DE-CRISIS BY DESIGN: US Army to control land on Mexico border as part of base, migrants could be detained, officials say.

A long sliver of federal land along the U.S.-Mexico border that President Donald Trump is turning over to the Department of Defense would be controlled by the Army as part of a base, which could allow troops to detain any trespassers, including migrants, U.S. officials told The Associated Press.

The transfer of that border zone to military control — and making it part of an Army installation — is an attempt by the Trump administration to get around a federal law that prohibits U.S. troops from being used in domestic law enforcement on American soil.

But if the troops are providing security for land that is part of an Army base, they can perform that function. However, at least one presidential powers expert said the move is likely to be challenged in the courts.

That last part goes without saying — four more years of lawfare were inevitable. I just wonder with border crossing attempts down more than 90% already, if an Army base is necessary. With or without it, the new administration has done a fine job of undoing Biden’s border mess.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Moving Up a Weight Class in the Fight Against the Dems’ MSM Hacks. “My late friend Andrew Breitbart used to refer to ‘the Democratic Media Complex,’ a description that I think I might start bringing back. It has that Death Star vibe about it, which is still fitting.”

WOKE ALERT: Kohl’s, Dollar Tree, Disney, Nationwide, & UPS. “Recently, companies have stated they are scrapping their DEI programs and policies, but for some companies, this declaration is merely a PR stunt. Instead of doing away with these illegal and discriminatory policies, these five companies are just rebranding their woke policies by calling DEI by a new name: ‘belonging.'”

HE’LL READ WHATEVER IS ON THE PROMPTER OR AT LEAST TRY TO: Joe Biden’s Agent Casts Him in the Most Ironic First Post-White House Role Ever. “Indeed, they are so honored to have him that they didn’t bother to put his photo on the website announcing he’d be at the confab.”

THIS IS HOW NPR REPORTS AN ISRAELI COUNTEROFFENSIVE FOLLOWING THE HAMAS TERROR INVASION OF 10/7/2023 AND BREAKING THE CEASEFIRE AND NOT RELEASING THE HOSTAGES: Gaza territory shrinks drastically as Israel seizes huge swaths of land.

More than half of the Gaza Strip is no longer accessible to Palestinians as Israel’s military takes over larger areas of the territory and absorbs them into what it calls security zones along all of the territory’s borders.

Nowhere is this more visible than in southern Gaza, where Israel’s defense minister says the military is seizing an area once home to a quarter-million people and turning it into a buffer zone. The move cuts off the Palestinian border city of Rafah — and indeed the whole of the Gaza Strip – from neighboring Egypt.

Israel says its war — which Gaza health officials say has killed nearly 51,000 Palestinians — is to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages among the 251 taken in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack. That Hamas-led attack killed almost 1,200 people in Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

The takeover of southern Gaza changes its borders and fundamentally alters its map, surrounding the territory by Israel from all sides. Before the war, Gaza’s southern border with Egypt was the only crossing not solely controlled by Israel.

NPR still leans on “Gaza health officials” instead of “Hamas mouthpieces,” too.

No matter how much you despise the media…

NOT FORD TOUGH: Ford Has a ‘Chief Learning Officer,’ and He’s Exactly What You’d Expect.

THE NEW SPACE RACE:

SpaceX completed its 400th mission using a flight-proven booster, nearly eight years after the company’s first successful reflight pic.twitter.com/Hau0uZjDSt

— Dima Zeniuk (@DimaZeniuk) April 13, 2025

Reflights of rockets not built by SpaceX still stand at 0.

CORRECTION: Orbital reflights. Thanks to Ranten N. Raven for the heads up.

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE: FDA warns about fake Ozempic in U.S. supply chain. “Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic and the weight loss drug Wegovy, told the FDA on April 3 that counterfeit 1-milligram injections were being distributed outside its authorized supply chain in the U.S., the agency said in a news release. That means it likely entered the market through unofficial means, like unauthorized distributors or resellers.”

ENJOY YOUR STAY: Trump Meets with Nayib Bukele, Destroys Fake News.

THE PROBLEM, AS OUTLINED BY DATA REPUBLICAN:

The Left is structured as a network of NGOs: ruthlessly efficient and ready to act the moment power changes hands.

The Right has no equivalent infrastructure. If I sit down and ask myself, “How would I start an NGO to implement a conservative agenda in D.C.?” … I draw a blank. Because the dominant instinct on the Right isn’t to build, it’s to dismantle. Most conservative goals center on shrinking or limiting the federal government.

That creates a fundamental asymmetry. NGOs on the Left are designed to expand state power through policy scaffolding, and once federal funding flows in, it’s nearly impossible to tear down. It would take an act of Congress to defund these mechanisms, and Congress rarely votes to shrink its own power.

So, we can’t fight fire with fire.

As I see it, there are only three paths forward (not mutually exclusive):

1. Keep scaling the existing DOGE efforts.
2. Replace the majority of Congress with people willing to shut the spigot.
3. Trigger a Convention of States and rewrite the rules from outside the system.

Each path demands broad public support, which, again, NGOs don’t need. That’s part of what makes them so dangerous. They just have to win the influence of a few.

What Musk is doing with DOGE is great. But the next step needs to be building out a conservative informational infrastructure. That isn’t a new idea but if the best time to build it was 20 years ago, the second-best time is right now.

A HUNDRED MILLION HERE AND A HUNDRED MILLION THERE…: ‘Mississippi Musk’ Finds $400 Million in State Government Waste.

BECAUSE THE NYT ISN’T ON AMERICA’S SIDE. NEXT QUESTION?

I'm trying to understand NYT economics. How can what's good for the US be an obvious disaster for Europe? pic.twitter.com/JR8nDvbF3k

— Jeffrey A Tucker (@jeffreyatucker) April 14, 2025

CHRIS QUEEN: Have We Reached a Tipping Point for NIL in College Athletics?

UPDATE: What we know about suspect in arson at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence.

The man charged in connection with an arson at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home over the weekend allegedly climbed the residence’s fence, used a hammer to break a window and threw Molotov cocktails in to start the blaze, prosecutors revealed.

Cody A. Balmer, 38, was charged with attempted criminal homicide, aggravated arson, burglary, terrorism and other counts in connection with the early Sunday morning attack, the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday.

The arson attack lasted for several minutes. Shapiro and first lady Lori Shapiro, as well as other guests and staff, were inside the Harrisburg residence when the fire erupted around 2 a.m. No one was injured in the fire, and the governor’s family was safely evacuated. However, prosecutors said the residence sustained “substantial damage.”

Balmer, of Harrisburg, turned himself into the Pennsylvania State Police on Sunday and admitted to “harboring hatred towards Governor Shapiro.”

When asked during a police interview what he would have done if Shapiro found him inside the residence, “he advised he would have beaten him with his hammer,” the probable cause affidavit said

The NBC News report played up Balmer’s anti-Biden sentiments but there’s more to the story.

A man named Cody Balmer has been charged with terrorism, attempted murder, aggravated arson and aggravated assault over the April 13 family home arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. @JoshShapiroPA.

Local authorities have not released a photo of Balmer but I found and verified… pic.twitter.com/IIPVtsbQNK

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) April 14, 2025

He certainly at least looks more Antifa than MAGA.

CBS NEWS: They Were Stabby but Mostly Peaceful Child Sacrifices.

MOSCOW NEEDS A FIRST-CLASS ARMY MORE THAN THEY NEED A FEW MORE SUBS: Russia To Launch Massive $100 Billion Naval Expansion. “Based on available reports and recordings of the meeting shared by state media and social media channels, Putin did not provide specifics on how the funds would be distributed or which projects would be prioritized.”

THE ENEMY WITHIN: ICE Detains ‘Sushi John’ the Chinese Spy.

HMM: Iran Has a Reason to Strike a Nuclear Deal: Its Economy Is in Trouble.

Iran’s currency is among the weakest in the world. Inflation remains well above 30%. Young people are struggling to find work, and a frustrated middle class can no longer afford to buy imported goods.

Those troubles look set to intensify under a second Trump administration, which resumed its campaign of “maximum pressure” to force Iran to rein in its nuclear program and prevent it from developing a bomb. Already severely strained by sanctions and endemic corruption, political observers and analysts say a further deterioration of Iran’s economy could push its people to the brink.

“This is a country that’s creaking under the pressure of economic sanctions, sustained mismanagement and corruption,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, a think tank in London. “Ultimately, what they seek is durable sanctions relief, and they believe that Donald Trump could perhaps deliver that in a way that the Biden administration couldn’t.”

Officials from the U.S. and Iran convened in the Omani capital on Saturday for their highest-level talks in years, pledging to keep a conversation going. Washington wants a new deal to curb Tehran’s uranium enrichment in exchange for lifting sanctions, after abandoning an earlier one during President Trump’s first term.

Lifting the sanctions is a bad idea.

KRUISER: The Apex of Nonsensicality: Bernie Fights the Oligarchy at Coachella.

THE LEFT MADE THE NEW RULES:

This is going to be my face every time a Democrat asks me to “tone down the rhetoric” or “denounce political violence”. This right here.

We’re going to have a universal standard or we’re not going to have one at all. I’m done with one way streets. https://t.co/Hud7H7zgKy

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) April 14, 2025

Related: So a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Normalizing Political Assassinations…

CHANGE (IT BACK): US Military Academies End Racial Preferences in Admissions.

The policy changes that prompted the request for a pause, the academies said, stem from directives issued by President Donald Trump, whose administration is committed to dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across all branches of the U.S. military as part of a broader effort to refocus the military.

To implement the president’s vision for the military, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered his department to eliminate DEI initiatives and offices, including ceasing the practice of considering race or sex when admitting cadets to military academies.

The U.S. Air Force Academy, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, stated in its letter that it has already ended race-based admissions practices following a series of White House and Pentagon directives. These include, most recently, a Feb. 6 memorandum issued by acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Gwendolyn DeFilippi, who ordered the elimination of “quotas, objectives, and goals based on sex, race, or ethnicity for organizational composition, academic admission, career fields, or class composition.”

Well, good — assuming they don’t just take quotas underground.

GOODER AND HARDER, LA: Why LA Knows That Karen Bass Can’t Get it Done. “This week we found out that the Los Angeles mayor’s office has only managed to get four building permits pushed through her city’s sausage making machine. Seventy-two are in the queue. The multimillionaire named to be the sherpa by which all things are rebuilt, has been allowed to fade into the sunset.”

CHANGE: Hong Kong’s biggest pro-democracy party moves to disband as freedoms dwindle.

Pro-democracy protests that paralyzed Hong Kong in 2019 led to a crackdown that has all but silenced dissent through restricted elections, media censorship and a China-imposed national security law that saw some of Yeung’s party members jailed. Dozens of civil society groups closed down.

Former chairperson Yeung said in an interview with The Associated Press that Chinese officials told him the party needed to disband. He urged his members to support the motion to give the leadership mandate to handle the process.

“I’m not very happy about it,” said Yeung. “But I can see if we refuse the call to disband, we may pay a very huge price for it.”

Others received similar messages.

“One country, two systems” lasted longer than I thought it might, honestly.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Butter, Meet Hot Knife — Trump Keeps Cutting Through Media’s TDS Noise. “The Democrats’ flying monkeys in the mainstream media have been loudly lamenting Trump’s loyalty demands for his second go-round in the Oval Office because the loyalty interferes with their plans. They aren’t having any luck picking off those closest to the president. As I’ve written a couple of times, Trump is now surrounded by people who aren’t eager to rush out and write backstabbing tell-all books.”

THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS: First Constellation Frigate Only 10% Complete, Design Still Being Finalized.

The first Constellation class frigate for the U.S. Navy is just 10 percent complete more than two years after construction began and nearly five years after the award of the initial contract for the ship. The work is also continuing despite the continued absence of a firm functional design for the vessel, which is still weeks or even months away from being finalized and approved.

Major changes to the Constellation’s configuration compared to its parent Franco-Italian Fregata Europea Multi-Missione (FREMM) have already led to serious delays and cost increases, and there are growing questions about the program’s future. A key program goal had been to take an in-service design that would only need relatively minor modifications to make it ready for Navy use, which would help keep the work on schedule and budget. The opposite has now happened.

Mark Vandroff, senior vice president of Government Affairs at Fincantieri Marine Group, confirmed the state of progress on the construction of the USS Constellation and provided an update on the program to TWZ‘s Howard Altman on the floor of the Navy League’s Sea Air Space 2025 exhibition earlier this week. 19FortyFive had first reported that the lead ship in the Constellation class was only 10 percent complete last month, citing an anonymous source.

The whole idea of the Constellation was to take the proven FREMM class, customize it just a little for the US Navy’s needs, but otherwise leave the design alone and get it into service quickly.

But the Navy had to go and screw it up.