Tropical Ice

[Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi]

I know. That’s why it boggles the mind that news outlets are calling the diaries useless or a nothingburger. They’re damning

[Konstantin Kisin @KonstantinKisin]

They're not "migrants". Migrants go to an embassy, apply for a visa, wait their turn and then come when they're allowed.

These people are *illegally* entering a European country. Given that Europe has no borders within it, they are effectively entering all of Europe illegally. And from there, since Britain won't enforce our borders either they can come here.

I really hate the language that people sometimes use when discussing these issues but 50 THOUSAND people coming into a country illegally in a day can only be described truthfully with one word: invasion.

These people are invading our countries against our will. If you're someone who is really concerned about the "rise of the far right", you should be calling and actively working for this to be dealt with with extreme urgency. Because if liberals don't police the borders, fascists will.

[Gad Saad @GadSaad]

For the first time in recorded history, a civilization has decided that the most enlightened virtue is to surrender its culture, heritage, women, and children without putting up any defence. Suicidal empathy shall prove to be the demise of the West.

[Hon. Vickie Paladino @VickieforNYC]

You don’t understand, the smug vindictive communist shtick is what he was elected to do. It’s the whole point.

Everything else is secondary, if not optional.

I’m serious — he could follow through on absolutely nothing, but as long as he very publicly dishes out smug hatred targeted at the right groups, his supporters will love him to the moon.

The power is what matters. He’s there, he’s one of them, he’s saying all the words they say, and nobody can do anything about it.

You really have to view this through the lens of Zohran’s peers; young social media addled leftists who’ve never had a job or responsibilities. They don’t know what success or accomplishments even look like. The TikTok videos are all they can relate to.

That’s why you already see so many insane posts from progressives all over the country who genuinely believe Zohran fixed everything in New York six months in.

There’s zero frame of reference for these people because they have no real world experience with anything. Zohran knows all of this, that’s why he’s dumped tens of millions into his new official propaganda department.

As long as they keep churning out content, his ‘success’ is indisputable. Because content is success to his generation.

We’re in for some very bad times.

[The Babylon Bee @TheBabylonBee]

Man Who Took Nation's Constitutional Rights Claims Protection By Constitutional Right https://t.co/Mb4S7hn38L

[Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi]

For many, the war never ended:

[RazörFist @RazorFist]

2020: The Science™ is settled

2021: Trust the Science™

2022: Sorry you lost your job for not trusting The Science™

2023: We have recalled The Science™ from the market

2026: The Science™ pleads the 5th

[Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent @SecScottBessent]

More than a year ago, the House passed the Clarity Act.

There’s been progress since — thousands of hours of bipartisan negotiations took place at the staff and Member levels. The Senate Committees on Banking and Agriculture advanced their respective titles. And Senate Republicans produced a floor-ready product that, as I type this, is waiting for a vote.

It’s disappointing — but not surprising — that Senate Democrats are choosing politics on the cusp of a major victory for American leadership. Find another instance in history where Congress, when given the choice, opted to push an industry out of the United States rather than smartly regulate it. American Exceptionalism was once a bipartisan goal; if Clarity fails, I have serious doubts.

These same Democrats — many of whom have taken millions of dollars from the crypto industry — proclaim that Clarity lacks safeguards for consumers and falls short in countering illicit finance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Titles II and III materially uplift regulatory and compliance obligations for digital asset intermediaries, placing them on similar footing with traditional financial institutions. The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act — which Washington lobbyists have spun up as a boogeyman for certain groups of prosecutors and law enforcement — does nothing other than codify longstanding Treasury Department policy that’s remained consistent across Administrations: non-custodial builders and developers are not, and have never been, subject to registration obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act. And at this point, major law enforcement trades that once opposed the bill, including the Fraternal Order of Police, have now endorsed it.

The Senate needs to vote NOW on this landmark legislation. The truth is that Senate Democrats are afraid to advance the Clarity Act as they fear Senator Warren and the “Anti-Crypto Army” she once promised to build. In the days ahead, Leader Thune will put this theory to the test. Will Senate Democrats be on the side of American Exceptionalism, or will they opt to cede American leadership of a global industry for fear of the bespectacled squirrel’s Left flank?

America will lead or America won’t. It’s not more complicated than that. I believe Satoshi once said it best:

“If you don’t believe me or don’t get it, I don’t have time to try to convince you, sorry.”

[The Rational Animal 🤔 @theobjectivist]

You chose 1973 as your baseline. Let me tell you what happened in 1973.

The dollar fully floated after Nixon severed gold. The first Pell Grants were awarded. The HMO Act was signed. Your chart does not start before the crisis, Bernie. It starts at the scene of the crime.

Healthcare up 35x because Medicare, CON laws, and the AMA cartel run medicine.
Homes up 13x because zoning makes building illegal and the Fed prints.
Rent up 15x because price controls and zoning strangle supply.
Tuition up 23x because federal loans gave colleges a blank check.

General prices rose 7x in that span. Everything government controls rose 13x to 35x. Everything it leaves alone got cheaper.

You are not the prosecutor of this case. You are the defendant.

[Bradshaw @myabradshaw78]

Now this is how you do a Cartoon Right..

[The Babylon Bee @TheBabylonBee]

Terrorists Feeling Dumb For Ramming Twin Towers When All They Had To Do Was Run For Mayor https://t.co/C8pPqEjPbM

[Sara Miller-Woods @Millerita]

One of the most heartbreaking things I ever witnessed was a nursing home staff tilting up an elderly woman’s bed at the window so her family on the sidewalk could wave to her before she died. But yeah, real bummer Fauci didn’t have to answer questions.

[Gerard Filitti @GerardFilitti]

A tax meant for 31,000 second homes became a list of 900,000 names and addresses. Mamdani's finance department then told longtime New Yorkers to prove they live in their own homes in four weeks, or pay. The list was so careless it flagged the finance commissioner's own house. This is socialism in practice: the government assumes your money belongs to it, then gives you four weeks to prove otherwise.

#Mamdani #NYC #PropertyTax

[Jason Lavigne @JasonLavigneAB]

Please enjoy my cartoon on @X.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

Welcome to Socialism

Mayor Mamdani with fanfare released a list of 960,000 owners of real estate in New York City that have been determined they could owe the pied a terre tax because NYC computers have determined they own what was billed as a market value of $5 million or more.

Now there are only about 1 million residential tax lots in New York City so the first question is how did virtually every owner get put on the list?

The answer is that you are subject to the tax in the first two years if your property has a “DOF valuation” of over $1 million. And so the $5 million figure was a fake. The DOF system is obviously massively flawed as it has dragged in almost a million property owners that meet the threshold.

Now, here is the interesting part — once you are on the list you have to prove you should not be taxed by showing you are a resident. Or by challenging the valuation. Good luck fighting the city bureaucrats on both of these counts. The individual litigation will be massive.

It does not take more than a New York minute and Google Maps to see that many of these properties would never sell for $5 million. Pick a few. The whole housing sector will also be dragged down by the additional annual taxation. Add a tax of 4 to 6 per cent (yes condos are taxed that high now) a year of its DOF value to a condo or coop and that condo won’t be worth that much. And you can forget about out of town buyers. So this will destroy much of the home values that people have built up. People who have invested in New York.

Many of these folks might have a mortgage and may in fact not have they much equity in the property. The tax-the-rich taxman does not care about that. An unexpected $50,000 annual bill for a condo with a DOF value of a million now has the cost of a second mortgage on top of all the expenses.

The idea of the tax was basically to create massive taxation without representation. The people being taxed — non residents — by definition don’t vote and so the political genius was to create and discriminate against a class of people who do not vote. That by itself might be unconstitutional. And they also don’t use the schools, much garbage, much of any of the city’s services. So taxing them actually makes little sense as you drive away people who were contributing but not using the services.

Now many will recall that persecutions frequently begin with a list — a list that can be used by the authorities and that is where Mamdani started — and he published it to boot. And smiled about it as though those high-value owners deserve what’s coming to them.

But with a million people on his tax hit list, welcome to the lie of socialism - it starts with the idea that only “they” are going to get it — a small group of 30,000 homeowners — and before you know it you are on the list.

[Doug Lane @dlane]

Not only has the broken system for DoD and FAA coordination that contributed to the Flight 5342 tragedy not been fixed, it might actually be worse than it was on January 29, 2025. Truly staggering details in this piece.

[Bridget Phetasy @BridgetPhetasy]

It is not hyperbolic to say Elon saved many of us from government and big tech censorship under the Biden administration. We would all be in a digital gulag still.

[Secretary Kennedy @SecKennedy]

Sheryl Gay Stolberg gets it wrong again. Repeatedly describing these documents as Dr. Fauci’s “private diaries” is inaccurate and misleading.

These were not personal journals. They were government records created on a government computer by a federal employee during one of the most consequential public health emergencies in history.

Under federal law, these documents belong to the American people.

Precision matters. Stolberg’s mischaracterization has predictably fueled outrage among Democrats, who have denounced @SenRandPaul's release of Dr. Fauci’s “private diaries.”

[Jason Lavigne @JasonLavigneAB]

Please enjoy my cartoon on @X.

[Dusty Rose @DustyRoseYYC]

What Theo's cartoon really tells us is that, in Canada, the government control of the media is so secure that they don't even feel the need to hide it anymore.

The opposition will face the full weight of the Canadian subsidized media in every election, and Canadian voters will always be subject to a propaganda blitz if the polling numbers aren't going the government's way.

If the government fails at anything, you won't hear about it. If the government isn't doing what they said they'd do, expect a campaign of deflection. If the opposition is right about anything, expect a smear campaign and hit pieces using every tool at the media's disposal.

This puts the Canadian media in a position to fight democracy, not to support it.

Ask yourself how we got here.

#cdnpoli #cdnmedia