The best destinations for celebrities fleeing the Donald Trump regime



It’s become an election tradition: Every four years a long list of Hollywood celebrities and musicians vow to leave America and never come back if the bad orange man wins. Then the vast majority of them stay and complain for the next four years instead of honoring their commitment.

After Trump’s surprise victory in 2016, A-listers like Miley Cyrus, Bryan Cranston, Amy Schumer, Lena Dunham, and Samuel L. Jackson couldn't wait to be the first to bid America a hearty "adios."

Yes, pretty-socks Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has recently backpedaled on his aggressive pro-immigration policies, but this is Canada we're talking about here.

None of them left — and only Jackson had a credible excuse (he was playing a Magic 8 ball in a late night sketch when he said it.)

Miraculously, all escaped political persecution for opposing the dictatorial new regime.

This time around, the list of forgotten celebrities talking about a one-way ticket away from the Land of the Free is longer than ever, encompassing such shining stars as John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, Amy Schumer, Sharon Stone (who is “certainly considering a house in Italy"), Barbra Streisand (who “can’t live” in Trump’s America), and Cher (definitely leaving, still mad about the "ulcer" she got from the 2016 election).

But, wait — there're more! Elon Musk’s son (a man living as a trans woman and going by the name Vivian Wilson) has also promised to leave, citing the lack of a future in a Trump-led United States. Hope he saves room in dad's Cybertruck for Kamala shill Cardi B and race hustler Whoopi Goldberg. The latter might want to head out sooner rather than later, given the defamation suit against her.

Now some celebrities do follow through: P. Diddy’s “clowning around” friend Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, have moved to the U.K. following Trump’s win and say they will never be back. "Desperate Housewives" star Eva Longoria first left years ago for Mexico and Spain and says she just couldn’t live in “dystopian” America any longer.

Nonetheless, these courageous deserters are in the minority. We know most celebs are so exhausted just from fleeing X that that they need a couple spa weeks before they can contemplate packing up their stuff in real life.

When they're ready, Align is here to help with our list of MAGA-free destinations. Hollywood stars, we hope you'll think of us Align your treasured personal assistant — one you never have to worry about "going number two" on your personal toilet.

Haiti

Now that thousands of Haitians have recently settled in Springfield, Ohio, the time is ripe for a little cultural exchange. Pets welcome!

What's more, Haiti comes personally recommended by none other than carrot-topped funnyman Conan O’Brien, who spent four days in the Caribbean nation in 2018 in response to reports that President Trump had labeled it a "sh**hole."

His verdict? "Haiti is great already." Your move, Mr. Drumpf!

Unfortunately, the Haitian embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to our inquiries by the deadline; it is worth noting the U.S. embassy in Haiti is on ordered departure status due to instability and violence. That's one way to describe your new home. We call it gentrification-ready!

Commonwealth countries

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The beauty of moving to the United Kingdom is that at least 45% of the population speaks English as their native language — so no need to translate your "in this house, we ..." yard signs. And if old Blighty's not to your liking, why not try one of Great Britain's former colonies, like Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa?

While none of the embassies for these countries responded by press time, all are always open to skilled workers, especially in the fields of pretending to cry on camera and starting athleisurewear brands.

And don't overlook our neighbor to the north. They gave us Jim Carrey, after all — isn't it time we paid them back?

When asked about the possibility of fast-tracking VIP asylum-seekers, Canadian officials responded with an enthusiastic “all applications from around the world are assessed equally against the same criteria.”

Yes, pretty-socks Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has recently backpedaled on his aggressive pro-immigration policies, but this is Canada we're talking about here. As long as you pose for a few selfies with the border guards, you're good.

Germany

Jenny Anderson/Print Collector/Getty Images

How ironic would it be to flee America's Hitler by building a life in the homeland of the OG Nazi himself? (Potential screenplay idea?) Not to worry, his type is no longer welcome here, thanks to the country's robust, new anti-fascism laws. You post a hateful meme, you're going to jail — no questions asked.

A German official wouldn't comment on celebrity escape visas except to quip “established procedures remain in force.” Sooo German. Anyway, that's exactly what the door guy at Lure says. We're sure you're on the list.

North Korea

Gavriil Grigorov/Mark Von Holden/NBC/Getty Images

Talk about exclusive! Not gonna lie, it's not easy gaining entry to this worker's paradise — especially as an American imperialist aggressor. But if you do, the scene is way less competitive than L.A. or New York.

As North Korean-born influencer Yeonmi Park puts it, “In the free world, children dream about what they want to be when they grow up and how they can use their talents. When I was 4 and 5 years old, my only adult ambition was to buy as much bread as I liked and eat all of it.”

Somewhere you don't have to feel guilty for not counting every carb? Sounds like heaven to us.

The ocean

Heading for a better life by sea is a classic refugee move. Just in time for the coming collapse of democracy, one Florida cruise company has taken boat people chic and added an upscale twist:

“Villa Vie Residences has capitalised on the election results by offering Americans a four-year escape - the length of a presidential term - starting at around $160,000 per person, taking guests to more than 425 ports in 140 countries.”

It's just like your Ayahuasca shaman at Burning Man says: The journey is the destination. All aboard!

Kevin Mazur/Anadolu/Getty Images

Medusa lurks in Tulsa, Oklahoma



In Steven Spielberg’s 1993 adaption of Michael Crichton’s popular novel “Jurassic Park,” there’s a scene in which Muldoon, the game warden, explains to the group that the velociraptors understand their caged predicament as a problem to be solved.

“They were testing the fences for weaknesses systematically,” he says, as the group peers anxiously into the pen.

So was McAdams really praying in earnest to the mythical snake-haired goddess you probably learned about in eighth-grade English?

Of course, later in the film, when the park’s security system is shut down, the raptors do manage to escape their cage, leading to Muldoon’s bloody death.

I bring this up because it reminds me of what just happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, earlier this month.

The Demon Star

On November 20, an unremarkable woman named Ms. McAdams approached the podium at a Tulsa city council meeting. She was invited there to open the meeting with a prayer. And pray she did, but not to the God whom the state of Oklahoma recently decided to reinstate in its public school system by including the Bible in American history studies.

Ms. McAdams prayed to Medusa.

Introducing herself as a “priestess of the goddess,” she recited the following invocation.

I invoke the Gorgonea, champions of equality and sacred rage. I call to Medusa, monstrous hero of the oppressed and abused. I open the eye of Medusa, the stare that petrifies injustice. I call upon the serpent that rises from this land to face the stars, the movement of wisdom unbound. May these leaders find within themselves the embodied divine, the sacred essence of the spark of the universe and the breath of the Awen.

Place in the hands of these leaders the sacred work of protecting the sovereignty and autonomy of all our people. Gorgon goddess, make them ready and willing to be champions for all in this city, not just those in power. Shine a light for them that they may walk the path of justice protected and prepared, illuminating the darkness. Endow them with the fire of courage, the waters of compassion, the air of truth, and the strength of the earth itself. As above, so below; as within, so without; as the universe, so the soul. May there be peace among you all, and so it is.

Why Medusa?

McAdams opens by invoking the “Gorgonea,” a group of stars that make up part of the northern constellation Persesus. Consisting of four stars, the Gorgonea represents Medusa’s severed head. The brightest star among the four is named Algol — the “Demon Star.”

According to the myth, of which there are several versions, Medusa was once a beautiful priestess who was turned into a snake-haired gorgon by Athena after she was raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple. From that point forward, men (there’s no record of women) who gazed upon her would be turned into stone. The hero Perseus was sent to kill Medusa. Using a mirrored shield, Perseus was able to avoid her stony gaze and behead her. However, her severed head maintained its powers and proved to be a valuable weapon.

So was McAdams really praying in earnest to the mythical snake-haired goddess you probably learned about in eighth-grade English?

Yes and no.

“Many Christians equate any reference to snakes or serpents directly with Satan, but I am referencing the serpents that makeup [sic] Medusa's hair. This is classical mythology and before Christianity, snakes were ancient symbols of feminine divinity, healing, and transformation," McAdams reportedly wrote in a Facebook post after her prayer sparked immediate backlash.

So in a sense, yes, McAdams was really praying to the serpentine Medusa from Greek lore.

However, those of us who know the truth understand that there is no snake-haired goddess dwelling among the stars who can assist the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in its battle for “equality” and “justice.” There is another serpent who could and would trick people into carrying out his sinister will under the guise of empathy and empowerment, but we’ll get to him in a minute.

McAdams is an occult priestess, meaning she serves a specific deity — in this case, the goddess Medusa. Theoretically, all rites and rituals she performs are aligned with the will of Medusa. To do this, she must be deeply connected to what the occult calls “the otherworld” or “the spirit realm.”

Modern priestesses are specifically concerned with raising consciousness and activating humans to carry out the will of the deity they serve. Notice how McAdams asks Medusa to inspire the city council members to act on behalf of certain “humanitarian” causes.

During my research, I was surprised to discover that McAdams’ worship of Medusa as a powerful goddess of femininity is very common among occultists. They write and speak about her as if she is real and can be called upon for help and guidance. Many report that Medusa appears to them in dreams; others find that snakes seek them out. This is how they know that Medusa is calling to them.

As I was reading, I came across multiple sources that instructed readers on how to “work with her.” It involves casting hexes on your abusers (remember: Medusa was raped), learning water magic and creating altars of seashells, coral, driftwood, and other oceanic items (Medusa was a sea deity), presenting blood sacrifices in the form of menstrual blood (Medusa is associated with feminine energy and power), and — surprise, surprise — collecting snake-related items, such as shed skin, amulets, etc.

Those who engage in these types of rituals all report the same thing: Medusa will come.

I believe them. I just don’t call her by that name.

Beyond the Gorgon

If it isn’t obvious already, Ms. McAdams and those like her are worshipping and carrying out the will of Satan — the shape-shifter who probably does appear or call to them in the form of a snake-haired goddess falsely promising righteous revenge on the male oppressors of society and deliverance for their female victims.

And for the record, it doesn’t have to be Medusa. The occult worships many different deities and supernatural entities with names you’re probably familiar with. They’re all satanic.

McAdams' prayer is a fusion of demonic and progressive ideologies, which are one and the same, as progressivism inverts biblical truth. She positions herself as all modern liberals do — a champion for the oppressed, in this case for women.

That’s why she specifically invokes Medusa, a goddess of feminine power and the ideal figurehead for the radical feminist movement that lauds abortion and trans inclusivity but despises masculinity and the nuclear family — and wraps these ideas in deceptive platitudes of equality and freedom so that they’re widely appealing. Satan loves the modern feminist for these reasons.

Breaches in the fence

Like the raptors testing the security of the fences that prevent them from devouring the park tourists, Satan and his demonic legions are constantly testing the boundaries that have been erected to keep evil at bay. Their intention is also to devour.

A decade ago, in Town of Greece vs. Galloway, the Supreme Court ruled that prayer before a legislative session was constitutional, so long as the opportunity was available to all faiths. I’m not surprised that Satan saw this as a chink in the fence. I’m also not surprised that we’re seeing him utilize this opening now, given Oklahoma’s recent decision to bring the Bible back into its classrooms. Further, Satan’s message is far more likely to land in this toxically empathetic society that rewards radicalism and fringe groups while demonizing anything that would fall under a Christian worldview.

But Oklahoma is not the first place the demonic has brazenly shown its ugly face to the public. Last December, the Satanic Temple erected a statue of the demon Baphomet in the Iowa Capitol building in the name of religious freedom. In fact, there are multiple examples of the Satanic Temple worming its way into the political arena.

These incidents are becoming more frequent as society’s “fences” become weaker and weaker. I hope we will not write off McAdams’ prayer as the dismissable ravings of a middle-aged woman who thinks Medusa is real. Medusa is real. His name is Satan.

American workers need dignified uniforms



When you look at old photos, you notice a lot of different things. Different cars, different clothes, different kinds of houses. More suits on men, more dresses on women.

One affirms dignity. The other induces a sense of childlike silliness.

No iPads, no tattoos, blocky TVs that looked like furniture, and big long station wagons.

You also notice that the workers wore clothes that were a lot nicer. All across the board, the average work uniforms of the past were nicer than they are today. A grocery clerk from the old days dressed with greater dignity than half the people you might find at a wedding in 2024. And the average worker in 2024 wears a uniform that can’t possibly do anything other than depress him. It’s sad but true.

The store uniforms we see these days tend to be graphic T-shirts with stupid little designs on the back. Of course, I would love to see nicer uniforms because I want everyone to dress better, and I would much rather look at decent clothes than ugly clothes; the beautification of our society starts with ourselves, and we can all make a difference. But the argument for nicer store uniforms isn’t only about what’s pleasant for others to see. It’s about the dignity of the worker and the quality of his life.

If I worked at a store and my uniform was a bright blue graphic T-shirt with a cartoonish design on the back, I really wouldn’t feel very good about what I was wearing. If I had to wear this uniform every day, I would feel silly and stupid. Infantilized.

It would be hard to take myself and my job seriously. If I was stuck working some stupid job I hated, wearing some dumb silly shirt every day would only make the whole situation worse.

I’m sure an argument for these graphic T-shirt uniforms is comfort. I’m sure the workers say they are comfortable, and the owners want their workers to be comfortable. Our society worships comfort, after all. It’s one of our great idols in 2024. The road to slob-world is paved with comfort. And while, of course, comfort matters, it’s not the only thing that matters.

You can sacrifice dignity for the sake of comfort. We do it every day in our culture. Furthermore, it must be said that a graphic T-shirt isn’t necessarily more comfortable than a properly fitting 100% cotton button-up.

Look at old photos of the past to see what properly fitting uniforms should look like. Full-cut pants with room to move easily. Loosely fitting button-ups with ample fabric around the midsection, chest, and biceps. The sleeves were easily rolled up with no constriction or an overly tight fit. Simple, dark shoes. The modern world of the 20th century was built in this simple uniform.

These clothes are no less comfortable than a pair of jeans and a graphic T-shirt. In fact, they are, believe it or not, more comfortable. People just don’t realize it. And the difference between this simple, basic uniform and the infantilizing graphic T-shirt is night and day. One affirms dignity. The other induces a sense of childlike silliness.

Workers deserve dignity. I know when you read that, you might expect to read next about insurance, time off, and workplace safety and not clothing and style.

But clothes matter, and they matter to everyone. A more dignified workforce means a more dignified society, and we all deserve a more dignified society. Nicer uniforms — uniforms that affirm the dignity of man — don’t need to be expensive. They don’t need to be finely made or particularly fancy. They can be simple and utilitarian. They just need to be dignified and serious. They need to command some kind of authority and purpose.

This was essentially how all uniforms looked in the past. The goofball uniform wasn’t a thing. There was an unspoken assumption that a uniform should convey seriousness. That assumption followed another assumption that adults should convey seriousness as well. This was the basic order of society.

Times have changed. The uniforms aren’t serious today because the society isn’t serious today. Men today are more likely to wear clothes that make a joke than clothes that make a statement of seriousness. Strength and beauty are not considerations for most people today when putting together an outfit. They should be; they were for most of history, but not today.

All of this has a terribly negative impact on the general psychological state of people in the America of 2024, but it compounds for the worker whose uniform feels more like an insult to injury than anything else.

Why require workers to wear something that is stupid and undignified? If workers are required to wear a uniform, let it be a uniform of dignity. It’s better for the worker, better for the customer, and better for the general aesthetic health of our society.

Hard target: Is professional darts America's next big thing?



Eddie Hearn, one of the world’s most influential sports promoters, recently appeared on Patrick Bet-David's podcast and made a bold claim.

Darts, he argued, will soon become one of America's biggest sports.

An average American player might scrape together $400 a month from sponsorships, often from local bars or niche dart companies — pocket change compared to theft sums earned annually by European players.

It sounds absurd, and in many ways, it is. But darts has undeniably surged in global popularity, fueled by breakout stars like Luke Littler, a teenage phenom from the U.K. who has shattered records and drawn comparisons to legends of the game.

Littler isn’t even old enough to drive, raising eyebrows about the countless hours he spends honing his craft in pubs. But that’s a story for another day. Also, calling anything a sport where you can develop a sizable gut while competing intoxicated is, at best, highly questionable. Yet again, a debate for another time.

The holy trinity of US sports

In the U.S., where 17 million people play, interest is rising — but there’s still a glaring lack of American stars. Not a single U.S. player ranks among the world’s top 183. What’s holding America back, and could this surge in popularity translate to cultural dominance?

For any sport to thrive in America, it must contend with the holy trinity of football, basketball, and baseball — giants that dominate the nation’s culture from playgrounds to prime-time television, leaving little room for challengers.

Soccer, after decades of struggle, has only recently gained traction, and that’s largely due to its global clout. Lionel Messi’s seismic arrival in Major League Soccer — the Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali of soccer—gave the sport its biggest boost yet, with the world’s greatest player choosing to cap off his legendary career on American soil.

Darts, however, lacks this global momentum and doesn’t have a Messi-like figure to ignite interest. Its roots are firmly tied to British pub culture — something far removed from mainstream American life. Yet, niche sports can sometimes find a foothold. Look at the explosion of pickleball, a somewhat ridiculous sport that has carved out its own space in U.S. leisure culture. Could darts follow suit?

Show me the money

The biggest hurdle for darts in the U.S. is simple: money.

This has been the case for years. In the U.K. and Europe, darts is big business. Top players live like rockstars, earning six-figure salaries through major sponsorships, tournament winnings, and a thriving league system. In the U.S., sponsorships are few and far between, and the payouts are minuscule.

An average American player might scrape together $400 a month from sponsorships, often from local bars or niche dart companies — pocket change compared to theft sums earned annually by European players. Without financial backing, darts in the U.S. is more a hobby than a career.

This lack of funding creates a vicious cycle. European players, with their sponsorships and access to high-stakes tournaments like the £2.5 million ($3.1 million) PDC World Championship, can dedicate themselves entirely to the sport. Meanwhile, American players are stuck juggling full-time jobs with weekend tournaments.

The visibility problem

Money in sports follows visibility, and in Europe, darts thrives as prime-time entertainment.

Packed arenas, roaring crowds, and millions glued to their TVs have turned it into a cultural staple.

In the U.S., however, darts barely scratches the surface of mainstream attention. Most tournaments are relegated to online streams with limited reach and scant advertising dollars. Major network partnerships are nonexistent.

One of the barriers is the format. The U.K.’s fast-paced 501 setup is tailor-made for television, delivering quick, high-stakes drama. By contrast, the slower, less-structured Cricket format preferred in American bars drags on and fails to capture timed broadcasts' urgency.

Without adapting to a more TV-friendly format, darts is unlikely to rise above its current niche status.

Even if it did secure a coveted slot on American TV, success wouldn’t come overnight. It would take years — likely decades — to convince the average American to embrace a sport so alien to their cultural DNA.

Darts isn’t part of the U.S. sports fabric, and even the aforementioned soccer — a global powerhouse — remains a hard sell for many traditional sports fans, who view it as a foreign oddity. Compared to the deeply ingrained appeal of the holy trinity, darts faces a mountain few niche sports have ever scaled.

Waiting for a Messi moment

For darts to break through in America, it needs a defining moment — a charismatic star or cultural shift to ignite public imagination. It needs its Messi.

But that won’t happen without a unified league, major TV deals, and serious sponsorship money. Without these pillars, darts will remain on the fringes, trapped in hobbyist obscurity.

The interest exists, but without financial investment and visibility, the sport can’t hope to make the leap to national relevance. For now, the U.S. will stay on the sidelines, watching as Europe continues to dominate the world of darts.

How the CIA ruined Thanksgiving



Thanksgiving — the annual ritual of gratitude, family gatherings, and in recent times, deathly stares.

This year, it’s not just the turkey heating up; it’s themedia-fueled panic over Project 2025, a conservative roadmap allegedly poised to plunge America into a dystopian, fascist nightmare.

It’s no longer about exposing disinformation (was it ever?); it’s about silencing that ‘weird uncle’ who dares to question the script.

Headlines scream that Trump’s return is the end of democracy as we know it as though four years of his first term didn’t already pass without the republic collapsing into chaos. Here we are, still standing.

Turkey with a side of TDS

Adding spice to this narrative is the hysteria around incels — “involuntary celibates,” mostly alienated young men whom the media insists formed a secret Trumpian army. But the myth collapses upon scrutiny.

Many self-proclaimed incels aren’t conservatives; in fact, a substantial number identify with radical leftist ideologies. Psychologist Andrew G. Thomas, an authority on incel culture, highlights the diversity within this group: Over a third are non-white, and most politically lean left. As Thomas notes, “Some of the stereotypes about the makeup of incels are inaccurate.” — a gross understatement.

The Thanksgiving table has become a battleground where Trump Derangement Syndrome reigns supreme.

For the uninitiated, TDS is a crippling condition that turns even the most trivial moments into mind-altering meltdowns. Some manage to keep it under control.

Others, like Sam Harris, have been completely consumed. Recently, the neuroscientist lost his mind over Trump’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, sneering that Rogan is no replacement for the Wall Street Journal.

No, Sam, you’re right. Rogan, with his marathon, no-holds-barred conversations, is an upgrade from the WSJ. He answers to no one but his audience — a vast and varied group that craves raw, unfiltered discussion not sanitized headlines tailored to please corporate stakeholders.

Sadly, though, Sam Harris speaks for millions of Americans, people so consumed by fear and illogical thoughts that they refuse to acknowledge reality.

The methamphetamine of the masses

Some will suggest that Americans simply avoid politics at the Thanksgiving table. But that’s like expecting a dog not to bark or hoping for a smooth flight on Spirit Airlines. It’s just not going to happen.

How do you avoid politics when half the table believes they’re witnessing the collapse of American ideals? Trump and Harris aren’t just political figures; they’re totems of dueling ideologies, each symbolizing conflicting visions of masculinity, femininity, and identity. In many ways, they symbolize conflicting visions of what America represents.

Karl Marx once dubbed religion “the opiate of the masses.” Were he around today, he’d likely argue that politics is now the methamphetamine of the masses.

Ever tried reasoning with someone consumed by TDS? It’s an endless chase through extremes, manic predictions, lots of screaming, and doomsday scenarios. Politics is no longer a topic to be politely avoided. It’s an intoxicant, a substance as addictive as it is divisive.

Conversations that once tolerated polite disagreements now devolve into heated, almost gladiatorial battles where each side believes they’re defending civilization itself. Every Thanksgiving, the battle lines are drawn anew, with political fanaticism toppling reason, leaving no room for compromise.

In the new American landscape, Thanksgiving has become just another front in a wider culture war, where the pie may be sweet but the mood is perpetually sour. And while Trump may be the lead actor in this American drama, the CIA is the real villain of the story.

The agency's agenda

Yes, the CIA.

After all, it was instrumental in popularizing the term “conspiracy theory” — a term as American as blue jeans and bald eagles engineered to discredit critics and label dissent as delusional.

In the wake of the JFK assassination, skeptics of the Warren Commission were swiftly branded as conspiracy theorists, a calculated smear deployed by the CIA to corral public opinion and silence dissent. This wasn’t just a tactic; it was a masterclass in psychological manipulation, a move so effective that it embedded doubt and derision into the American lexicon for generations.

Working hand-in-glove with mainstream media, the CIA spread the term through carefully crafted editorials and op-eds, funneling it into public consciousness. Prominent newspapers ran stories casting skeptics as unstable or even unpatriotic, embedding the term “conspiracy theory” as shorthand for lunacy. Through this alliance with the press, the CIA rewired public discourse, transforming critical thought into a sign of dangerous deviation — a subtle, insidious conditioning that persists to this day.

Decades later, “conspiracy theory” endures as a blunt weapon wielded by everyone from politicians to news anchors to your neighbor down the street. It’s no longer about exposing disinformation (was it ever?); it’s about silencing that "weird uncle" who dares to question the script.

What’s most alarming is how this war on dissent has unraveled the social fabric itself. When every policy is a zero-sum battle, when each candidate is cast as either a messiah or a menace, mutual trust crumbles. The unspoken agreement that once allowed Americans to coexist in disagreement is wearing thinner by the day.

This Thanksgiving, as you pass the stuffing and brace for political crossfire, don't forget that the CIA’s most enduring operation wasn’t in some distant land but right here at home. Its greatest act of subversion may well be the transformation of “conspiracy theory” into a divisive slur — one that fractures families, friendships, and the fragile unity of a nation.

A trucker's open letter to DOGE's Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk



Mr. Ramaswamy and Mr. Musk,

Congratulations on the victory of the Trump campaign, for which both of you played essential parts, and your subsequent nominations to head the proposed Department of Government Efficiency.

The American federal government in 2024 is a poisoned and bloated carcass that if not corrected will wash ashore on a beach to rot with so much potential wasted and the advancement of humanity itself curtailed.

Why is it that the trucking industry, which is the most critical link in the nation's supply chain, is being allowed to be undermined by foreign actors?

I want to single out Mr. Ramaswamy for additional praise as last year, during the heat of the presidential selection process for the Republican Party, he became the very first candidate in the history of this country to hold a town hall specifically for the people who make up the essential lifeblood of our economy: truckers.

On a cold winter night in Iowa, Mr. Ramaswamy came to the largest truck stop in America and heard our concerns.

In addition to this event, organized by my friends at CDL-Drivers Unlimited, Mr. Ramaswamy has also given public and very high praise to Canada’s Freedom Convoy. This shows that he understands what’s at stake when a wholly illegitimate and crushing bureaucracy pushes an entire country to the brink with no regard for the lives, families, and communities that it affects.

Mr. Ramaswamy also notably beamed in a video to the Mid-America Trucking Show this year, again, courtesy of our friends at CDL-DU.

He is one of a very small handful of politicians to both take an interest in trucking while bypassing the industry's entrenched interests in D.C., best (or maybe worst) represented by the American Trucking Association, to speak directly to drivers and owner-operators.

Given this, I believe you are the best-placed leader to investigate and take action on those parts of the industry and the bureaucrats who regulate it, who are parasitizing themselves on the taxpayers and causing more problems than they are worth.

Though the grift and corporate welfare that exists in the trucking industry is tiny compared to so many others, one fewer cut inches us slowly away from death by a thousand.

In this advice essay, I want to point to a series of issues that face the industry and which of them I believe DOGE would be well-suited to investigate: the waste of taxpayer funds on the industry’s driver retention problem, the misallocation of regulatory effort, and the misplaced focus on environmental concerns derived from trucks themselves.

The 'driver shortage' narrative

I’m sure while you were in Walcott, Iowa, with my colleagues from CDL-DU and so many other truckers you heard criticism about the industry and its claims to a "perpetual shortage of truck drivers."

This is a wholly manufactured concern used to fleece the taxpayer for untold hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

In a coincidence that is surely cosmic and a message from God himself, in the same week that President Trump won a clear-cut mandate to lead this country away from self-immolation, our friends at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration showed exactly why we need DOGE.

In an announcement on Thursday, November 7, the FMCSA bragged of a tour it was going on during which its members would lavish $140 million in taxpayer dollars on training programs for new truck drivers. At the same time, many carriers with hundreds of trucks across this country were closing up shop, in stark contrast to the claims of President Biden and his sycophants of there being such an awesome economy right now.

Does it not say something that one of the trucking industry’s biggest and highest-regarded publications has a very active section dedicated to nothing but truckers going out of business?

Even if the trucking business were booming, is it the responsibility of taxpayers to foot the bill for carrier training programs? What if I told you that "truck driver training" has become a stealth corporate welfare program that funnels untold millions of taxpayer dollars toward trucking companies that have gotten so used to these taxpayer funds that they will not do anything to reduce their own churn problem?

An academic named Steve Viscelli was recently commissioned by the state of California to see what could be done to ensure that there were enough truckers to keep the agricultural industry there moving. Viscelli’s study found that the taxpayers of California were spending $20 million a year on one training program alone and losing most of those newly trained drivers within a year.

In this same report, soon to be unemployed Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg admits that 300,000 truckers quit every year across America despite the millions of dollars spent on similar training programs.

It is quite clear that throwing money at this problem is not solving it, and it leads to one question. What do we get for all of that money other than a steady flow of underpaid, rookie truckers who tend to be involved in collisions at higher rates than everyone else thus necessitating increases in insurance premiums for all carriers that are sometimes so high that trucking companies are forced to close due to the unaffordability of those premiums?

Why do we tolerate this? Perhaps DOGE can look to cut off funding to trucker training programs and let the free market do its thing. It's long past time for the taxpayers to stop footing the bill for this problem, which won’t be solved as long as "free" money is available, which disincentivizes any solution.

Regulatory misdirection

The FMCSA, which is nominally tasked to properly regulate the trucking industry and which has an annual budget of nearly a billion dollars a year, could use some direction in prioritizing its resources and being far more efficient in cleaning up bad actors in the trucking industry than it currently is.

There are a number of problems in trucking right now that are within the purview of FMCSA to solve, but it seems hell-bent on harassing the industry with onerous regulation instead, leaving the industry open to being abused. This in turn results in value from the American economy being extracted to other countries while putting the motoring public at unnecessary risk.

Allow me to explain.

There are a number of fraudulent scams being run on the trucking industry, many of them involving both foreign entities and entities based in the United States.

Double-brokering

A recent recurring problem is "double-brokering," as part of which one middleman load broker arranges a truck through another load broker either willfully or unknowingly, which is highly illegal.

Under the law, only one broker may be involved in a load arrangement between a shipper and the trucker hauling the load. In a double-brokered situation, not only is an additional hand in the pie, removing value that ought to be going to the trucker who hauled the freight so that he can operate safely and turn a profit, but questions of liability and even more potential fraud arise.

In the most egregious cases, we see situations in which the trucker who hauled the load doesn’t get paid at all.

Estimates put the losses from double-brokering in the tens of millions of dollars. Cumulatively with other forms of freight fraud and outright theft of loads, this problem is estimated to cost the economy a staggering price of $500 million to $700 million annually, and some fraudulent carriers and brokers are so brazen, they are now holding loads for ransom.

What is the FMCSA doing about this?

Not much, as it turns out.

The biggest operation it has orchestrated, which isn’t even in the world of freight, was to crack down on those companies that move households.

Modern-day slavery

Another problem the FMCSA is doing nothing about, that I’m aware of, is investigating the very worrying trend of illegal immigrants being employed as truckers in America, many of them with no command of the English language, many having no CDL or any training whatsoever, and many more often than not being bound to their employers through indentured servitude arrangements.

This is, in essence, a form of modern-day slavery. Over and above this being completely and utterly unethical, illegal immigrants and those other immigrants who are here "legally" through the abuse of existing visa programs, are often paid rates far below prevailing wages, which undercuts the American trucker and thus the wage floor for all other workers.

It is very difficult to get hard numbers on these trends in part because of the self-censoring that many media and labor advocacy organizations engage in because of the "woke" climate that has taken over discussion of nearly any topic in America.

Any frank treatment of the use and abuse of illegal labor in trucking is very difficult to find. When I have brought this up to various mainstream trucking publications and their journalists, I have been dismissed for "searching for a problem" that those I spoke with implied does not to exist.

There are a tiny handful of articles around that have looked into this, specifically from the folks at FreightWaves, a couple of examples of which are found here and here.

Menace behind the wheel

An advocacy organization called American Truckers United has begun to analyze crash data and connect the dots between ever-increasing truck collision numbers on American roads with the use of overseas laborers who, again, are often not trained properly or even licensed at all.

Statistics from the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, a North American wide-group of enforcement officials who conduct annual roadside safety inspection "blitzes," show some worrisome violations that correlate with the behavior of companies that employ illegal immigrants.

In 2024, two of the top five out-of-service violations, for which enforcement officials stop the commercial vehicle from operating, were failure of the driver to produce a CDL and failure of the driver to produce a Medical Certification showing fitness for being behind the wheel.

Some of the problems with employing illegal or other immigrant labor in trucking explicitly to exploit and underpay them have been around for years.

In 2017, USA Today did a major, three-part series on how immigrants from Central America were being abused in drayage operations at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Immigrant truckers were found to be paid starvation wages, if they were paid at all, and in many cases, were barred from going home at the end of their shifts, told to "take a nap" and then keep on trucking.

Why is it that the trucking industry, which is the most critical link in the nation's supply chain, is being allowed to be undermined by foreign actors?

What are the FMCSA and others such as the DOT doing about this?

Horses have left the barn

Nothing. They are too busy focusing on the after-effects of problems created by horses that are already out of the barn.

The FMCSA, if you go by the news feed on its website, spends an incredible amount of time auditing new entrants to the electronic logging device market despite the fact that truck crashes and aggressive driving cases have gone up since the ELD mandate came into effect in 2017.

When asked whether the FMCSA would reconsider the mandate after being shown that it had achieved none of its goals or objectives, former FMCSA head Robin Hutcheson simply said no.

In fact, the FMCSA is now considering expanding the ELD mandate to older trucks that have been exempted, even though there are no studies that show trucks exempted from the mandate are a factor in truck collisions or other safety concerns. The FMCSA is worried about compliance — not material improvement.

I posit to DOGE that the FMCSA, DOT, and other federal agencies tasked with regulating the trucking industry are wasting taxpayer dollars by focusing far too much effort on compliance gimmicks and technological fixes to problems that are very human.

America’s roads are becoming increasingly dangerous because there are far too many drivers on them who have not received adequate training, don’t speak English, or are otherwise employed in the trucking industry illegally.

The evidence is out there, and these agencies ought to be investigating these problems rather than engaging in a rearguard action that wastes time and resources punishing those parts of the industry that are not the problem. At nearly a billion dollars a year, we should be getting far safer roads out of the FMCSA than we currently are.

Truck efficiency, system efficiency

There are many in our society who are concerned about climate change, and for many years now, regulators have sought to reduce various types of emissions into our atmosphere. The trucking industry has come under intense scrutiny in this regard, given how many trucks there are on the road in support of our modern economy.

Since 2007, the EPA has imposed, and continues to impose, ever more stringent emissions control mandates on trucks. Truck engine manufacturers have done their best to develop technologies that meet the requirements of those mandates, but this has not come without significant cost.

Famously, the heavy equipment and engine manufacturer Caterpillar gave up trying to meet the mandates at all and discontinued building truck engines for on-highway use.

Other manufacturers have pressed forward with various technologies, with the most popular being selective catalytic reduction, which helps reduce diesel particulate matter and nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide.

Studies on the economic impact of these mandates are hard to come by, and no studies of or investigations into the impact of illegal labor on trucking have been done.

Society has taken it as a given that any mandate or regulation imposed on us in the name of saving the climate is a moral and unquestionably good, and it is politically dangerous to actually examine the effects of such.

Weighing the costs

Yet the anecdotal evidence from trucking companies and owner-operators about the cost imposed on them by these emissions mandates has been piling up for years; even legal action has been launched in some instances.

The Owner Operators Independent Drivers Association is the largest and oldest trucker advocacy organization in the country. In 2014, it released a white paper examining the impact of EPA mandates on engine manufacturers and on the trucking companies that suffered great losses in time and money from them.

LandLine, the official media outlet of OOIDA, has been following the costs associated with emission control systems mandates for many years and has an immense collection of writings on the subject.

During the recent COVID pandemic, many people first became aware of the term supply chains as those very chains were being stress-tested by the reactions to COVID by governments around the globe.

It showed us that many technologies we rely on for the basic function of our economy are dependent on manufacturers in other parts of the world.

Trucking was not immune to this; specifically, the chips and various other parts that operate these emission control systems became scarce. It was not uncommon to hear about trucks being put out of commission from dysfunctional emissions controls for months at a time due to backlogs of parts.

The emissions racket

In my own experience, the manager of a local truck dealer and service center told me when the propane delivery truck I was driving during COVID was in to have its emission system repaired for the umpteenth time that emission control system service makes up 75% of the business.

Another company I worked for previously had spent $65,000 on emission systems repairs on one truck over the course of 18 months after purchasing it new. The equipment down time accrued by the trucking industry over the last 17 years of these mandates is probably incalculable.

We do not know what the total economic impact of these mandates has been, nor do we employ alternative ways to make our trucking and logistics systems more efficient, mostly because the EPA, and our government in general, are laser-focused on technological solutions to climate change at the exclusion of all other considerations.

We do know, however, that the EPA is a vindictive and spiteful organization that has zero tolerance for those who fail to comply or seek to avoid its costly mandates.

There are numerous examples of the EPA imposing hefty fines on shops and service providers, sometimes millions of dollars, who have disabled or otherwise removed the emissions control hardware and software on modern engines despite the fact engines typically run better and cheaper without them. (And never mind the expensive parts replacements and down time when they eventually break down.)

To add insult to injury, many used trucks in America are sold internationally, especially next door into Mexico and Central America, where those systems are immediately removed from the trucks.

Beside not being subject to similar mandates, the trucking industry in those countries simply does not have the parts and DEF distribution networks or the money to pay for these systems. In the words of Rob Henderson, writer and author of the wildly popular memoir "Troubled," the imposition of very expensive emissions control systems is a "luxury belief."

Wasted capacity

What could the EPA and other agencies be doing to make the trucking industry more efficient rather than wasting government resources in pursuing operators simply trying to make a living in a market where margins are very tight and many companies are going out of business?

Perhaps the reason so many trucks are on the road in the first place is that trucking capacity is often wasted due to problems that are not the fault of truckers but of the customers whom they service.

"Detention" is the industry term for the time that trucks sit waiting to be loaded or unloaded at customer facilities, and it is consistently listed as a top-10 problem in annual surveys by the American Transportation Research Institute, this year making number four among drivers across the board.

MIT FreightLabs has launched studies into the issue of trucking capacity, or rather the woefully inefficient use of it. In 2022, one of the researchers put it rather starkly: "40% of America's trucking capacity is left on the table every day."

Another issue with trucking in America is our very restrictive weight limits. The federal standard of 80,000 pounds gross is one of the lightest in the world. Many states have allowances for longer and heavier trucks within their states, as they understand that trucks doing more work per load means fewer trips and fewer trucks on the road in total.

For comparison, in Canada, with what they call a Super B Train, trucks are longer and allowed to be 140,000 pounds gross weight.

Perhaps the recent bipartisan Infrastructure Act could have contained funding and specification to upgrade our roads to accommodate even slightly heavier trucks, or build double unit yards along certain interstates, as we see already on roads like the New York State Thruway or Ohio Turnpike.

I would submit to DOGE that the United States trucking system is in many ways vastly inefficient. Subsequently, there are more trucks on the road than we need, which contributes to excessive carbon emissions. Rather than tackling these efficiency deficits, the EPA has fallen under the sway of well-connected cronies who want to sell more costly technology to us while assuaging the manufactured guilt of the public about the state of the sky.

In conclusion

The trucking industry in America faces vast challenges — too many to list here. I did not even begin to touch on the looming potential of automated trucks or the oversale of electric vehicles to the public as a solution to slow down climate change.

There are, however, some very simple policy changes that ought to be made that would force the industry to rethink how it does business and be less reliant on government handouts, illegal labor, and a punishing regulatory regime that is chasing problems created by those handouts and use of illegal labor.

The regulatory agencies that oversee all of this are very costly to American taxpayers. They would have less to do, and thus necessitate a lower price tag, if we enacted my above suggestions.

This essay originally appeared on the Autonomous Truck(er)s Substack.

The hypnotic, amoral spell of 'Longlegs'



2024 has been a good year for horror movies, with cinema-goers flocking to both art house provocations ("The Substance") and franchise reboots ("The First Omen").

But one film in particular stands out — for reasons that should disturb us.

The scary thing about Longlegs isn't so much his affectation or his methods but the sense that he's backed by a supernatural force that remains hidden to us.

Osgood Perkins' "Longlegs" is one of the year's notable success stories, grossing $125 million on less than a $10 million budget. What it lacked in marketing muscle it made up for in massive word-of-mouth excitement — much of it focused on a nearly unrecognizable Nicolas Cage's unhinged performance as the titular agent of evil.

'Se7en' meets 'Silence'

While "Longlegs" is extraordinarily effective, it isn't quite as original as its initial buzz suggested. It is set in the '90s, and much has been said of its obvious borrowings from two movies of that era. It gets its relentlessly gray, dread-soaked atmosphere from "Se7en" and its tense game of cat-and-mouse between a rookie female FBI agent and an enigmatic serial killer from "Silence of the Lambs."

To these familiar components "Longlegs" adds another classic horror trope. Longlegs kills on behalf of a greater, supernatural evil: Satan. And yet here the movie dispenses with the usual Hollywood trappings. There are no exorcisms or grotesque physical transformations — and it is perhaps for this reason that the movie has largely been left out of the discourse surrounding our culture's increasing fascination with the demonic.

"Longlegs" centers around an elaborate series of murders of entire families — each of which happens to include a 9-year-old girl born on the 14th of the month — somehow connected to it's titular character.

Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is an FBI agent attached to the case who has clairvoyant abilities, an analytical mind, and a childhood connection to the murderer that she doesn't fully understand.

NOTE: As "Longlegs" hit theaters in July and has been available to stream for almost three months, what follows will contain spoilers.

Initially, the police are stumped by the seemingly random killings, but Lee can see through the data and recognize a pattern that is innately satanic. This leads them down a bizarre path where they discover the killer's affection for dolls, his penchant for religious imagery, and his ability to possess people and objects in such a way that they do the bidding of his master.

Hide and seek

The scary thing about Longlegs isn't so much his affectation or his methods but the sense that he's backed by a supernatural force that remains hidden to us. Buried under over-the-top makeup and prosthetics, and playing in an altogether different register from his trademark brand of crazy, Cage seems to make Longlegs deliberately impenetrable.

What little glimpse we get of the inner man comes literally, as he smashes his face against an interrogation table, crushing his nose into a pulp, and praising Satan with his final breath.

This results in the film's curious religious subtext. Lee's mother is depicted as being extremely Christian and constantly asks her daughter if she keeps to her prayers or not. Lee is clearly informed about religious matters, enough to correct others on their factual errors and keep books on religion in her home, but she doesn't seem to be a practicing believer. She has clairvoyant powers, but when asked if she prays, she admits she never has.

Lee pursues the case relentlessly but with pronounced detachment and lack of emotion. Her quarry, meanwhile, is deeply invested in his evil quest.

Longlegs commits his murders by proxy, mesmerizing the family patriarch into a murderous trance, in which he will do the killer's bidding. His is the power of subversion, a creeping ability to possess good people and use them to advance evil, even after the source of that evil is functionally gone.

Controversially, his greatest weapon ends up being Lee’s mother, controlling her to spread his possession powers — completely overpowering her religious soul and puppetizing her in the disguise of a nun.

The story of "Longlegs" ends up being a depressing story of evil's omnipresent ability to spread beyond death and corrupt everything in its sight. The film's darkly ambiguous ending — in which the heroes lose everything while achieving a temporary stalemate at best — questions whether or not goodness can ever hope to defeat evil.

'No Country' for hope?

This bleak outlook very much brings to mind the infamous ending of "No Country for Old Men," where our hero has been killed off-screen before his final climactic dual, the sheriff has given up trying to fight evil, and innocents have been killed for no other reason than that the villain promised to do so.

"No Country for Old Men" leaves us to contemplate the malevolent Anton Chigurh still roaming the world, spreading evil while goodness sits down and surrenders to the reality of cosmic hopelessness and failure. “If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?” says the villain Chigurh (and also Vice President-elect Vance that one time).

But Chigurh is no satanist, he’s a determinist. He has a clear philosophy. Longlegs lacks that interior complexity; he is content to be a bodily conduit for spiritual evil. And that evil is ultimately stopped not by faith but by a bullet and an act of parricide, the betrayal of a daughter crushing her mother’s hollowed-out Christian affectations.

Unlike its close relatives like "The Exorcist" or "The Conjuring," "Longlegs" has no clear moral compass. It's not so much that evil triumphs at the end but that good seems to lack much in the way of conviction or energy. Lee goes through the motions, without seeming to understand why it matters; there's a sense that the evil she's fighting has long ago compromised her from within; that it's only a matter of time before she, too, gives up the fight.

Lee differs from Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling in one crucial respect: She is almost as alien to us as Longlegs is. We don't root for her as we do Starling; instead, we're invited to take a more neutral, almost hypnotic pleasure in Perkins' hopeless vision, as if the movie itself is one of Longlegs' sinister dolls.

To quote blogger Justin Bower, “In Longlegs's world, Satan always answers prayers while God—if he exists—is silently resigned, unable to contest the power of the Devil’s dollmaker.”

By not asking us to identify with the good, "Longlegs" lets us off the hook from pondering our own evil as well. Could that account for its massive popularity? A culture so resigned to its decline that the best it can do is enjoy the ride.

Why opposing immigration is not about 'whiteness'



If the Ku Klux Klan’s continued existence in the United States is unsettling, its emergence in Ireland is almost surreal. Yet here we are in a time when reality is much stranger than fiction.

Frank L. Silva, a former KKK member, has been actively collaborating with anti-establishment groups in Ireland, sparking media outrage and widespread head-scratching. Silva’s history shows how the Klan has evolved from its post-Civil War roots to modern offshoots. The dark irony here is impossible to overlook.

Irish immigrants were depicted in political cartoons as brutish, animalistic figures, often described as 'negroes turned inside out.'

You see, the Klan’s ties to Irish identity and the very concept of “whiteness” go way back.

The fighting Irish

The 19th century saw waves of Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine only to find themselves vilified upon arrival in America. The Ku Klux Klan, with its roots deeply entwined with anti-Catholic sentiment, exploited this wave of Irish immigration to fuel fear and division. Irish Catholics were portrayed as a threat to Protestant values and, by extension, to the American people.

If there’s one thing the Irish love — beside drinking, dancing, cursing, joking, and singing — it’s a good fight. Recognizing the threat, they met it head-on, fists raised.

One striking example of Irish defiance was the Notre Dame student uprising of 1924. When a Klan rally was held near their campus, Irish Catholic students stood their ground, showing strength in the face of real danger.

"But weren’t the Irish 'white'?" some of today's crusading anti-racists may ask. "Wasn’t the Klan all about preserving and promoting “white supremacy”?

This is where a little history lesson is in order.

White privilege?

In 19th-century America, Irish immigrants were not considered “white” in the same sense as Anglo-Saxon Protestants. They were perceived as racially inferior due to a mix of religious, cultural, and economic biases.

Arriving destitute and in droves, Irish immigrants were seen as competition for low-wage jobs in rapidly urbanizing cities. Their willingness to work for less fueled native workers' resentment and economic anxiety — sound familiar?

Religious tension deepened these divisions. In a country founded on Protestant ideals, Irish Catholics were viewed as agents of the Vatican, a foreign power. This suspicion, stoked by groups such as the Know-Nothing Party, painted Irish Catholics as potential saboteurs of American democracy — loyal not to the United States but to Rome. The notion that the Irish could undermine governance gained traction in certain circles, giving weight to the Klan’s anti-Irish campaigns.

The animosity, while harsh, had roots in primal instincts — tribalism. A group of newcomers with strange accents and unfamiliar customs seemed wholly different. From an evolutionary standpoint, the suspicion made complete sense. Welcoming a complete stranger into your home with open arms is, at best, unwise. At worst, it can be disastrous.

However, the backlash against the Irish was extreme and largely detached from reality. Cultural narratives and pseudoscientific theories added fuel to the fire. Irish immigrants were depicted in political cartoons as brutish, animalistic figures, often described as “negroes turned inside out.”

This comparison underscored their perceived moral and intellectual inferiority, supporting the belief that they threatened societal stability. Books like "Comparative Physiognomy" perpetuated these stereotypes, further entrenching the racialization of the Irish and positioning them below the dominant white Protestant identity.

Franklin’s foresight

Earlier this year, the brilliant Steve Sailer revisited Benjamin Franklin’s essay “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind,” a polemic opposing the influx of German immigrants into Pennsylvania. Franklin worried that these newcomers would resist assimilation into English-speaking society, potentially reshaping the colony with their own customs and language rather than blending in and strengthening a unified culture. Less melting pot, more splintered silos.

Franklin’s fear was entirely reasonable. Shared skin color was no assurance of shared values or a cohesive society. The threat, as he saw it, was not merely foreign influence but the fracturing of what he considered the cultural fabric of early America.

This notion holds a striking parallel to modern debates. The idea that “white privilege” is a uniform experience ignores the varied and often tumultuous paths of European-descended populations. The Irish’s suffering during the Great Famine, the persecution of Eastern European Jews, or the challenges faced by Southern and Eastern European immigrants all challenge the monolithic narrative of privilege.

The only thread connecting these people was their shared hope for a better life. That’s it. They faced prejudice, economic struggle, and cultural exclusion. “Whiteness” has never been, and will never be, a simple, unified identity. True racism lies in denying this reality.

Franklin’s fears resonate in today’s world. The genuine celebration of diversity — a blend of backgrounds and traditions — has been warped by ideologies that prioritize superficial traits over shared cultural values.

Not that long ago, before the hyper-progressive mind virus took hold, we sought to respect differences while finding stable common ground.

Now, it’s about men in skirts, pronouns, and 700 different genders.

Degeneracy has taken the place of diversity.

EU-inspired erosion

The assumption that shared skin color equates to cultural uniformity is as flawed now as it was in Franklin’s era. This brings us to the larger consequence of global immigration and cultural dilution.

Once unique, robust cultures such as those in Germany and Ireland are now grappling with the consequences of globalization’s unchecked march. Mass immigration, driven by open-border policies and economic interests, has accelerated cultural erosion at an alarming rate.

The very essence of these nations’ identities is being submerged under the weight of Brussels-bred conformity. Franklin’s warning about cultural displacement, voiced over two centuries ago, feels prophetic today. The results of unfettered globalization can be seen in the loss of distinct identities and the rise of tensions that hark back to the very divisions that defined the Irish struggle in America.

The question is, how much will be lost before nations recognize the cost?

The re-election of Donald Trump offers the United States a glimmer of hope. But in Europe, hope is in short supply. In fact, one could argue it vanished years ago.

Aim true: Anna Thomasson sets her sights on empowering women through firearms training



There’s something about firing an AR-15 on full auto that puts a big smile on your face.

At least it does for my colleague, Helen Roy. It’s also addictive, apparently; no sooner has she emptied the entire magazine into the target than she asks, “Is that all?”

'A lot of the ladies that do come on a regular basis call it "lead therapy," because while you're out there, you're going to feel all this energy hitting you, and then you just want more of it.'

Behind her, David Prince laughs knowingly. A tall, grandfatherly former CPA, Mr. Prince (as everybody calls him) owns the spacious and immaculate Eagle Gun Range, where we’ve just spent the last few hours getting a crash course in how to shoot.

Beaming next to him with almost maternal pride is Helen's instructor, Anna Thomasson. She — along with her husband, Bryan Wertz — has been kind enough to spend the afternoon giving us a highly condensed version of the extensive firearms training she offers women through her company, Dallas-based Aim True.

Matt Himes

Although Thomasson grew up around firearms, she was always more observer than participant. "My family is very traditional,” the petite Texan explains. “My dad is ‘boys shoot guns and girls stay in the kitchen.'”

That changed in 2015, when Thomasson was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her husband, Bryan Wertz, was a lifelong avid shooter; during her recovery he suggested she join him at the range as a way to spend time together while getting outside and getting some sun.

Thomasson found she enjoyed it. And not only that — learning to handle a firearm seemed to restore some of the inner strength sapped by her medical ordeal. “I got the feeling I could be confident in the world again,” she says.

She never looked back, taking course after course and honing her skills. She formed Aim True in 2017 as way to teach firearm self-defense to other women. She also organized the “ladies-only” training group Diamonds and Derringers.

Like Thomasson, Helen has always been comfortable around guns. Her father and her older brother (military veteran and active military, respectively) both enjoy shooting, as does her husband. While she's often joined them at the range and has fired off a few shots of her own on occasion, she's never gotten much, if any, formal training. She's here to rectify that. Helen tells Thomasson she should consider her a beginner.

Gun-shy

We start in a tidy, well-lit classroom tucked away near Eagle Gun Range’s front desk. When I ask how they met, Wertz and Thomasson smile as they describe their courtship, more or less finishing each other’s sentences.

There’s an ease between them that automatically puts us at ease, and it sets the tone for the hours to come. As Thomasson runs the training, Wertz sits to the side, doing work on a computer, every so often interjecting to expand or emphasize a point Anna makes.

Thomasson begins by explaining what’s different about firearms training for women.

To begin with, says Thomasson, many of her students are motivated by a newfound sense of vulnerability.

“I have a lot of clients coming to me when they’ve had a divorce, or they’ve lost their spouse, or they’ve had a break-in at their home,” she says. “They’ve never wanted to hold a gun before, they've never had any interest in it, and now a situation has dictated that this is something [they] have to do.”

Matt Himes

According to Wertz, this reluctance tends to make women who do show up for the course very diligent students.

“We always say that a man feels like he was born to stick a gun in his pants and walk around with it,” says Wertz. A woman, on the other hand, “says I really want to know about this gun and I want to make sure that I don't hurt someone with it, that someone doesn't hurt me with it, that I really understand all aspects of it and how to use it and be confident.”

When that confidence finally comes, it’s often a revelation, says Thomasson. “Sometimes they have an emotional reaction to shooting the first time. And sometimes it just goes straight into, oh my gosh, I am going to be able to take care of myself and I don't have to rely on anybody else.”

Pick a holster

When it comes to buying a gun, Thomasson likes to start with an often overlooked question: Can you find a holster for it? “My clients go to Highland Park Village, get a really pretty gun, and I say, ‘And you can leave it on your bedside table because there's no holster to fit it,’” says Thomasson.

Unless you’re planning to use your gun exclusively out in the country, Thomasson recommends a concealed-carry holster, typically worn inside the waistband.

Choosing the right gun

“Our hands are different from men's,” notes Thomasson. “They're usually a little bit smaller.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean you want a smaller gun, but rather a “grip size that we can actually reach the trigger on.”

Ultimately, says Thomasson, how a gun fits your hand can come down to personal preference. She likens choosing a gun to buying shoes. “I can't buy you a pair of shoes and say, ‘Love these shoes. You should wear them.’ But [I can] teach you the aspects of the gun and what you should be looking for.”

Sometimes bigger is easier

One common misconception Thomasson encounters is the assumption that a smaller gun will always be easier to shoot.

“This is our mindset as women. We think the bigger the gun, the harder it is to control, and the smaller the gun, the easier it is to control.”

Thomasson recalls a recent exchange with a client.

“[A woman] in her 70s called and she said, ‘I'm about five foot tall and I don't have much strength. I have a really big gun, a 9mm, and I think I want to sell it and have you teach me how to use a smaller gun.’”

Thomasson quickly got her to reconsider. “I talked to her about the recoil … and the weight of that bigger gun taking some of that recoil away from your hands and your shoulders. Whereas a smaller gun doesn't have the weight to [absorb] that recoil … and it ends up hitting you harder.”

For Thomasson, this is an essential part of the training she offers: “learn[ing] how to figure out what kind of gun is going to suit you best for your hand strength … [and] your situation.”

Loading the magazine

Thomasson leads us over to a table on which she’s placed a Glock semiautomatic pistol with a special slide for training as well as a pile of inert dummy rounds — in this case, spent Simunition blank cartridges. She begins by teaching Helen to load the magazine, which she recommends bracing against the tabletop.

Laughing at how surprisingly difficult she finds it, Helen says, “You know what, this is very important. How do you do gun stuff and maintain a manicure?”

Thomasson has anticipated the question. “You know there's always a girl way and a boy way,” she says, fetching a small device from a nearby shelf and handing it to Helen. It’s called an UpLULA, and before long it significantly increases Helen’s efficiency.

Trigger warning

Matt Himes

Now that the gun is loaded, it’s time to pick it up. But first Thomasson imparts a basic principle of gun safety: “[You] don't ever want to touch the trigger until [you’re] ready to touch the trigger.”

“This gun is developed to be comfortable in your hand when your finger is on the trigger,” explains Thomasson. “So that's the way that your hand is going to want to pick this up.”

To avoid this, says Thomasson, we have to force ourselves to rest our finger on the frame as we grab the rest of the gun with our hand.

Thomasson points to the fleshy webbing between Helen’s index finger and thumb. “When you pick this gun up … I want you to see how high you can get this part of your hand up here,” she says, indicating the curved little overhang separating the top of the grip from the rest of the pistol.

Helen does, which gives Thomasson the chance to point out an important physiological difference between men and women. “Now if I had one of the boys pick this up, then all of the meat [between his thumb and index finger] would be squished up at the top. But females don't have that kind of muscular development in that part of our hand.”

It’s a difference that can often be overlooked, says Thomasson. “A male instructor will tell the female you need a higher grip, you need a stronger grip. And the lady says, ‘This is all the grip I've got. I don't have any more hand.’”

It's something neither of us have ever thought about, apparently. "It's almost as if men and women are different," marvels Helen with mock incredulity. She examines my hand and compares it to hers.

"I do have that space," she says, smiling brightly. "Confirmed woman!"

"Confirmed woman!"Matt Himes

When it comes to finding a properly fitting gun, Thomasson says it’s all about how your finger reaches the trigger. You want to have it close enough that you comfortably pull it back, without it being so close that your finger wraps around to the other side.

Proper stance

After teaching Helen how to complete the grip with the placement of her non-shooting hand, as well as how to use the pistol’s metal sight, Thomasson talks proper stance.

“Did you notice that you leaned back?” she asks Helen. “The minute you picked up that gun, you got away from it.”

Thomasson says this is an unconscious expression of fear — “we think the gun is going to go off and cause a big bang and we’re already scared of it.” This is precisely what her training seeks to overcome.

Lead therapy

After Thomasson advises Helen on the proper stance, it’s time to dry fire — that is, “shoot” the gun without any live ammunition. We all know it’s loaded with inert rounds, but as Helen aims, the tension in the room builds, and when the hammer makes its quiet little “click,” there’s a tangible sense of release.

Helen lets out a deep exhale and smiles. She looks a little flushed.

“What went through your mind?” asks Thomasson gently.

“Something about having bullets in the gun made me a little nervous,” says Helen. “It's weird, there's so much psychological stuff built up around guns. And I have shot guns before, but ...”

“Because you loaded this and you made that action happen,” says Thomasson. She puts her hand on Helen’s shoulder. “How are you doing?”

“I'm good. It's kind of powerful, though. Do women often have an emotional reaction when they shoot?”

“I would say 75% of the females that I have, the first shot they go into tears. We put the gun down and we step back and we hug and we talk about it for five or ten minutes. A lot of the ladies that do come on a regular basis call it ‘lead therapy,’ because while you're out there, you're going to feel all this energy hitting you, and then you just want more of it.”

Get a grip

At this point Bryan chimes in to emphasize the power of a good grip.

“So a lot of times, ladies will ask Anna, you know, should I have a gun because I'm tiny and a man will take it from me?”

He demonstrates by trying to pull the gun out of Helen’s hands. He can’t. “I'm just not going to get it from you before you could use your blaster.”

He then addresses how to hold the gun before you’re ready to point and shoot; for example, if you’re preparing to defend yourself against what could be an intruder in your house. In this case, says Wertz, its best to hold the gun pointed down toward the floor.

He demonstrates on Helen. If she holds her gun above her head, pointed toward the ceiling, it’s easy for him to keep her from bringing the gun level.

Wertz then shows what happens if he grabs Helen’s gun when it's pointed to the floor. “If you kneel, then what am I giving you? I’m giving you the perfect first shot.”

Home on the range

David Prince is old enough to have had an entire career before this one, but he radiates boyish enthusiasm when he talks about Eagle Gun Range.

He opened it in 2012, after noticing that there hadn’t been a range built in the Dallas area for 30 years.

“My wife's inspiration is my perspiration,” he jokes. After building a fence and a rock garden, among other projects, they decided to think bigger. “Let us build a gun range. … I can do that.”

“We wanted someplace [that was] really family-friendly,” Prince says. “Especially friendly to the mothers and the women, because stereotypically, women and guns don't mix. … We wanted a place for them to come and feel safe.”

A big component of Eagle Gun Range’s family-friendly atmosphere is its state-of-the-art air filtration system, which removes the contaminants produced by firearm discharge. “It’s cleaner in the range than it is outside,” says Prince.

It’s clear that he’s proud of what he’s created. “Our mission statement says it all: to have a place that's safe and fun to shoot.”

And it’s not that he’s pandering to the ladies, either.

“Indoor shooting is a great co-ed sport,” he says. “Women outshoot guys all the time. Women are great shooters. It’s a fun sport. It doesn't take massive muscles. You can do it and compete against each other, and it's a fun thing, especially for families. Kids get to shoot against the parents. It’s something the whole family can enjoy.”

Shots fired

Now it's time for Helen to put her classroom training into practice.

We head to the private bay Prince has graciously arranged for us, and Thomasson introduces Helen to the first gun she'll be shooting. It's a Glock 9mm, the same as the practice gun she used. Only this one, of course, shoots real bullets.

Matt Himes

Helen loads the magazine, sorts out her grip, and gets into her stance. She aligns her sights at the paper target, then finds the trigger. She takes a deep breath and very slowly pulls it back.

Bang. We all exhale. Helen smiles. "There we go. That was fun."

It was a decent shot, hitting the human silhouette just above the bull's-eye over the chest. Helen fires off another. This one still hits the target, but a little wide. Thomasson reminds her to take it slow.

"When you pull it really fast, you kind of jerk the gun down, and then that's when you end up with shots that are not in the target. Not that, if you were defending yourself, it still wouldn't hurt the person. But if we want to get that perfect shot, [we need] control of the trigger."

Thomasson then has Helen shoot the same cartridge in a smaller gun: a subcompact Glock in turquoise. This gun's grip is significantly thinner and shorter than the previous one; Helen's pinky just barely wraps around the bottom.

When she shoots, the kick is powerful enough that her left hand slips off a little. Helen also notices that because the gun's size allows her finger to wrap all the way around the trigger, it has a tendency to pull to the right when shooting.

It's all a vivid demonstration of Thomasson's earlier point about women and gun size. "[They] say shrink it and pink it and that's how you sell it to a woman," says Wertz. "Well, that's no good because then it's just a pink gun and it's tiny."

As an alternative, Thomasson shows us the Walther PDP F-Series, a full-size 9mm pistol designed for shooters with smaller hands. To get the gun's ergonomics and fit just right, Walther consulted with expert female shooters, including Olympian Gabby Franco.

'Smith and Wesson ... and me'

Noting that the training so far has used Austrian and German pistols, I ask Wertz about the American gun industry.

"When we get into rifles, bolt-action rifles, semiautomatic rifles, carbines, we win," says Wertz, "but the Europeans kind of have a hold on the striker-fired market. The polymer lower, steel upper type gun like Glock, Sig, H&K, Walther, all really great handgun manufacturing companies."

Wertz is quick to add that Smith & Wesson does make an excellent striker-fired pistol that many competitors use.

Of course, the iconic American brand has other claims to fame. "Smith & Wesson makes a better revolver than anybody in the world," says Wertz. "And then if you want a 1911-style, old kind of World War II Heritage American pistol, nobody makes them better than we do."

In this latter category, Wertz singles out Florence, Texas-based Staccato. "Anna's got a Staccato that she carries a lot, and they make a better gun than than just about anybody else."

'It's gonna get sporty'

Matt Himes

According to Prince, Helen is something of a natural. He pulls her target and examines it with admiration. "This is extremely good shooting. She's at five yards, but she shot with several firearms, not having any practice rounds."

Helen does equally well on the AR-15 rifle Prince offers her; in fact, she finds it to be her favorite firearm of the day. "I feel so much more confident with [the AR-15] than the smaller ones," she says, when asked if she'd rather have it or a pistol for self-defense.

Wertz says that despite the media's relentless propaganda about "assault rifles," this is a common reaction from women after they shoot an AR-15. "You can see how accurate you were with very little effort and without having any training."

Then it's time to try the rife on full auto. Prince is thorough and professional as he coaches Helen on what to expect; at the same time, you can tell he can't wait for her to let it rip. "It's just natural — when you first squeeze the trigger, you're going to let it rattle off about five rounds. You're going to let go. We're going to reload. Squeeze. Turn around and smile."

Just before Helen pulls the trigger, Wertz smiles. "It's gonna get sporty."

Matt Himes

To watch some of Helen's training with Aim True at Eagle Gun Range, check out the video below.

For more information about Aim True and the wide variety of firearms and emergency preparedness training it offers, see here.

To learn more about Eagle Gun Range or to explore its online store, go here.

Critics blast Jaguar over weird new car-less ad: 'Jaguar just pulled a Bud Light'



The British luxury vehicle brand Jaguar released a bizarre new ad Tuesday, prompting intense criticism along with questions about whether the company was still in the business of making cars and whether it may have confused November for so-called Pride month.

Jaguar leaned into the backlash to its loud and car-less campaign ostensibly celebrating deviancy, suggesting that its hackneyed call to defy the "ordinary" — already uniformly and reflexively resisted by massive companies, Western governments, the media, and various other institutions unmoored by tradition — was an introduction to "the future."

Provocative advertisements have long been used to court controversy, secure earned media, and remind the public that a company and its products still exist.

Facing a chicken delivery management crisis in the United Kingdom and widespread closures, the KFC Corporation leaned on the creative agency Mother in 2018 for a novel way to simultaneously apologize and advertise — printing "FCK," the anagram of its brand name, on chicken buckets.

Volkswagen ran its playful "Think Small" campaign in the 1960s to promote the Beetle.

Red Bull, evidently keen to sell more energy drinks, had Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner take a helium balloon up to an altitude of 39 kilometers, jump, break the sound barrier, and land on his feet in New Mexico.

Apple released an ad earlier this year titled "Crush" in which a compressor destroyed the various tools and means for real-world artistic endeavors and in-person activities that its new device would apparently replace and virtualize.

On Tuesday, Jaguar gave it a go, launching an ad campaign on social media with the caption "Copy nothing."

The video opens with a feminine individual with a Pacman-shaped afro leading five androgynous individuals dressed in misshapen apparel out of an elevator and onto a pink moonscape.

The text "delete ordinary" appears over a subsequent shot of an individual painting white lines.

'Fire your marketing team.'

In the following shot, a masculine figure wearing a dress and wielding a yellow sledgehammer appears in a blue room with the text "Break moulds."

Finally, the cast of androgynes, now joined by a heavyset black woman, crews together on the pink moonscape and strikes a well-choreographed pose.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in response to the ad, "Do you sell cars?"

Conservative writer and author Peachy Keenan shared a screenshot of the opening still and wrote, "You lost me at :01."

Keenan added, "Copy nothing [b]ut the worst, stalest cultural trends so you can subvert a storied brand. Congrats and no thanks."

"Well ... we know where the advertising team for Bud Light went," wrote Nick Freitas, Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates.

"Jaguar just pulled a Bud Light," wrote End Wokeness. "Wtf is this?"

Conservative filmmaker Robby Starbuck tweeted, "Fire your marketing team and drop the woke stuff."

When asked, "What the actual hell is this[?]" the company responded, "The future."

The company's corresponding splash page states, "We're here to delete ordinary. To go bold. To copy nothing."

Rather than credit the Ohio band Devo or fashion designer Pierre Cardin with its new aesthetic, Jaguar said in a release that its "transformation is defined by Exuberant Modernism, a creative philosophy that underpins all aspects of the new Jaguar brand world."

Jaguar managing director Rawdon Glover suggested to Car Dealer Magazine that the company is looking to sell to "younger, more affluent, and urban livers."

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