murder.

“THE TIMING IS SUSPICIOUS”: Intel IG Admitted Under Oath He Changed Whistleblower Rules For Anti-Trump Ukraine Op In 2019.

Former Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson admitted under oath that he personally ordered a secret rewrite of the whistleblower complaint form in August 2019 that was used as the basis for a phony impeachment operation against President Donald Trump, going so far as to admit changing the form looked “suspicious.”

Newly unveiled testimony from October of 2019 shows that Atkinson conceded the change he ordered to the whistleblower complaint form “looks suspicious” but said the timing was merely “unfortunate.”

“So the timing is unfortunate. It looks suspicious, I get that,” Atkinson testified. Atkinson said that after several media inquiries highlighted that the then-current form required first-hand knowledge of wrongdoing in order for a complaint to meet the urgency threshold to be sent to Congress, he ordered his staff to secretly change the rules so that second-hand hearsay complaints could be a legitimate basis for expedited processing.

“What I should have done was I should have explained when we changed the form why we were changing it,” he said. “I should have been more transparent about the reasons and the motivations for the change in the forms.”

The admission vindicates years of reporting by The Federalist that exposed the “suspicious” change that conveniently coincided with the first impeachment inquiry into the president — reporting that was attacked as a conspiracy theory but is now confirmed by the IG’s own testimony.

Read the whole thing.

Previously: Dershowitz Says Trump Should Move to Expunge 2019 Impeachment.

SAD:

This is obviously the play, and when you understand that 65% of revenue from Catholic Charities comes from the government, you will understand why the US bishops want the Democrats back in power. https://t.co/qHW7rXB1wa

— Michael Sebastian (@HonorAndDaring) April 14, 2026

ET TU, HUFFPO? You’ll Never Guess Who Just Slipped Kamala the Shiv. “Harris is like this drunk buddy of mine from way back when, and not because of the drunk part. Well, not entirely because of the drunk part.”

IS LAUSD JUST A MASSIVE THEFT RING?

Bizarre situation brewing in LA public schools, as reported by WSJ today

Teachers and parents say schools regularly run out of cleaning supplies and toilet paper

But per-student spending rose from $11.7k to $29.3k since 2014 — about 5x the rate of inflation

Notably…. the…

— Rachel Premack (@rrpre) April 15, 2026

21ST CENTURY WARFARE: CENTCOM using underwater drones to clear mines in the Strait of Hormuz. “Iran is estimated to have between 2,000 and 6,000 naval mines, and upward of 80-90% of its small boats and mine layers, making it possible to lay hundreds of mines in the waterway. On Saturday, US officials said that Iran reportedly lost track of the locations of mines deployed in the Strait of Hormuz and has no clear idea of where all the mines were placed.”

THE LITTLE COUNTRY THAT COULD:

*Israel’s economy surges past $700B despite war*

New IMF data for 2026 shows Israel’s GDP has crossed $719.85 billion for the first time, marking a historic milestone. Despite over two years of war, the economy continues to expand at a rapid pace, with projections pointing… pic.twitter.com/DSUdNpEmwF

— Israel Now (@neveragainlive1) April 15, 2026

Plus, a reminder that US aid to Israel is only $3.8 billion annually, and almost all of that comes right back here as arms purchases.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Abigail Spanberger’s Virginia Is a Creepy, Commie Place. “Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger is leading an unhinged leftist revival in Virginia that has been rather horrifying in its swiftness. Democrats have complete control of the government now and the wraith-like Spanberger has them all whipped into a frenzy and ready to charge off of the radical progressive cliff as quickly as they can.”

“INCOMPETENT TO STAND TRIAL” SHOULD ALSO MEAN “UNABLE TO LEAVE THE ASYLUM”:

Two years ago, Naomi Guzman doused her father in lighter fluid and tried to set him on fire, then broke into a church and threatened a priest with a knife. She was found incompetent to stand trial and released.

Today, she abducted a toddler and stabbed him before she was shot… https://t.co/yhIylOr5fS

— Daniel Friedman (@DanFriedman81) April 15, 2026

Unleash crazy people on the public, expect crazy results.

HMM: Is Anthropic ‘nerfing’ Claude? Users increasingly report performance degradation as leaders push back.

A growing number of developers and AI power users are taking to social media to accuse Anthropic of degrading the performance of Claude Opus 4.6 and Claude Code — intentionally or as an outcome of compute limits — arguing that the company’s flagship coding model feels less capable, less reliable and more wasteful with tokens than it did just weeks ago.

The complaints have spread quickly on Github, X and Reddit over the past several weeks, with several high-reach posts alleging that Claude has become worse at sustained reasoning, more likely to abandon tasks midway through, and more prone to hallucinations or contradictions.

Some users have framed the issue as “AI shrinkflation” — the idea that customers are paying the same price for a weaker product.

Others have gone further, suggesting Anthropic may be throttling or otherwise tuning Claude downward during periods of heavy demand.

Those claims remain unproven, and Anthropic employees have publicly denied that the company degrades models to manage capacity. At the same time, Anthropic has acknowledged real changes to usage limits and reasoning defaults in recent weeks, which has made the broader debate more combustible.

VentureBeat has reached out to Anthropic for further clarification on the recent accusations, including whether any recent changes to reasoning defaults, context handling, throttling behavior, inference parameters or benchmark methodology could help explain the spike in complaints.

Anthropic lost maybe as much as $6 billion last year, and is expected to lose another $8-10 billion this year. Revenue is growing, but infrastructure costs are growing even faster.

Maybe something had to give.

ICYMI: Gentlemen, Start Your Stills — America’s Next Craft Boom Begins.

JAW, JAW: Trump tells The Post US-Iran talks ‘could be happening over next two days.’

Trump did not say who would represent the US in a potential second round of talks, but confirmed he would not take part.

The president also indicated he was not pleased with reports that the US had asked Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program for at least two decades during this past weekend’s unsuccessful talks.

“I’ve been saying they can’t have nuclear weapons” he said, “so I don’t like the 20 years.”

Asked about proponents suggesting a moratorium may encourage Iran make an agreement, Trump answered: “I don’t want them [Iran] to feel like they have a win.”

Not sure what a second round of talks might accomplish that the first round didn’t, particularly since the 20-year deal seems to be off the table.

Besides, all the really interesting talk seems to be happening in Iran already:

🚨WATCH: From C14 (English subtitles) After the Iranian delegation returned from Pakistan empty-handed, President Pezeshkian erupted, shouting at members of the delegation. In an exclusive quote obtained by C14, he told associates, “We are weeks away from collapse. They are… pic.twitter.com/fhJvkIfAso

— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) April 14, 2026

Iran doesn’t seem to be playing its A game, but to be fair, the US and IDF killed most of its A players.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN):

TrUmP dIdN’t HaVe A pLaN https://t.co/24dHOxKA3d

— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) April 15, 2026

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES:

🚨OH. MY. GOSH!!!

A judge in Charlotte NC just DROPPED THE BOND of an known Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang member ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT FROM VENEZUELA from:

$1,000,000 -> $25,000

No justification was given.

Luis was charged after he fired a gun, his pregnant wife wrestled it away from… pic.twitter.com/gCaA6KnWQp

— Matt Van Swol (@mattvanswol) April 14, 2026

JUST SO WE’RE CLEAR, IT’S A BLOCKADE OF IRAN: 10,000 Troops at Work: CENTCOM Update on U.S. Blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

RIP: Army Vet Jim Whittaker, First American on Everest, Dies at 97.

THE SCIENCE IS NEVER SETTLED: Mammal ancestors laid eggs, and this 250-million-year-old fossil finally proves it.

THAT EXPLAINS IT:

Robert Prevost's politics were somewhere between Rachel Maddow and The View.

Now he's Pope Leo XIV. pic.twitter.com/zPgk8r22J7

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) April 14, 2026

ICYMI: All in All, It’s Just Another Brick in the Wall Around China.

IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN THEY DO IT:

Horrific https://t.co/Yxq6A3Z0Fy

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 13, 2026