IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: Peace Through Strength — and the Cost of Forgetting It. “Most Thursdays, I take readers on a deep dive into a topic I hope you’ll find interesting, important, or at least amusing. This week, we’ll examine Trump’s massive military spending proposal, and whether it’s really all that.”
April 23, 2026
OUR INCESTUOUS RULING CLASS: Harvard’s Board Chair, Obama Official Penny Pritzker, Has a New Podcast—Sponsored by Harvard’s Audit Firm.
LIGHTNING DEAL: ORARAER Biometric Smart Gun Safe. #CommissionEarned
CHANGE:
New: Data on Asylum Cases: “The Trump administration has dismissed more than 100 immigration judges out of about 750 in place when Mr. Trump returned to power, an unprecedented purge.
The results of this purge, or aggressive supervision, have been excellent. Across the board,… pic.twitter.com/E2GauzOaYk
— hernando arce (@hernandoarce) April 22, 2026
MAYBE THEY CAN CATCH UP TO THE POLES BY THEN, IF THEY WORK REALLY HARD AT IT: Germany unveils strategy for becoming Europe’s strongest military by 2039.
Titled “Verantwortung für Europa” − Responsibility for Europe − the military strategy identifies Russia as the primary threat and sets out scenarios for potential attacks on NATO territory. Pistorius declined to detail the classified threat assessments, quipping that releasing them would be tantamount to “adding Vladimir Putin to our email distribution list.” The strategy also marks a doctrinal shift toward a “one theater approach,” treating NATO territory, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific as interconnected security spaces rather than discrete theaters.
The accompanying capability profile moves away from rigid hardware quotas − the number of tanks, aircraft or ships − toward a flexible, effects-based planning model. The question is not how many battalions the German army needs, but what effects it must be able to produce, said the defense minister. He cited deep precision strike, air defense against hypersonic missiles, and drone capabilities as priority areas, stressing that Germany was essentially starting from scratch on long-range strike.
The personnel growth plan foresees expanding from 185,420 active-duty soldiers today to 260,000 by the mid-2030s, alongside a parallel reserve buildup from around 60,000 currently assigned reservists to at least 200,000, for a combined total of 460,000 combat-ready troops.
The 13-year timeframe ought to make you wonder how serious they really are.
COMMIES ON PARADE: Sanchez, Lenin, and Global Opposition to Trump.
IT WOULD TAKE A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH:
Over 70% of the East Village voted for Mamdani.
Now they’re suing Mamdani because he’s planning to relocate Bellevue homeless shelter to the East Village. https://t.co/O9so7tGGlt pic.twitter.com/B1wPupD7RE
— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) April 22, 2026
NEW CIVILITY WATCH:
When you listen to Hasan Piker speak it becomes very obvious why Lenin and Stalin killed so many people.
He appoints himself judge, jury and executioner – anybody who ideologically opposes him is guilty of vague crimes like “social murder” and can therefore be executed https://t.co/LHLaxvnCEk
— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) April 22, 2026
Paul Krugman could not be reached for comment.
ROBERT SPENCER: Hey SPLC, Where’s My Check? “There is another striking aspect of the recent revelations about the SPLC secretly funding ‘right-wing extremist’ groups and providing a bogus foundation for the Biden regime’s ridiculous claim that ‘white supremacists’ constituted the biggest terror threat the nation faced. And that is that neither I nor others that the SPLC included on its spurious and defamatory “hate list” for years ever received a penny. The payouts were apparently reserved for the real hate groups, not for the patriotic groups the SPLC was trying to destroy by including them on its list.”
The whole SPLC enterprise was about propping up dwindling hate groups like the KKK, and them using them to smear the entire right.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN):
🧵🚨 THREAD: How the Charlottesville rally and SPLC birthed an entire billion-dollar-plus "democracy" ecosystem 🚨
11 federal counts. Wire fraud. Money laundering conspiracy. But here's what the SPLC headlines are missing:
• The indictment describes a paid informant in the… pic.twitter.com/iCQeu550kB
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) April 22, 2026
Plus:
If you’re not clear on what’s going on with this SLPC thing, the federal prosecutors believe that they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the SLPC was, among other things, funding the various organizations that it then cited to justify its own fundraising.
In other words,…
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) April 22, 2026
Tweet concludes: “In other words, it’s accused of funding white supremacist groups, and then pointing to these white supremacist groups to get people to give it money. That’s not ‘paying informants.’ That’s a massive fraud.”
And:
Committing wire fraud to send money to the KKK is an odd way to safeguard democracy, Senator. https://t.co/aVMAxMiP3g
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) April 22, 2026
We’re learning in real time why the censorship-industrial complex was so certain that so much of what they hated was inauthentic misinformation. So much of what they liked was inauthentic misinformation. Incredible.
— Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 (@pmarca) April 22, 2026
BECAUSE THIS IS THE YEAR OF FINISHING EVERYTHING THAT HAS SAT ALMOST FINISHED FOR YEARS:
RELEASE DAY FROM SARAH A. HOYT:

Some letters come from the living. Some come from the dead. This one comes with a formula that turns a rowboat into a miracle.
Seventeen-year-old Lord Michael Ainsling — youngest brother of the Duke of Darkwater, builder of mechanical marvels, survivor of fairyland — receives a letter from a man sixteen years dead. The inventor Tristram Blakley has not perished; he has been imprisoned by his own genius and begs the one mind in all of Avalon brilliant enough to understand his work to set him free. All Michael has to do is find seven missing brothers first and walk a magical path..
Fifteen-year-old Albinia Blakley has spent her whole life under her mother’s iron thumb — and her mother is a witch. The day Al finally escapes down a rope of knotted sheets, she lands in a world she doesn’t recognize, with no money, no magic kit, and no idea that the stranger who catches her is about to become her greatest ally.
Together, a girl with more secrets than she knows and a boy who builds machines that try to murder him must outwit a sorceress, navigate the treacherous courts of Fairyland, and unravel an enchantment years in the making — before a family is lost for good.
Witch’s Daughter is a gaslamp fantasy brimming with wit, warmth, and wonder, for readers who love their magic wrapped in velvet and their adventures served with morning tea.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE:
Big problems for Temple:
“Projections for enrollment growth over the next few years have been downsized, which would mean a loss of $150 million in revenue over five years” https://t.co/jBqFDhGyrl pic.twitter.com/4kXSVOW2Ye
— Marc Porter Magee 🎓 (@marcportermagee) April 22, 2026
*University of Michigan
This is the back cover if you are wondering who subscribes to the print edition of The Atlantic pic.twitter.com/Al7PQEXT7S
— Marc Porter Magee 🎓 (@marcportermagee) April 22, 2026
A VERY GOOD QUESTION: From Prime Time to Public Regret: What Happened To Tucker Carlson?
WHAT HE SAID: Unmasking.
NO ONE CAN HATE THE BBC ENOUGH: It Was a Tough Boat Crossing.
WHAT DO YOU KNOW, GAMING DOES PREPARE YOU FOR SOMETHING: FAA Levels Up Recruiting: Gamers Targeted for Air Traffic Control Jobs.
WAS IT BANKROLLED BY THE SPLC? Wharton School Publishes Research Claiming Minorities Can’t Trust White Colleagues.
THE LEFT ARE PEOPLE WHO QUITE LITERALLY BELIEVE YOU CAN CHANGE REALITY BY BELIEVING HARD ENOUGH: Reality is what the left wants to believe it is.
ALL OF THIS (NOTE VIDEO AND LANGUAGE WARNING): The SPLC: How The Left Created the Sperg-Right – Razör Rants.
BEHOLD MY SHINY AND BEAUTIFUL SHOCKED FACE: Soros-Linked Dark Money Puts Lopsided Democrat Gerrymander Of Virginia Across Finish Line.
ONLY BECAUSE ASKING QUESTIONS OF THE STUPID IS SILLY: Ilhan Omar explodes at reporter for asking about multimillion-dollar disclosure discrepancy: ‘You’re stupid for asking me anything’.
OR AT LEAST YOU SEE THE DARK MORE: It’s Always Darkest Before Dawn.