DIGITAL THUGS:

The US government skyrocketed the USAID budget for Brazil while Bolsonaro was there. Not to help Brazilians economically, but to flood the political opposition in Brazil with money to try to take him out. https://t.co/rBUfEsryVv pic.twitter.com/44W7r7toKZ

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) June 19, 2025

NOW THAT’S SOME CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN: Senate Confirms Border Patrol Veteran of 30 Years Who Was Fired by Mayorkas to Lead CBP.

Rodney Scott is a 30-year veteran of the Border Patrol, who previously served as the chief patrol agent in San Diego sector under the first Trump administration, before earning promotion to chief of the U.S. Border Patrol from 2020 to 2021. In June ’21, former CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan, who promoted Scott, expressed his anger at then-Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for firing Scott, a “man of integrity” and “courage,” explaining that Scott had been “very honest and open about his criticisms” of the Biden administration’s handling of the border “impact[ing] their ability to secure our borders.”

Morgan did not mince words about how Mayorkas seemed to gauge who should be retained and who should be fired:

“If [Sec. Mayorkas] cannot bully someone, a career official, if he can’t turn a career official into no more than a puppet to further his open border policies, he’s getting rid of him. And that’s what he’s done.”

Back in April, investigative journalist Catherine Herridge noted that Scott has promised to look into CBP whistleblowers Mark Jones, Fred Wynn, and Mike Taylor’s allegations that they were retaliated against “for showing homeland security was in violation of its own border law,” and hold those DHS officials accountable.

It also doesn’t hurt things that the Border Czar, Tom Homan is a long time fan.

Nifty.

ALLIES: Will This Blow Up NATO? “Erdogan appears to be calculating that he will not get any pushback within NATO for claiming the internationally recognized sovereign territory of another member state, and he is likely right about that. This isn’t the first time he has claimed Greek territory, and almost certainly will not be the last, yet Turkey doesn’t seem to be in any danger of losing its NATO membership.”

BE PREPARED:

U.S. officials have confirmed to CNN that non-sheltered USAF aircraft have been evacuated from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, and U.S. Navy vessels previously forward-deployed at Naval Support Activity Bahrain have also repositioned.

Additionally, medical logistics have been… pic.twitter.com/zi54fIhXpg

— GMI (@Global_Mil_Info) June 19, 2025

IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: Pity Poor China (Really!) “Most Thursdays, I take readers on a deep dive into a topic I hope you’ll find interesting, important, or at least amusing in its absurdity. These essays are made possible by — and are exclusive to — our VIP supporters. If you’d like to join us, take advantage of our 60% off promotion.”

CAVEAT EMPTOR:

American got his Washington State Vehicle Registration Fee for a Tesla Model S

Just to register his car it’s $1,659.25

This is every year

The amount of fees Washington Democrats add on is INSANE

$ 75.00 Electric Vehicle Transportation Fee
$30.00 License fee funds road… pic.twitter.com/FmLlHr9xOp

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) June 19, 2025

Full list:

$75.00 Electric Vehicle Transportation Fee
$30.00 License fee funds road construction
$150.00 Electric vehicle fee funds roads
$10.00 Additional vehicle weight fee
$45.00 Vehicle weight fee funds Highway improvement
$4.50 Filing fee funds go to the county
$8.00 Service fee retained by subagent
$0.25 License service fee supports the computer systems
$0.50 The DOL service fee supports the computer systems
$1,331.00 Regional Transit Authority tax

$ 1,654.25 Subtotal
$ 5.00 Optional state parks donation
$ 1,659.25 Total

How can it cost $1,659.25 a year just to register one car with the DMV???

That’s an easy one: because Democrats.

Update: For the folks in the comments who think that $1,331.00 Regional Transit Authority tax is just to make up for lost gas tax revenue, think again.

A typical ICE driver in Washington state — 12,000 miles per year, 25 mpg — pays about $325 a year in combined state and federal gas taxes.

The total of $205 in EV and weight fees is probably just about right to make up for the lost state gas tax revenue.

Caveat emptor, indeed.

CHANGE: Justice Department Plans to Use Law Weaponized Against Pro-Life Activists to Protect Them Instead.

THESE SAME RESULTS KEEP COMING UP:

OK, not even sure where to begin with this one! But here's an attempt at a deeper dive at understanding why conservatives are so much happier than liberals. Mostly looking at how persistent the gap is in survey data rather than extrapolating too much. pic.twitter.com/qV59d3kxuJ

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 18, 2025

What I take away from this is that unhappy and/or crazy people want to ruin things for everyone else.

SMART: State Department to Resume Student Visa Appointments, but There’s a Catch. “Visa applicants with social media profiles must ensure that all privacy settings are set to ‘public’ so consulate officers can view them. A cable sent to various diplomatic posts around the world suggested that ‘limited access to, or visibility of, online presence could be construed as an effort to evade or hide certain activity.'”

CHANGE: Department of Justice Plans to Cut Two-Thirds of ATF’s IOI Firearm Inspectors. “The move, part of the Trump administration’s effort to defang and downsize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, comes as the department considers merging the A.T.F. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. It follows a rollback of Biden-era regulations aimed at stemming the spread of deadly homemade firearms, along with other gun control measures.”

If it isn’t deadly, what good is it?

THEY’D CERTAINLY BE RIGHT TO: New York Business Leaders Say They’ll Flee If Mamdani Is Elected Mayor.

CLOWARD AND PIVEN SMILE: Social Security and Medicare Trustees Release 2025 Reports.

The looming insolvency of Social Security’s retirement program will lead to a 23 percent across-the-board benefit cut when today’s 59-year-olds reach the Full Retirement Age and when today’s youngest retirees turn 70. On a theoretically combined basis, beneficiaries will face a 19 percent benefit cut just one year later.

The Medicare Trustees project the HI trust fund will also be exhausted in 2033, leading to an 11 percent cut in HI payments. That cut, which is projected to grow for at least the following decade, could jeopardize access to health care for seniors and some workers with disabilities.

The best time to tackle this problem was 20 years ago, but George W. Bush got shut down by Congress. The next best time is right now, but there seems to be even less determination than there was in 2005.

HMM: Russia’s Warning Over U.S. Aid to Israel Isn’t Just Noise. “Moscow’s military-industrial complex is bruised but still functional. Russia has shipped drones, missile systems, and electronic warfare tech to allies before, including Iran. Even amid the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin has kept military supply lines open to its anti-American partners. The Kremlin can restock Tehran’s weapons closets without crossing any NATO red lines.”

Still, I imagine the situation in the Middle East would be much different right now if Russia didn’t have something like 95% of its conventional combat power committed to Ukraine.

GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: Change could raise gas prices 65 cents a gallon, audit sought. “Jones’s Public Records Act request into CARB and the governor’s estimates and discussions on the cost of LCFS to consumers was met with delays, noting some responses would take weeks, while other records requested were too broad, and that some are categorically exempt.”

I DON’T KNOW, I CAN IMAGINE QUITE A BIT: Democratic Party Disarray Far Worse Than You Can Imagine.

MAYBE IT’S JUST HER DUMBEST RANT SO FAR: Is This Whoopi Goldberg’s Dumbest Rant Ever?

ACCOUNT OVERDRAWN: Crushing Iran Because It’s Terrorism’s ATM Is Also a Good Idea.

SETH MANDEL: The ‘America First’ Crew’s Complete Disregard for American Lives.

While the Iranians were hunting the U.S. president, their militias were slaughtering Americans—something Iran has been doing for four decades—and taking them hostage. Here’s how the Iranian militia in Gaza treated Americans and others in their dungeons:

“Meals were intermittent. Water was scarce. And any failure to follow their captors’ instructions risked violent retribution.

“As [American hostage Keith] Siegel stepped into the room, panic washed over him: He found himself in the audience of a ‘medieval-style’ trial by torture, he said.”

Another U.S. hostage, the New Jerseyan Edan Alexander, “was held with a bag over his head at times and handcuffed, beaten and interrogated.” He was also “plagued by hunger, thirst and a lack of sanitary conditions during his time in Gaza, not to mention constant anxiety about the war raging around him.”

As an American, I have a hard time shrugging this off. As an American, I find it increasingly difficult to even understand the psychology of those who can shrug it off. And as an American, I find it incomprehensible that the defenders of these innocent American victims are accused of being disloyal Americans.

“They were schoolyard bullies,” Trump said of Iran this morning. “But now they’re not bullies anymore.” He specifically mentioned the Iranians’ motto of “Death to America,” which was also their battle plan and organizing program. He seemed pleased that there were finally consequences for Iran’s long war on the United States, that there is a price to be paid for all Iran’s mischief.

And here is the most interesting part: The price Iran has paid has not, in fact, been steep or cruel and unusual. In the history of mankind, no nation’s civilians have been safer while an enemy state controls their airspace during a live war. There’s nothing really to even compare it to. We are watching something no one has ever watched before. Israel, in response to Iran’s pursuit of the destruction of the Jewish people, not to mention its role in the worst daylong mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, took control of Iran’s airspace and used that to patiently eliminate the sources of the Iranian regime’s power to oppress its people.

Trump supports this.

Indeed.

I’d add that Israel has so far done 100% of the heavy lifting in this campaign, restoring some of the honor we lost over two generations of pretending Iran is not at war with us.

TRUE, BUT I STILL LIKE THE IDEA THAT LITTLE ISRAEL HAS A HANDLE ON THIS: Iran Has Been at War With the U.S. Since 1979.

COLD WAR II: China’s nuclear arsenal surges 20% in one year, reaching over 600 warheads.

China has boosted its nuclear arsenal by 100 warheads in just one year, growing from an estimated 500 to over 600 warheads in 2025, according to new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Beijing now possesses more warheads than the UK and France combined, and is expanding its arsenal faster than any other nation. Since 2023, Beijing has added approximately 100 new warheads annually, marking a significant escalation in its nuclear capabilities, according to the research group.

As of January 2025 China had completed or was nearing completion of around 350 new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos across three desert regions in the north and three mountainous areas in the east. Depending on how China organizes its forces, it could match the ICBM counts of Russia or the United States by the end of the decade.

China has been engaged in a “strategic breakout” since at least 2021, but the Pentagon and defense contractors still can’t get their act together on replacing our 50-plus-year-old Minuteman III missiles

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Are the Good Iranian People About to Have a Moment? “For the last several years that I lived in Los Angeles, I was in a neighborhood that had a significant population of Persian Jews who fled Iran in 1979. I would occasionally hear stories about what a glorious country it was before the Islamic Revolution. There must be a lot of excitement right now in my old ‘hood.”

THAT OUGHT TO BE “HOW IRAN IS LOSING”: How Iran Lost.

On June 12, Israel unleashed a series of strikes that damaged Iranian nuclear facilities and missile sites, destroyed gas depots, and, critically, killed scores of top regime officials. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei remains alive. But his most important deputies—including Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff of the armed forces, and Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—are dead.

A few years ago, the sudden, near-simultaneous killing of Bagheri, Salami, and a host of other senior leaders would have been unthinkable. Over three decades, the hard-liners who control Iran’s regime had built up what seemed like a formidable system of deterrence. They stockpiled ballistic missiles. They developed and advanced a nuclear enrichment program. Most important, they established a network of foreign proxies that could routinely harass Israeli and U.S. forces.

But Iran’s hard-liners overplayed their hand. After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, the regime’s leaders opted for a campaign of maximum aggression. Rather than letting Hamas and Israel fight it out, they unleashed their proxies at Israeli targets. Israel, in turn, was compelled to expand its offensive beyond Gaza. It succeeded in severely degrading Hezbollah, the most powerful of Tehran’s proxy groups, and eviscerating Iranian positions in Syria—indirectly contributing to the collapse of the Assad regime. Iran responded to this aggression by unleashing the two largest ballistic missile attacks ever launched against Israel. But Israel, backed by the U.S. military and other partners, repelled those attacks and incurred little damage. It then struck back.

With that, the foundation of Iran’s deterrence strategy crumbled. Its ruling regime became more vulnerable and exposed than at any point since the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. And Israel, which has dreamed of striking Iran for decades, had an opportunity it decided it could not pass up.

They’ve certainly made the most of it so far.

PERHAPS UNLIKELY, BUT NOT STUPID — BRINGING THE MONARCHY BACK DID HELP SMOOTH THE TRANSITION FROM FRANCO IN SPAIN: Iranians Chant for Shah’s Return As Terrorist Regime Collapses

THAT’S REAL MONEY AND PROBABLY A DROP IN THE BUCKET: USAID: Guilty Plea For A Half-Billion In Fraud. “This story broke last week just as Israel was bringing the wood to Iran, so it might have flown under the radar, but a USAID employee and three contractors just pled guilty to a half billion dollar fraud case.”

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE IF DEMOCRAT VOTERS WOULD GO BACK TO ELECTING GROWNUPS? Democrats Walk Out of Hearing Probing Biden’s Mental Fitness When He Was in Office.