A huge blast on Saturday in Iran’s southern port of Shahid Rajaee has killed at least four people. According to The Guardian, the explosion wounded more than 500, with an official suggesting the fire was caused by the explosion of chemical containers.
“If the smoke is a funny color, always run to take cover.”
Q: What steps should you take when this happens?
A: Large and rapid
BLUF
In rebuttal, Francisco effectively summarized the core of the case: The PLCAA is “not just about protecting the manufacturers, the distributors and the retailers, but it’s about protecting the right of every American to exercise their right under the Second Amendment to possess and bear firearms. That right is meaningless if there are no manufacturers, retailers and distributors that provide them in the first place.”
What Supreme Court Justices Had to Say About Mexico’s Attempt to Demolish Our Second Amendment
Mexico has extinguished its constitutional arms right and now seeks to extinguish America’s,” stated the NRA’s amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case Smith & Wesson v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos. The oral argument took place on March 4, and the Court’s decision is expected by the end of June. Based on the Justices’ questions during oral argument, there is reason for cautious optimism that the Court will enforce the federal statute that prohibits abusive lawsuits designed to destroy American firearms businesses.
The roots of the current Mexico case go back to 1998, when the gun-ban group Handgun Control, Inc., orchestrated meritless lawsuits by big-city mayors to attempt to bankrupt American firearms companies through the sheer cost of litigation. Handgun Control, Inc., later changed its name twice, and now calls itself Brady United.
In response, two-thirds of the states enacted legislation to forbid such abusive suits. Then in 2005, a bipartisan Congress passed and President George W. Bush (R) signed a federal statute called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to stop the frivolous suits. Given the new law, most judges promptly dismissed the abusive suits.
Yet two decades later, the Mexican government is in American courts attempting to accomplish what the previous lawsuits did not, namely bankrupting the American firearms industry—and thereby making the exercise of Second Amendment rights impossible.
The allegations in the Mexico case are updated versions of the same bogus allegations from the earlier suits: American firearms businesses that obey all of the many laws about firearms commerce should be held financially liable for criminal gun misuse. Mexico wants $10 billion from American firearms businesses, plus court-ordered, drastic restrictions on the firearms industry.
Germany Is Revoking Gun Rights from AfD Supporters—and It’s a Warning Shot for the West
In Germany, owning guns is a privilege that can be taken away—not for breaking the law, but for holding the wrong political opinion.
Members and supporters of the right-leaning Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party are now facing mass gun license revocations. The reason? The German government has labeled the AfD a “right-wing extremist” group—a political designation that suddenly makes its members “unreliable” under the country’s gun laws. And just like that, firearms must be surrendered or destroyed.
If that sounds outrageous, it should. But it’s not surprising.
Here in the U.S., we’ve already seen our own political establishment flirt with these kinds of tactics. Remember when New York’s then-Governor Andrew Cuomo said pro-gun conservatives “have no place” in his state? Or when San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors labeled the NRA a “domestic terrorist organization”? Label first. Punish later.
That’s the playbook being used in Germany right now. And it’s worth paying attention to.
In 2021, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), designated the entire AfD as a “suspected threat to democracy.” That move allowed the government to surveil, wiretap, and investigate the party and its members.
It didn’t stop there.
Courts have now upheld revoking gun licenses from AfD members, based solely on their political affiliation. In one case, a couple in North Rhine-Westphalia lost legal ownership of over 200 firearms. They weren’t criminals. They weren’t accused of wrongdoing. They were just AfD members.
Another court in Thuringia blocked a blanket gun ban for all AfD members—but left the door wide open for revocations on a case-by-case basis.
In Saxony-Anhalt, officials are reviewing the gun licenses of 109 AfD members. As of last fall, 72 had already been targeted for revocation, with the rest under active review. The justification? Supporting a party the state now claims is “working against the constitutional order.”
And the courts are backing it up. According to a March 2024 ruling, former or current AfD supporters “lack the reliability” required to legally own firearms.
You don’t have to support the AfD to see the dangerous precedent here. In fact, many of their stated positions would be right at home in American politics:
On gun rights, their platform is clear: “A liberal and constitutional state has to trust its citizens… The AfD opposes any form of restrictions of civil rights by tightening firearms legislation.”
Sound extreme to you? Or does that sound like something a lot of Americans already believe?
Southwestern Scotland
The very eco-friendly, anti-global warming North Ayrshire Battery Recycling Plant—just blew up.
The amount of toxins released are equivalent to 1,000 trucks with poorly tuned diesels driving nonstop for over 10 years, according to reports.
The planet laughs at our stupidity. pic.twitter.com/M3fP9MkKtG
— Dane (@UltraDane) April 12, 2025
Looks like ‘Stop Drop & Roll’ didn’t cut it for the jihadi.
Orange car in the lower right center
Different angle showing the moment the would be VBEID fails to detonate in Amsterdam, Netherlands..#CityLife #enrichment #islam #jihad #caliphate #europe #amsterdam #netherlands #urban #mostlypeaceful pic.twitter.com/B3yDSAhn8w
— Mrgunsngear (@Mrgunsngear) April 3, 2025
The Globalist Authoritarians Are Playing With Fire
What happened with Marine Le Pen, the most popular politician in France who was just banned from standing for election on the flimsiest of pretenses, is no exception. It’s becoming the rule around the West and in other places, too, where being outside the mainstream of authorized establishment left-leaning globalist politics has become criminalized.
In some places, like the UK and Spain, it takes the form of persecuting people for saying things that those in power don’t want to hear. In other places, like Germany, upstart populist parties that earned a significant number of votes are informally, and sometimes formally, marginalized and threatened with being banned. But it’s the criminal persecution of leaders that is becoming the go-to.
It happened to Bolsonaro in Brazil, Netanyahu in Israel, Georgescu in Romania, and Le Pen in France. In each of these cases, the establishment authoritarians essentially attempted to frame a politician they couldn’t beat at the ballot box. Of course, their American analogs tried to do the same thing to Donald Trump here, and when that didn’t work, their allies tried to murder him. Thankfully, they failed at both – with the people who instigated these atrocities too dumb to know that they are the ones who should be the most thankful they failed.
These are not the acts of strong and confident leaders who believe in the strength and popularity of their ideology. These are the cowardly acts of authoritarians who differ from Putin not in their nature but only in their extent. They haven’t thrown anybody out of a fifth-story window yet that we know of, though we don’t know if they actively put the murderer who tried to kill Trump in Butler up to it – the one who tried to ambush him in Florida was an active member of their collective – but they would’ve cheered if either attempt had succeeded.
The fundamental challenge for every left-leaning managerial government in the West today is whether you can bring in migrant voters at a faster rate than your current voters turn against you. https://t.co/yVE6NwSEuw
— Jordan H Knight (@jhk_______) April 1, 2025
Visigoths no longer outside the gates, but recruited by the Legions.
What can possibly go wrong? It’s just diversity, equity, and inclusion right?
This is the British Army that thinks it can take on Russia. They turn off their radios, stop movement and waste clean water so that a Muslim can pray towards Mecca five times a day.
What impact do you suppose this has on White recruitment? pic.twitter.com/M8sb9pAcEc
— Dissident Soaps (@DissidentSoaps) March 29, 2025
3000 years of history condensed down to 8 seconds
3000 years of history condensed to 8 seconds pic.twitter.com/x5svsxot5Q
— Ed Gethane (@ed_gethane) March 16, 2025
U.S. resumes military aid as Ukraine backs plan for 30-day ceasefire
Ukraine “expressed readiness to accept” a U.S. proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire with Russia, the two countries said in a joint statement after a key meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia.
Why it matters: A ceasefire, if implemented, would be a major diplomatic breakthrough in the three-year war between Russia and Ukraine. But the Kremlin has yet to weigh in on the U.S. proposal.
The latest: A source close to the Ukrainian government told Axios U.S. military assistance resumed on Tuesday. Intelligence sharing with the U.S. was fully restored.
Driving the news: During the meeting — which lasted more than five hours — the U.S. agreed to lift its suspension on intelligence sharing with Ukraine and resume weapons shipments to the country, which were paused eight days ago.
But I thought Trudeau banned the guns?
Why isn't the gun control working the way they said it would? pic.twitter.com/PIWxwfXemo
— 🩺 Dr. Napervillain Bunny🐰 (@Type07Safety) March 8, 2025
One month apart.
Good. That’s exactly what we want him to do. The world order is corrupt and this country has no allegiance to any order except the American order, which we all know is corrupt to the core. He’s doing what the majority of the American people want him to do. Deal with it
— Rob🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@armyvet4freedom) March 6, 2025
Yesterday, [February 28]Susan Rice said of the Trump-Zelensky meeting, “There is no question this was a set up.” She revealed full knowledge of the mineral agreement, complained that it didn’t include “concrete” security agrees (meaning, apparently, commitment of US troops on the ground if conditions merit), and then mischaracterized Trump’s behavior, counting on most Americans to not have watched what transpired over the entire hour in the Oval Office.
You can look at this and dismiss it as typical Democrat talking points, but you could also view it as almost a confession, one that includes details about the current “Get Trump” effort. Yes, Trump won the popular vote against unbelievable odds, but if you think Team Obama is being any less involved in quiet insurrections than they were during the first Trump administration (Russia collusion, Ukraine impeachment, etc.), you’re clueless.
I’ll remind you that Susan Rice was in the small Jan. 5, 2017 meeting in the WH with other key Russia collusion hoax perpetrators. Zelensky repeatedly declined opportunities to sign the deal in Kyiv and Munich, and requested the meeting at the White House. It later came out that Rice and Tony Blinken, Victoria Nuland, and Alexander Vindman may have been personally advising Zelensky to do this meeting in the way he did — that they recommended him to be hostile and to try to goad Trump into blowing up. Even though he didn’t, and even though Zelensky’s actions horrified many normal Americans, the Obama team went on the airwaves to falsely characterize what happened.
I think their goal was to have a wonderful performance by Zelensky, an angry Trump appearing to scuttle the deal, and the support of the neocon portion of the GOP to start applying pressure on Trump to have US Troop commitments as part of the “security guarantee.” It was a set-up, in Susan Rice’s interesting choice of words. Instead, Zelensky had one of the worst stage performances of his acting career, and Trump was statesmanlike (against all odds) throughout.
Zelensky followed Team Obama’s advice to be hostile to a tee, but it didn’t land how they thought it would. Surprisingly, one of the most important aspects of it not working out might have been Lindsay Graham’s reaction. Had he and other neocons thought Zelensky was being reasonable, Trump would be having to fight (even moreso) the neocon portion of the GOP in addition to Team Obama’s dirty tricks.
Even the “conservative” neocon pundits on TV last night were admitting Zelensky had royally messed up. As you can see from the hostility of the bureaucracy to any Republican oversight, no matter how reasonable or minor it may be, the entrenched bureaucracy and permanent DC apparatus is quite active. That goes quadruple for the deep state in the Intelligence Community. I’d expect more and more shenanigans and to be prepared so that you don’t fall for the next information operation.
The post-WWII architecture in Europe and the US needs this war to continue or be settled on “US troops on the ground” type guarantees, even though that’s not what Americans want. Things will heat up here, and it’s a very dangerous time.
Also, the immediate and near-identical reaction of leaders of various European countries in support of Zelensky’s temper tantrum yesterday also suggests a high-level of coordination and indicates a set-up. All very interesting.
Ten bad takeaways from the Zelenskyy blow-up
1. Zelenskyy does not grasp—or deliberately ignores—the bitter truth: those with whom he feels most affinity (Western globalists, the American Left, the Europeans) have little power in 2025 to help him. And those with whom he obviously does not like or seeks to embarrass (cf. his Scranton, Penn. campaign-like visit in September 2024) alone have the power to save him. For his own sake, I hope he is not being “briefed” by the Obama-Clinton-Biden gang to confront Trump, given their interests are not really Ukraine’s as they feign.
2. Zelenskyy acts as if his agendas and ours are identical. So, he keeps insisting that he is fighting for us despite our two-ocean-distance that he mocks. We do have many shared interests with Ukraine, but not all by any means: Trump wants to “reset” with Russia and triangulate it against China. He seeks to avoid a 1962 DEFCON 2-like crisis over a proxy showdown in proximity to a nuclear rival. And he sincerely wants to end the deadlocked Stalingrad slaughterhouse for everyone’s sake.
3. The Europeans (and Canada) are now talking loudly of a new muscular antithesis, independent of the U.S. Promises, promises—given that would require Europeans to prune back their social welfare state, frack, use nuclear, stop the green obsessions, and spend 3-5 percent of their GDP on defense. The U.S. does not just pay 16 percent of NATO’s budget but also puts up with asymmetrical tariffs that result in a European Union trade surplus of $160 billion, plays the world cop patrolling sea-lanes and deterring terrorists and rogues states that otherwise might interrupt Europe’s commercial networks abroad, as well as de facto including Europe under a nuclear umbrella of 6,500 nukes.
4. Zelenskyy must know that all of the once deal-stopping issues to peace have been de facto settled: Ukraine is now better armed than most NATO nations, but will not be in NATO; and no president has or will ever supply Ukraine with the armed wherewithal to take back the Donbass and Crimea. So, the only two issues are a) how far will Putin be willing to withdraw to his 2022 borders and b) how will he be deterred?
Zelensky goes to town
He behaved like a spoiled child, talking over Trump and Vance
If the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, were on my Christmas list, I think I might give him a copy of Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War. I’d mark that bit in book five we call “The Melian Dialogue.” It tells the story of how Athens confronts the tiny island of Melos, a neutral ally of Sparta. Athens demands that the island surrender its neutrality. The leaders of Melos resist. Athens delivers an ultimatum: surrender or be destroyed.
The Melians offer a number of arguments about why they should not be forced to capitulate. Athens is not being fair, the Melians have right on their side, et cetera. In perhaps the most famous bit of the episode, the Athenians explain that “the right, as the world goes, is only in question between equal power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
This was not, perhaps, a shining moment for the Athenians. But it does have the virtue of being a true description of the way the world actually works. Machiavelli, who knew a thing or two about that subject, would have understood. I am not sure that Volodymyr Zelensky does.
In his extraordinary performance with Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and others in front of the press in the Oval Office today, he behaved like a spoiled child, talking over Trump and Vance, shouting and essentially telling them that Ukraine was the aggrieved party in the war with Russia and that he was not interested in a ceasefire.
The Approach Trump Had in the Zelensky Meeting Is One Democrats Can’t Wrap Their Head Around.
The meeting between President Donald Trump, VP J.D. Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was nothing short of explosive, fantastic, and satisfying. So much so that America collectively need a smoke afterward.
The Democrats, however, seem to think Trump just beheaded a statue of Apollo and now the gods will be wrathful.
But besides watching an entitled brat of a world leader get raked over the coals by the guy from The Apprentice and a hillbilly millennial, Zelensky’s strategy was a head scratcher. Perhaps he was so used to American politicians who were willing to lay themselves down into puddles, so Zelensky wasn’t ready to talk to two dudes who don’t feel the need to perform for the media, which Vance seemed hyper-aware of, and pointed that out to Zelensky.
Perhaps he thought America owed him one, and thus his smug attitude, but as Bonchie noted in his article, this wasn’t wise:
Trump has never accepted the idea that Ukraine is doing the United States a favor by fighting Russia as a way of justifying unlimited aid. Perhaps Joe Biden found that argument persuasive, but Joe Biden is not in office anymore. Russia is not going to invade the United States or any NATO country (if for no other reason than a lack of capability), and using that as a type of blackmail for support was never going to play.
And herein we find the trump card that Trump had on Zelensky… you know, besides the money the world’s most successful beggar came to get.
Trump’s negotiation strategy vastly differs from many other American leaders, especially those on the Democrat side of the aisle. Despite Trump’s reputation as a rough-around-the-edges man whose political charm is far divorced from what people expect after watching The West Wing too much, he is a master negotiator.
Even when it comes to our enemies, Trump is not going to negotiate from a position of bad faith. He sees everything as a businessman would. There are no friends or foes while at the table, just good deals and bad deals.
I thought The Federalist CEO Sean Davis put this very well in a post he made on X:
Trump doesn’t bad mouth anyone who comes to the negotiating table in good faith. Ever. It’s a near-cardinal rule of negotiations for him, and a major reason he’s been such a successful dealmaker.
If you refuse to negotiate, he will trash you. If you lie or negotiate in bad faith, he will trash you. He has zero interest in allowing empty moralizing to get in the way of a deal that he wants.
He has done this his entire career, in business and in politics, and it’s fascinating to me how many people who think of themselves as smart and savvy are incapable of seeing or understanding this dynamic.
For the moment, Bibi backs off
The genocidal mania of Hamas and its supporters revels in murder and humiliation of the enemy. The ecstatic bloodlust is palpable. The impetus of degradation is manifest. Thus Hamas has staged the release of hostages under the current ceasefire with Israel in a manner that comports with the mania. They have turned each release into a celebratory production that degrades and humiliates hostages captives who have been starved and tortured in captivity. Hamas lets them go, but Hamas gets the last laugh. The silence of “the world” is remarkable.
Last week’s events brought us Hamas’s staging of the production of four corpses. CNN characterized it as a “macabre handover ceremony.” That doesn’t capture the quality of the event, but it’s hard to capture. We need a psychiatric successor to Freud who can give us The Psychopathology of Everyday Islamism.
Following the “ceremony” and the delivery of the corpses, the Israelis discovered Hamas’s alleged mixed-up confusion about the corpse of Shiri Bibas. Hamas had turned over a random Gazan in place of the corpse of Mrs. Bibas. The creative juices of the genocidal psychopathology are flowing.
The corpse production was followed on Saturday by the staging of this week’s release of living hostages. The hostages appeared onstage attired in fake army uniforms, though they were not soldiers when kidnapped. One of the hostages was ordered to kiss two of his masked captors on the head while holding his official Hamas release certificate. Only the Israeli Arab hostage was excused from the onstage production.
And that’s not all. Eve Barlow comments: “In one of the most barbaric acts since October 7, Hamas today brought two hostages, Eviatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal[,] to witness the release of the six other hostages onstage and filmed them adjacent in a van pleading to camera for their release before they were returned to the dungeons of Gaza…” She adds: “The people of Gaza are the most depraved people on the planet and the people of the West have allowed them to sink to lower levels of depravity by choice and by complicity.” And this: “We will never forgive you or take your ‘humanitarian’ work seriously ever again.”
Ms. Barlow reflects the intensified anger that this week’s humiliations have aroused in Israel. Early this morning Prime Minister Netanyahu halted the scheduled release of this week’s tranche of 602 convicted terrorists from prison in exchange for the six living hostages.
The Prime Minister’s Office has posted on X: “In light of Hamas’s repeated violations, including the ceremonies that humiliate our hostages and the cynical exploitation of our hostages for propaganda purposes it has been decided to delay the release of terrorists that was planned for yesterday until the release of the next hostages has been assured, and without the humiliating ceremonies.”
The use of the passive voice is unfortunate. One infers that this is Netanyahu’s decision for the moment. The Times of Israel has much more here. If they are not mutually irreconcilable, Israel’s goals of recovering hostages and eradicating Hamas remain difficult to reconcile.
Let’s Go Privateering! An old idea gets new enthusiasm.
Time to go a’privateering?
We’ve heard a bit about letters of marque and reprisal recently. Sen. Mike Lee has proposed bringing back letters of marque in a thread on X, suggesting them as a tool for going after Mexican drug cartels. Erik Prince, who founded Blackwater, the private security company (it’s rude to call them “mercenaries”) has also weighed in in favor of this approach. My own Congressman, Tim Burchett (R-TN) has introduced legislation allowing the President to issue letters of marque and reprisal against cartels, the Cartel Marque and Reprisal Reauthorization Act of 2025, co-sponsored with Rep. Mark Messmer, (R-IN). (The full text of the bill is here.)
This isn’t a new idea, really. Letters of marque and reprisal date back centuries; and even in this century there have been proposals to use them again, particularly after 9/11 when they were proposed, particularly by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) as a way of going after terrorists. More recently, people have proposed “Cyber Letters of Marque and Reprisal” to go after hackers.
Is there anything to these ideas, or do they just appeal to our swashbuckling side? Let’s talk.
Reason for Mexico Terror Threat Against U.S. Gunmakers Suggests Government in Pocket of Cartels
“Mexico threatens to escalate US gunmakers lawsuit with terror charges,” The Guardian reported Friday. “Claudia Scheinbaum warns of reciprocal action if Washington designates country’s cartels as terrorist groups.”
“If they declare these criminal groups as terrorists, then we’ll have to expand our US lawsuit… The lawyers are looking at it, but they could be accomplices,” Mexico’s president told the press, adding a time-worn disinformation go-to:
“She said the US justice department itself has recognized that ‘74% of the weapons’ used by criminal groups in Mexico come from north of the border.”
That’s the bit of calculated propaganda that primed ATF to implement Operation Fast and Furious “gunwalking,” creating calls for a renewed “assault weapon” ban (Note: Some of the links that follow go to the Internet Archive and may load slowly). The numbers may vary, but the lie remains constant.
It started out with voices like Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and then-Brady Campaign president Paul Helmke, claiming “American gun sellers supply the cartels with 95 to 100 percent of their guns.” The BBC put it at “90%.” Then it was 80%.
Here’s what they were all intentionally misstating:
“According to ATF’s Tracing Center, 90 percent of the firearms about which ATF receives information are traceable to the United States.”
“About which ATF receives information…” That’s not “all,” that’s what’s been selectively submitted for tracing. A Fox News analysis at the time concluded
“There’s just one problem with the 90 percent “statistic” and it’s a big one: It’s just not true. In fact, it’s not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.”
Here we are in 2025 and those lies are still being thrown out and “reported” unchallenged by media hacks who either don’t know, which makes them incompetent and unqualified informants, or do know, which makes them complicit in the deliberate deception and manipulation of their readers and viewers.
