Wisconsin is now the 38th state. Governor Tony Evers signed AB 446 into law on March 27, 2026, enacting it as Wisconsin Act 143.

I would wager that 99.9% of my readers have no idea this is happening. Major politicians aren’t talking about it. Headlines aren’t being written about it. But the IHRA speech codes march forward, state by state, without resistance. That’s the point: these speech codes are being rolled out quietly, with almost no coverage, no public debate, and no sustained attention from the mainstream press… the Fond du Lac Reporter doesn’t count:

I asked Jenin Younes, National Legal Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, how such a plainly unconstitutional law could be enacted. She told me:

So the trap is set. By the time the first student is jailed or the first professor is fired for daring to lecture on what constitutes ethnic cleansing, the ink will be dry and the law will be entrenched. While the public is distracted by Clavicular getting framemogged or by watching Green Bay Packers training camp, the very boundaries of what you are allowed to say about a foreign government are being redrawn by a pen-stroke in a quiet room in Madison.

As a refresher, these are 11 deliberately broad, vague, and contradictory IHRA examples of speech that can now be treated as discriminatory under Wisconsin law:

1. Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.

   1. If a professor suggests that decades of blockade or occupation are a "root cause" of a specific violent outburst, a litigious student can now claim that the professor is an “extremist” who is illegally "justifying" harm.

2. Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

   1. If a reporter tracks millions of dollars in campaign contributions or lobbying efforts from groups like AIPAC or individuals who happen to be Jewish, a clever prosecutor can argue that the very act of highlighting that "collective power" is an illegal violation of the code. It doesn't matter if the spreadsheet is accurate; truth doesn’t matter; the law is designed to make the topic radioactive.

3. Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

   1. This forces you to treat every political action as a series of disconnected, random coincidences by "isolated individuals." By banning the concept of "collective responsibility" or even "collective action," the state is effectively saying: You can see the lobby, you can see the money, and you can see the result—but the moment you connect the dots, you’re a criminal.

   2. We don't apply this to any other group. If a group of Evangelical lobbyists pushes for a specific law, we talk about the "Evangelical Vote" and "Christian Nationalism" as a collective political force. If a group of Silicon Valley VCs coordinates on a tech policy, we talk about "Big Tech’s" collective agenda. But under the IHRA definition, if a group of Jewish donors or activists coordinates on a policy, any attempt to describe that coordination as a "group" effort is suddenly a "discriminatory allegation."

4. Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).

   1. Historians routinely debate numbers, logistics, and evidentiary questions within established scholarship. This is the first time in modern Western law that a state legislature has attempted to codify the "correct" results of historical research.

5. Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

   1. This is a unique "Infallibility Clause" that exists for no other historical event in human memory. You can argue that the casualties of the Great Leap Forward were exaggerated by the West; you can argue that the casualties of the Vietnam War were minimized by the Pentagon. We call that "revisionist history," and it is a standard part of the academic process.

6. Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

   1. Meanwhile, top Zionist thinker Melanie Phillips has told Jewish audiences "first and foremost you're Jews, and everything else is secondary."

7. Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

   1. You can’t question Zionism or Israel’s founding at all.

8. Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

   1. It effectively mandates that you cannot criticize an Israeli policy unless you simultaneously provide a PowerPoint presentation on similar failings in Norway, Japan, or Canada. Imagine applying this logic to any other facet of American life: you can’t complain about your local DMV unless you first acknowledge the inefficiency of the post office in Lyon, France.

9. Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

   1. You can’t accuse Jewish people of killing Jesus (you legally have to blame his death on Pontius Pilate).

10. Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

    1. This would criminalize a 2024 essay from historian and Israel Defense Forces veteran Omer Bartov outlining how his research of Nazi Germany informed his concerns about Israel. It is policing historical analysis.

11. Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.

    1. Over 90% of Jewish Israelis support the war with Iran. "Collective responsibility" is often a reflection of collective support.

When you strip away the administrative jargon and the “illustrative examples,” the intent of this speech code becomes transparent. This is a coordinated, state-level attempt to ensure that a specific foreign power—and the domestic lobby that fuels it—is the only entity on earth exempt from the First Amendment. You can critique your own history, you can audit your own churches, and you can protest your own president—but the moment you turn that lens toward Israel, you are a criminal.

To the legislators in Madison and the lobbyists in the wings: We aren’t asking for your permission to speak. We are exercising a God-given right that no lobby group can ever take away. This is America. In this country, there is no “Geopolitical Exception” to the Bill of Rights. There is no “Foreign Power Clause” that allows a governor to edit a journalist’s spreadsheet, a historian’s archive, or a citizen’s conscience. By attempting to carve out a protected sanctuary for a foreign state, you’ve declared war on the foundational mechanics of American dissent.

We must remember the standard set at the very birth of the Republic:

“Any law repugnant to the Constitution is null and void.”

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Ohio

Ohio Senate Bill 87 (SB 87) was introduced in 2025, but stalled for a while, before finally advancing on February 18, 2026, when it reached the floor for debate.

SB 87 sailed through the Ohio Senate on March 4, 2026, by a vote of 27-4.

The 4 votes against it were Ohio Democratic Senators: Catherine Ingram, Kent Smith, Paula Hicks-Hudson, and Nickie Antonio.

“This bill elevates hate speech not to individuals, but to nations because within the language and within the definition, it clearly identifies the state of Israel,” said Senator Paula Hick-Hudson. “It will definitely cause professors and other instructors to determine whether or not they can even raise the issue that’s happening right now in this world between the war that’s going on with Israel, the U.S. and Iran, and that is what I’m most concerned about.”

The Ohio Senate is overwhelmingly Republican.

SB 87 next will move to the House, which is also heavily Republican.

SB 87 is expected to move through the House in the coming days/weeks, leaving only the governor’s signature before it becomes law.

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Chris Brunet: “I have very simple question for Shabbos, who is Amalek?”

Shabbos Kestenbaum: “Who is what? Who is Amalek? Oh, Amalek?”

Since then, the Overton window has shifted, and taboos are being smashed.

Just last week, Tucker Carlson asked Mike Huckabee:

Tucker: “What is Amalek? Tell me what it means.”

Huckabee: “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Netanyahu.”

3 hours ago, at the time I am writing this, America bombed Iran.

2 hours ago, Donald Trump released a video declaring war on Iran:

Trump: “The lives of American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties — that often happens in war.”

One hour after that, CNN put out an article declaring that the “timing of US-Israel attack on Iran bears symbolic meaning in Judaism” because it’s Purim on Monday, and Purim is a very violent & vengeful time.

For example, the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre took place during Purim of 1994. According to one writer, killer Baruch Goldstein saw the Palestinians as Amalek and “carried out the massacre on Purim, one week after he would have heard the biblical retelling of the command to wipe out a rival nation. As the journalist Peter Beinart and others have written, the timing was not a coincidence.”

Below is a screenshot of today’s full CNN article. Here is a direct link.

The article invokes Amalek three times and explains that the biblical passage commanding Israel to remember and eradicate Amalek is read publicly before Purim to fulfill the mitzvah of remembering Israel’s enemies.

At the very moment American bombs are falling, CNN’s news desk is highlighting ancient scriptural eschatology to justify the bombs.

That is not a neutral editorial decision.

That is propaganda.

What infuriates me is American foreign policy being wrapped in ancient religious extremism while American lives are put on the line. This is supposed to be the United States of America. Our wars are not supposed to be fought over foreign theological ethno-grievances. They are supposed to be fought, if at all, for clear national interests that serve the American people.

If you believe this war meets that standard, say so.

If you don’t, say that too.

Go vote in my poll, before the bot farms swarm it:

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For the Gen Z and Millennial voters who swung his way, the promise was straightforward: no more foreign wars, a return to sanity, and a real chance to own a stake in the country they live in.

One year later, that mandate is in ashes.

Since his inauguration, Trump’s approval rating has fallen consistently, month after month. The decline is neither marginal nor confined to any single pollster or methodology. It appears across the polling landscape, a pattern captured clearly in the RealClearPolitics average of the top 19 national polls:

Republicans are now projected to get crushed in the 2026 midterms:

Meanwhile… Trump’s approval just reached a record high… in Israel.

The administration’s opening act was a grim indicator of things to come: the deportation of students for the crime of writing op-eds.

The National Review now reports: Government investigators found no evidence that Rumeysa Öztürk, a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University, had “engaged in antisemitic activity” or made “any public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization or antisemitism generally,” before the Trump administration tried to deport her, according to newly unsealed court documents.

John Dickerson

The Op-Ed Arrest

In March 2025 A Turkish graduate student, Rumeysa Öztürk, was arrested for being one of four authors of an op-ed. At the time it seemed absurd. Officials made bold claims about Ozturk, a graduate student at Tufts University, but they offered no proof…

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3 months ago · 128 likes · 4 comments · John Dickerson

Since then, Trump has increasingly deferred to and elevated Lindsey Graham on foreign policy. Graham—who played golf with Trump last week—has an approval rating of just 29% in his home state of South Carolina. Only 14% of his constituents say he should be reelected, while 73% say it’s time for someone new.

Graham visited Israel last week, where he bragged that “I come to Israel every two weeks, if I need to or not” and explained: “The wars of the future are being planned here in Israel“

Meanwhile, the most iconic photograph of Trump’s term so far is him obsequiously pulling out a chair for Netanyahu.

My point isn’t to aimlessly bash Israel or Netanyahu, my point is they are both historically unpopular with voters. Netanyahu’s approval rating among U.S. adults sits at a paltry 29%, while Israel consistently polls as the most disliked country in the world: according to Pew Research, the only remaining countries that have a net positive view of Israel are Nigeria, Kenya, and India.

Netanyahu and Israel are especially unpopular with young Americans, with a majority of adults under 35 now favoring reducing—or ending—U.S. aid to Israel.

Is it any surprise, then, that Trump’s approval decline is being driven by young voters more than any other demographic? He has lost the youth vote outright.

Roughly half of America’s younger voters moved away from Trump in the span of a single year. Among voters aged 18–29, his net approval collapsed from +9 in February 2025 (52–43%) to –42 in February 2026 (25–67%), according to YouGov.

That’s a 51 point swing in one year.

You might dismiss YouGov as an unreliable pollster. But the collapse is not an outlier. Even Quantus Insights, a Trump-aligned firm with a clear pro-GOP house bias, reports a comparable freefall. Among voters aged 18–44, Trump’s net approval fell from –2 in August 2025 to –45 by February 2026.

Trump has already bombed Iran once on Israel’s behalf, and he is now on the verge of doing so again. Public support for another attack on Iran stands at just 21%.

Chris Brunet

How Senate Republicans Are Using Fake Polls to Justify Bombing Iran

Israel has never been this unpopular…

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10 months ago · 52 likes · 25 comments · Christopher Brunet

Intervention in Venezuela was deeply unpopular as well. Roughly 56% of respondents said they either oppose or strongly oppose U.S. military action there.

Young people feel betrayed particularly because Trump campaigned on an isolationist message of no new wars and no foreign interventions.

Trump also ran on a platform of ending the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours. Here are 53 times Trump said he’d end the Ukraine war within 24 hours or before taking office. Yes, people know Trump is a bullshitter who speaks in hyperbole, and they bake that into their expectations, but you promised it would take a day, and it’s been a year with zero progress, people are justifiably upset.

Who actually benefits from these foreign wars?

Not young Americans.

They benefit a narrow set of interests: major donors, defense contractors, and foreign governments with direct influence over U.S. policy. Trump’s administration is structured to align U.S. power with those Zionist billionaires.

Young Americans notice that, and they care.

Chris Brunet

The Biggest Winner in Venezuela: Paul “The Vulture” Singer

Coups, collapses, and revolutions are usually framed as moral dramas: heroes and villains, tyrants and liberators, peoples rising against power. What receives less attention is the market for distressed assets that forms in their wake. When states fracture, assets do not vanish. They are liquidated quietly, legally, and at a steep discount. Crisis creat…

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4 months ago · 107 likes · 22 comments · Christopher Brunet

This deference to Israel ultimately culminated in Trump’s mishandling of the Epstein files. On July 16, 2025, Trump posted on Truth Social, calling the push for more Epstein files a Democratic “hoax” and “bullshit.” He referred to his supporters demanding transparency as “weaklings” doing “the Democrats’ work” and stated he no longer wanted their vote.

Trump said he doesn’t want the votes of people who care about Epstein.

Voters have taken him at his word.

In terms of public opinion and polling, this is yet another lopsided issue where Trump finds himself on the wrong side of the electorate, and it is plainly dragging his approval rating down.

Perhaps the most egregious Epstein lie came from Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, who brazenly misrepresented his association. Younger voters, raised in an era of receipts and screenshots, know exactly what it looks like to be lied to.

The fact that Howard Lutnick is still a member of the Trump administration would be shocking, if not for the fact that if he fell on his sword, it would mean a dozen other Trump officials would have to fall on their swords as well.

MAGA is flailing. With no rebuttal to the Epstein argument, they are now reduced to changing the subject or lashing out with unrelated personal attacks.

Case in point, Pam Bondi spent her entire hearing last week lashing out with personal attacks & changing the subject.

Beyond Israel and all the baggage that comes with it, another major force dragging down youth support is housing. Housing is not an abstract issue for this generation. It determines whether they can marry, have children, or stay in the country at all. When a political movement offers them endless war abroad and lifelong rent at home, they do not see stability.

Trump ran on making housing more affordable, another bait and switch:

But in reality all he has produced so far is a fig leaf proposal like 50-year mortgages, sold as “innovation” but functionally indistinguishable from debt serfdom. Stretching mortgages across half a century doesn’t make homes more affordable; it simply lowers the monthly payment while locking buyers into lifelong leverage. The price of housing doesn’t fall — it rises. To young people, the message is unmistakable: You will not own. You will rent. And if you do manage to buy, it will be through permanent debt slavery.

Graham’s Newsletter

IMPORTANT: The 50-year mortgage is a disaster

Big goals, limited time…

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6 months ago · 28 likes · 2 comments · Graham Stephan

Trump has zero interest in making homeownership easier for young families. His policies have been cosmetic at best and hostile at worst. There is no appetite for deflating a housing bubble because that bubble is the retirement plan of his boomer base.

Last month, speaking at the World Economic Forum, Trump was unusually candid about housing. He acknowledged that he has the power to bring prices down—but made clear he has no intention of doing so:

“Every time you make it more and more affordable for someone to buy a house cheaply [that’s a bad thing]. I don’t want to do anything that will hurt the value of homes … if I really wanted to crush the housing market I could do that so fast, and people could buy houses.”

Two days later, he reiterated the point even more bluntly, saying he did not want to drive housing prices down simply so that youth “who didn’t work very hard” could afford to buy a home.

For younger Americans locked out of homeownership by prices they did nothing to inflate, the message was unmistakable: preserving asset values for existing owners matters more than giving the next generation a chance to build a life.

And that’s before we even get into the broader economy, or broader corruption.

As a result of Trump’s indifference to young people, U.S. fertility has been falling to historic lows and according to a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, that decline is expected to worsen in the coming decades. In fact, the CBO now predicts deaths will exceed births in America 10 years sooner than their 2024 projection.

Yes, this fertility crisis predates Trump, but he has shown no interest in addressing it.

While American fertility collapses, Israel’s Jewish population recorded a fertility rate of 3.1 births per woman in 2024, nearly double that of the United States. Washington has money, attention, and political urgency—just not for its own country.

A government that subsidizes foreign demographic growth while presiding over domestic collapse is not confused. It has made its priorities clear.

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The night had 3 debates: the first was between two lawyers specializing in birthright citizenship, it was a treat to watch their elite legal sparring for an hour.

The headline debate was Ana Kaspartian, Executive Producer & Host of The Young Turks, vs. “Pearl”, a contrarian e-girl with 2,000,000 followers on YouTube.

It was a slaughter…

The e-girl couldn’t think on her feet, resorted to nervously reading a script most of the time, froze several times, and was literally on the verge of tears.

The most explosive debate of the night involved , founder of Anti-Zionist America PAC (AZPAC), who is currently running attack ads against Randy Fine…

… and Rectenwald’s opponent, Shabbos Kestembaus, who plays the role of a whiz kid, but he is actually 27, so a bit too old to be a whiz kid.

The reason he was still a student while pushing 30 is that after his undergrad he spent a couple of years abroad training at Aish HaTorah, a conservative yeshiva best known for running "Hasbara Fellowships” in collaboration with Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

• https://hasbarafellowships.org/

After Aish HaTorah, Kestenbaum attended Harvard Divinity School in 2024, where he became famous for suing Harvard. He now works at Prager U, whose CEO Marissa Strelater, served in the IDF’s Unit 8200.

His uncle, Rothschild-connected Lord Jonathan Kestenbaum, served on the board of Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square.

Kestenbaum has deftly positioned himself as the “Ben Shapiro of Gen Z”, except, I think he is much smarter and better connected than Ben Shapiro was at his age.

To open the debate, Kestenbuam gave a blistering 5 minute rant which went viral in all the right places.

The next 90 minutes was a bloody, knockdown brawl, but at the same time, it was actually quite cordial, they hugged, and respected each other.

At the Q&A portion, I stood up and asked a question, which went viral from two different perspectives:

Let’s read the transcript:

Chris Brunet: I have very simple question for Shabbos, who is Amalek?

Shabbos Kestenbaum: Who is what? Who is Amalek? Oh, Amalek?

Chris Brunet: Yeah, and do you believe they should be destroyed? Who are they, and do you believe they should be destroyed?

Shabbos Kestenbaum: I... I mean, I’m happy to have a Jewish theological debate, but I don’t want to be rude, I’m not sure how much Hebrew you know, but most of them [classic religious texts] believe that Amalek is more of a concept in the age of Golus.

Chris Brunet: Are they people today?

Shabbos Kestenbaum: No

Michael Rectenwald: According to Netanyahu, they are, in fact, he referred to the Palestinian people…

Shabbos Kestenbaum: Hang on, hang on, you don’t speak Hebrew so you wouldn’t know, I speak Hebrew, you can listen to the video yourself, [Netanyahu] clearly says…

Michael Rectenwald: Watch the video yourself, he said, we should treat [Palestinians] like we treat [Amalek] in the bible, which is to destroy all men, women.

Shabbos Kestenbaum: First of all, I’m going to give you all a Hebrew lesson, it’s not Amalek, it’s Amalek, all right, that’s first of all, second of all, you just sound stupid when you say it like that, the second way, the same way you said that there’s a Golan brigade, there’s no Golan brigade, it’s called Golan. So it’ll just make it sound smarter. The second thing is when [Netanyahu] said that, he said that Hamas is the equivalent of Amalek, which sure if that’s your theological political justification go for it. But again, I don’t know how much of a theological debate you want to have, but almost all the [classic religious texts] certainly in the Gemara as well say that Amalek in the age of Golus is not a practical people.

Chris Brunet: So when every Israeli politician says that Amalek must be murdered and destroyed, who are they talking about?

Shabbos Kestenbaum: Well, as I just said, when [Netanyahu] refers to Hamas, he’s comparing them to the Amalek nation in the Bible, but the thing is that...

Michael Rectenwald: The bible says, and I do know the Bible in this regard, it says the Amalek should be utterly destroyed, man, woman, child, and all the animals, wipe them out, so that’s not just Hamas, that’s all the Palestinians, that’s what he was referring to, and not only that, other Israeli officials called for total extermination. This is not a moral people. This is not a moral nation. This nation is barbaric.

Almost every word Shabbos spoke in this exchange consisted of calling his opponent stupid for not speaking Hebrew, and filibustering about proper Hebrew pronunciation. Still, we can confirm a few things:

1. The term Amalek has religious significance (Hashem needs to eliminate Amalek because that is a source of all evil)

2. Shabbos has heard the word a billion times, to the point where he has encyclopedia knowledge and cares about the proper pronunciation

3. Shabbos has Netanyahu’s famous Amalek quote memorized verbatim

That Amalek rhetoric is not academic. Polymarket currently assigns a 53% percent probability that the United States will strike Iran before summer is over.

So, it matters very much if Iran is Amalek.

States can negotiate with rivals. They cannot negotiate with metaphysical evil.

If Iran is Amalek, American power is not being used to defend national interests; American taxpayers are being asked to finance a foreign war justified by a foreign theology.

Even if you don’t believe in Amalek, Israelis believe in it earnestly.

When Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of starvation of Gaza as a weapon, one justice described the war against “Amalek“ as “obligatory.”

When polled in a March 2025 Haaretz survey, 2 out of 3 of Jewish Israelis said there is “modern day Amalek”, and of these, 93% responded that the commandment to wipe out the memory of Amalek applies today.

Israelis literally kill people, today, because of Amalek.

So who, or what, is Amalek?

In the Hebrew Bible, Amalek refers both to a people and to a symbol. The Amalekites first appear in the Book of Exodus, where they attack the Israelites shortly after the Exodus from Egypt.

“Therefore it shall be, when the LORD thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”

— Deuteronomy 25:19

God then commands King Saul to annihilate Amalek in its entirety, explicitly including women and children. This verse is frequently cited by contemporary actors to religiously justify the killing of women and infants in Palestine.

“Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

— 1 Samuel 15:3

“Do not show mercy to Amalek. If I were the prime minister, I would wipe out Gaza with Jericho missiles and heavy artillery.”

— Tally Gotliv, member of the Knesset for the Likud party

Some understand Amalek as a specific ancient tribe long since extinct.

Some understand Amalek as a metaphor.

Israeli politicians and rabbis have variously applied Amalek to Palestine, Iran, Germany, Lebanon, Syria, Rome, “Spiritual Rome”, Armenia, Qatar, all Christians, all Muslims, all Arabs, or all Gentiles. Really, it’s whoever Israel happens to be fighting at any given moment.

Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who died last month in the Bondi Beach shooting, has a, extensivey documented history of justifying war crimes by labeling dead Gazan children and anti-Zionist political commentator alike as “Amalek.”

What a depressing legacy.

To be killed in a mass shooting and remembered primarily for spamming “Amalek” on X underneath footage of dead children.

Rabbi Eli Schlanger’s justification draws on the writings of the Rambam, widely regarded as a gold standard of rabbinic authority. In this tradition, Jews are commanded to eradicate the descendants of Amalek as a prerequisite for rebuilding the Third Temple.

The command in the Rambam does not end with an ancient enemy; it is understood to extend across generations—to Amalek’s presumed lineage in the present. Clearly, Amalek is not an idea floating in space, it’s people today they are literally commanded to kill.

But when I ask Shabbos Kestenbaum who“Amalek” is, suddenly it’s “no one.”

It’s so nebulous, in fact, that many Rabbis believe that White Supremacy is Amalek incarnate, therefore, anyone who espouses White Supremacy must be “blotted out” (murdered) along with their women, children, and pets.

Forgiving Amalek

If your enemy is Amalek—the embodiment of absolute evil—then war is righteous. Everyone you fight becomes Amalek by default, and therefore, their women and children a legitimate target. When Palestinians or Iranians are framed as Amalek—irredeemable, subhuman, beyond salvation—why would anyone seek peace with what they believe God commands them to destroy?

In 2025, Israel attacked at least six countries: Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria, and Yemen. How many will they attack in 2026, using American tax dollars? is currently predicting they will attack four.

In his New Year address to the Diplomatic Corps, Pope Leo warned that “war is back in vogue,” that peace is increasingly pursued through force rather than justice, and that humility, dialogue, and multilateralism are being cast aside.

His warning applies here with unmistakable clarity.

Rather than advocating for the bombing of Iran under the banner of Amalek, what is required now is repentance: a turning away from doctrines that sanctify annihilation and excuse the killing of innocents as obedience to God. A stable Middle East does not require the eradication of one’s neighbors. It requires restraint, moral accountability, and the rejection of theologies that render peace sinful and violence sacred. So long as Amalek remains a living category—invoked to dehumanize entire peoples—peace will remain impossible.

Repentance, forgiveness, and humility are prerequisites for peace.

If Amalek was once a people, they are long gone. What remains is a story that has outlived its moral usefulness and now functions only as a license for annihilation.

Forgiving Amalek does not mean denying history.

It means recognizing that history does not grant eternal permission to kill.

It means choosing to remember without reenacting.

Amalek should be forgiven, not because it was harmless, but because it is over.

Three thousand years later, the only unforgivable act is continuing to invoke it.

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The first 16 minutes of this interview are mostly chitchat, and I’m a bit nervous and stumbling with my words early on. I’m still getting my reps in with public speaking, so thanks for bearing with me. I did at least finally upgrade to a proper professional microphone instead of relying on broken AirPods, which is progress.

Around the 16-minute mark we move past the small talk and into the substance of the article. Once the discussion gets going, I hit my stride and we end up having a genuinely engaging conversation about Venezuela, empire, interventionism, and the political economy of sanctions and regime change.

If you’re inclined to watch, I’d recommend starting at 16:00.

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According to the Ottawa Citizen: Grus allegedly accessed case files of Canadian newborn and infant death investigations to which she wasn't assigned and inquired with the coroner about whether the parents of babies who had died unexpectedly during the pandemic were vaccinated against COVID-19.

Investigators also alleged Grus contacted the father of a deceased baby directly on Jan. 30, 2022, to inquire about the mother’s COVID-19 vaccination status.

I first reported on this case nearly three years ago:

The Dossier

Trudeau regime puts Canadian detective on trial for investigating link between infant deaths and mRNA vaccines

This is a The Dossier guest post by Christopher Brunet, a great up and coming journalist who also serves as an editor for The American Conservative. Please follow him on X (https://X.com/realChrisBrunet) and subscribe to his Substack…

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3 years ago · 426 likes · 168 comments · Christopher Brunet

The response was overwhelming: readers rallied to raise $16,000 to support Grus’ legal fight:

Chris Brunet

Update: Helen Grus Legal Defense Fund raises over $16,000 in 24 hours

When I published this story 21 hours ago…

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3 years ago · 31 likes · 4 comments · Christopher Brunet

I wasn’t able to attend her ongoing police tribunal myself, and recording were banned, so I am largely relying on the reporting of others who attended in person, including: Donald Best (Former Sergeant — Toronto Police), Vincent Gircys (Former forensic investigator — Ontario Provincial Police), Rob Stocki (Former Sergeant – Ottawa Police), Tamara Ugolini (Rebel News), Jason Unrau (Freelance journalist).

For Grus personally, the ordeal has drained an estimated $400,000 in legal fees. Grus’ union, the Ottawa Police Association, declined to provide any financial support to mount her defense, diverging from previous practice of offering police legal aid, even for those accused of violent criminal offences.

You can donate to her legal defense fund here:

• https://www.givesendgo.com/helengrus

A federally registered non-profit corporation was recently established in her name to ‘‘restore the Rule of Law and ensure that police investigations in Canada remain free from political control.’’

• https://grusjusticeproject.org/

Grus Fights Back: $875K Lawsuit Against CBC

On March 28, 2022, although Grus's suspension was not yet public knowledge, CBC Ottawa published a story sourced from anonymous leaks within the Ottawa police, initiating a trial by media.

Detective Grus is now striking back against the media machine that helped orchestrate her downfall, suing the CBC for $875k for ‘‘Publishing Harmful, Malicious & Harassing Articles Containing False Statements’’:

Specifically, Detective Grus alleges that CBC’s articles dated March 28th and 31st, 2022, were based on confidential information from unnamed sources within Ottawa Police Service and directly precipitated the administrative charge against her.

…

Essentially, Detective Grus believes that the CBC libeled her intentionally, while she was trying to receive a fair and impartial hearing. Their published articles were timed perfectly to have the greatest negative effect on her reputation and her case outcome.

A CBC reporter is also personally named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

That CBC reporter argues that Grus victimized the parents of the deceased infants, and thus her own reporting was righteous.

I contend the opposite: that parents would be *grateful* to know why their babies died.

This CBC defamation lawsuit will likely drag on for years.

Ottawa Tribunal Finds Grus Guilty

In March 2025, the Ottawa Police tribunal delivered its verdict: Detective Helen Grus was found guilty of “Discreditable Conduct”—a vague, all-purpose charge trotted out when no actual crime or statutory violation can be proven.

Full decision available here:

• https://www.ottawapolice.ca/en/news-and-updates/resources/Documents/Disciplinary-decisions/Decision-with-Reasons-Det-Grus.pdf

A Political Conviction, Not a Legal One

The ruling makes clear that Grus was not punished for misconduct but for daring to investigate why infant deaths were doubling or tripling during the pandemic. The tribunal’s reasoning faults her for failing to seek “permission” before probing these infant deaths and emphasizing the “political and societal ramifications” of her inquiries, i.e., politics, not law, determined this outcome.

What She Actually Did

The supposed “misconduct” boiled down to one thing: asking too many questions. Grus accessed files for nine infant death cases and, in one instance, ‘‘phoned the father of a deceased baby’’ to ‘‘ask whether the mother had been vaccinated against COVID-19.’’

That single call became the foundation of the charge. The tribunal speculated that this phonecall might have caused distress. But the father never complained, no evidence of harm was presented, and the question was directly relevant to the investigation.

Grus was not accused of falsifying data, leaking information, compromising an investigation, or unlawfully accessing files—the Professional Standards Unit had already cleared her on those points. Her “offense” was simply investigating deaths that weren’t formally assigned to her, despite that being her very job.

A Rigged Tribunal

The hearing officer (not a judge, simply a retired police officer with no formal legal training), Superintendent Chris Renwick, made no pretense of neutrality. From the start, he announced that any evidence “outside the scope” of the misconduct charge would be disregarded. That allowed him to bar testimony about the spike in infant deaths, dismiss Pfizer’s own trial data as irrelevant, and block medical experts from appearing:

• Dr. Gregory Chan, a family physician, submitted written testimony highlighting the lack of safety data and noting a patient’s stillbirth two months after vaccination. He was blocked from appearing in person.

• Dr. Eric Payne, a pediatric neurologist, submitted a statement emphasizing the absence of reliable safety data. He too was blocked.

Renwick’s final written decision, dripped with sarcasm, accused Grus of “weaponizing” her position, and framed her concerns as nothing more than opposition to the Ottawa Police vaccine mandate, and heavily implied that she didn’t actually care about dead babies.

Helen Grus' legal counsel, Bath-Sheba van den Berg, argues that Renwick’s guilty verdict:

• Sets a precedent that police cannot investigate matters implicating public officials

• Suggests officers must seek executive permission to pursue sensitive inquiries

• Undermines the principle that police discretion is essential to justice and public safety

• Signals that public officials are above the law, and officers who challenge this are punished

Bath-Sheba van den Berg explains:

Rebel News reporter Tamala Ugolini attended the tribunal and made this video about the cover-up:

This Case Sparks Police Procedure Reform

Under Ontario Regulation 395/23, made pursuant to the Ontario Community Safety and Policing Act and proclaimed on April 1, 2024, police officers are now required to obtain supervisory approval before initiating a criminal investigation.

This new law is unprecedented. How can probable cause ever be established if officers are forbidden from even beginning a cursory investigation?

Since the founding of Canada, officers have had the autonomy to begin questioning or investigating suspected crimes without first asking permission. The new “duty to notify a supervisor” represents a historic break from nearly two centuries of police independence. Officers are now effectively barred from investigating public officials without prior authorization. This is corruption in plain sight. It gives political gatekeepers the power to block investigations that might inconvenience their allies or “offend their supporters.”

Here is the biggest problem, however: this rule only came into effect on April 1, 2024... So how can Detective Grus be prosecuted under a requirement that did not even exist at the time of her actions?

Clearly, it is a rule invented retroactively to justify her crucifixion.

Punishment

Two weeks ago, the kangaroo tribunal convened to decide Grus’ punishment. The prosecution pushed for a two-year demotion, from 1^st class to 2^nd class constable — a penalty worth roughly $100,000 in lost wages (for comparison, even a drunk-driving conviction results in only a six-month demotion) — on top of the $400,000 she has already spent on legal costs.

At the sentencing hearing, Grus’ lawyer filed thousands of pages of affidavits and exhibits. One affidavit cited internal government records showing that, as early as July 2021, Manitoba officials had raised concerns about a rise in spontaneous abortions following the administration of these drugs to pregnant and breastfeeding women.

The thrust of these submissions was clear: a cover-up is underway.

Juno News

Cover-up alleged in hearing for detective who probed COVID vax baby deaths

By Jason Unrau…

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8 months ago · 123 likes · 54 comments

The key takeaway now is this: the Chief of Ottawa Police Service was handed sufficient documentation in the affidavits, including Health Canada and Public Health Agency of Canada own concerns, as flags were being triggered while the "safe and effective " narrative continued. Does he acknowledge she was correct all along and that he was criminally negligent, or does he ignore all the submitted data and become complicit in the crime?

The tribunal has now adjourned to give the prosecution two months to review the thousands of pages of testimony alleging a cover-up. Grus’ first appeal can only go to a higher provincial policing tribunal — and only after that to a real court, with a real judge. The added legal costs of these expected appeals are expected to reach an additional $200,000.

Clearly, the process is the punishment.

The Grus case is not just about one detective or one phone call. It sets the precedent that politically inconvenient investigations can be shut down, and the officers who pursue them can be bankrupted and destroyed. At stake is something much larger: whether Canadian police still have the independence to follow evidence wherever it leads, or whether politics now decides which deaths are worthy of answers.

Detective Helen Grus is, in my view, one of Canada’s bravest living heroes. For asking a question no one in power wanted answered, she was bankrupted, smeared, and dragged through a sham tribunal. Yet she still stands tall.

This summer, at a packed Ottawa church, she was greeted not as a disgraced officer, but as a hero, receiving a standing ovation from a grateful crowd.

No one will remember the politicians and bureaucrats who smeared her. Their names will fade. History will remember the woman who stood alone and dared to ask why babies were dying.

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In 2011, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the same principle in Snyder v. Phelps, ruling 8–1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church, whose members carried signs reading “God Hates Fags” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” outside a Marine’s funeral. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the Constitution protects even their cruelty because “speech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values.”

In 2017, the Court ruled unanimously in Matal v. Tam, siding with an Asian-American rock band called “The Slants” after the government tried to deny them a trademark on the grounds that the name was offensive. Justice Samuel Alito’s words could not have been clearer:

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That is the law of the land. Hate speech is protected speech.

Always has been.

Always will be.

And that makes what Attorney General Pam Bondi said last night all the more disgusting, because she knows better. On a podcast, she declared that “hate speech” was to blame for Charlie Kirk’s death, then promised to prosecute it.

Bondi: “There’s free speech, and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place — especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie — in our society. … We will absolutely target you, go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything.”

But Charlie Kirk himself could not have been clearer. Since at least 2017, he was unflinching: “MORE SPEECH is the answer to hate speech. Don’t arrest the people spewing [hate speech], show up in numbers and speak truth.”

In 2024, he reiterated: “Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There’s ugly speech, gross speech, evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America Free.”

Pam Bondi’s position is not only unconstitutional; it is a betrayal of Kirk’s legacy. He spent his career defending free expression as the cornerstone of American conservatism. She is now standing on his grave to argue the opposite.

And worse — she is doing it in the language of the Left. “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech” could have been lifted word-for-word from a DEI training manual or a Berkeley student handbook. This is not originalism, it’s not conservatism, it’s the Woke Right, parroting the authoritarian instincts of the progressive Left while pretending to defend conservatives.

That’s the essence of the Woke Right: it borrows the Left’s authoritarian logic, swaps out the favored victim group, and then sells censorship back to the base as a kind of tough-on-crime conservatism. Instead of gender pronouns or “safe spaces,” it’s “protecting conservatives from harassment.” Instead of “equity,” it’s “anti-semitism.” But the substance is the same: the state decides which words you’re allowed to say.

Change my mind

This is what the Woke Right is

Never wrestle with pigs. You’ll both end up covered in shit and the pig will enjoy it…

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a year ago · 40 likes · 12 comments · Ani O’Brien

Bondi wants to censor in Kirk’s name. The Left wants to dance on his grave. At the same time, here on Substack, the Left is busy proving why Kirk’s principles mattered in the first place: writers are churning out 4,000-word thinkpieces with titles like Charlie Kirk Probably Deserved to Die.

Planet: Critical

Charlie Kirk Probably Deserved To Die

Our long history of human flourishing was predicated on our ability to check bad behaviour. In Luke Kemp’s Goliath’s Curse, he writes of the necessary counter-dominance strategies which evolved among hunter-gatherer societies to hamper the aims of malicious, domineering, or simply arrogant individuals. Our foremothers survived through their ability and …

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8 months ago · 171 likes · 94 comments · Rachel Donald

To say that a man “deserved to die” is a cruelty darker and more dangerous than anything Charlie Kirk ever said. And yet, vile as that essay is, it should remain online, because Charlie Kirk of all people would have defended its right to exist. If he were here, he would remind us that everyone can be redeemed, especially the author of that piece, , and that our duty is to pray for her soul and forgive her. But Pam Bondi? She should be fired.

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Paul Krugman

We Are All Lisa Cook

Donald Trump is threatening to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, over allegations that she made false claims on mortgage applications before she went to the Fed…

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8 months ago · 2712 likes · 535 comments · Paul Krugman

The official reason? “Mortgage fraud.” Cook allegedly listed two different houses as her “primary residence” to secure better loan terms. A technical violation, embarrassing for the Fed. We’re supposed to be scandalized.

Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is spearheading the effort to take down Cook.

But let’s be honest: mortgage fraud is just a fig leaf.

I know it.

Bill Pulte knows it.

Everyone inside the Trump administration knows it.

The only people who aren’t supposed to know are you.

Here’s the truth: more than a year before Cook’s mortgage paperwork surfaced, I spoke with a senior Trump administration official who told me outright they were already looking for a way to push her out.

Back in May 2024, I even pitched a magazine story titled: “Trump Administration Could Remove Federal Reserve Governor for Plagiarism and Lack of Qualifications.”

That pitch had nothing to do with mortgages. It was about Cook’s academic record, her credentials, and the Washington consensus that she’d been elevated to the Fed as a pure diversity hire.

The editors passed, calling it “too speculative.”

But that was the conversation in Washington: how to get rid of Lisa Cook—not for a box checked wrong on a loan application that saved her 5bps on a loan, but because she embodied everything the administration wanted to make an example of.

Now, fast-forward a year, the White House has manufactured its thin pretext, and it’s much thinner than you think: members of Trump’s own Cabinet pulled the same tricks Cook is accused of, yet none were fired. None faced media outrage, and all denied wrongdoing—just as Lisa Cook has.

• Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer ‘‘entered into two primary-residence mortgages in quick succession, including for a second home near a country club in Arizona, where she’s known to vacation.’’

• Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ‘‘has primary-residence mortgages in New Jersey and Washington, D.C.’’

• Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, ‘‘has one primary-residence mortgage in Long Island and another in Washington, D.C., according to loan records.’’

• Texas AG Ken Paxton declared three different homes as his primary residence and collected overlapping tax breaks.

Even Pulte’s own father and stepmother, Mark and Julie Pulte, claimed homestead tax breaks in both Michigan and Florida at the same time, and even rented out one of those supposed ‘‘primary residences,’’ according to Reuters and tenant records. After Reuters contacted tax officials in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, to inquire about the dual claims, Darrin Kraatz, director of assessing, confirmed the township would revoke the exemption on the Pultes’ residence.

So, while Pulte clutched his pearls online as the sheriff of Trump’s housing market, yelling that nobody will get away with renting out their primary residences, his own father was pocketing rent checks on a property he simultaneously claimed as a primary residence. Classic.

Trump himself has played the same game. New York’s Attorney General famously accused him of inflating asset values to secure cheaper loans, and a judge eventually ordered him to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties after finding that his company had used false financial statements to obtain cheaper loans.

That was lawfare, and so is this. The right is finally playing the game.

If mortgage fraud were truly disqualifying, Washington would be a ghost town. As The Atlantic recently put it, in defense of Lisa Cook: “How many members of Congress, federal judges, governors, attorneys general, and other federal and state leaders have submitted home-loan applications with falsehoods in them? Too many, I think, to make felons of them all.”

At first I dismissed The Atlantic’s defense of Cook.

But the more I look, the more their point seems valid.

As that article points out, a 2023 study by Ronel Elul of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that so-called “occupancy fraud”—pretending to be an owner-occupant to score a better mortgage rate—is rampant. One out of every three real-estate investors does it, and while they default more often, almost none are punished. Even when clear mortgage fraud has taken place, it almost always leads to an out-of-court settlement, with fees paid to the lender, rather than a criminal case. In 2024, only 38 people in America were sentenced for mortgage fraud.

Clearly, the Cook case isn’t about enforcing the law.

It’s red meat for the base.

It’s about manufacturing a pretext to crush the woke. Trump became a folk hero by attacking the woke, and for Trump’s base, Cook is the perfect villain: an affirmative-action appointee elevated far beyond her competence, a living embodiment of the DEI regime they despise. By going after Cook, MAGA not only scored an optics win but also forced liberals into the awkward position of defending the very embodiment of affirmative action.

In politics, if you’re not on offense, you’re on defense.

For years, the American right mocked Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals as the left’s dirty playbook. But in 2025, MAGA has adopted one of its sharpest tactics: isolate the target. To cripple a movement, you don’t attack it in the abstract—you pick one person, demonize them, and make them the embodiment of everything you oppose.

That’s exactly the playbook the Trump administration is running here. Instead of challenging the Fed as an institution, they’ve picked the weakest member—Lisa Cook—and turned her into the symbol of everything they want to destroy. She’s been frozen in place, made to carry the weight of “woke” politics, and isolated so every attack, every ounce of energy, can be focused on her. The spectacle is the point. Cook is no longer a governor at the Fed; she’s a scapegoat, the lightning rod, the cartoon villain onto whom all the sins of DEI excess are projected. The brilliance of this approach is that the real action isn’t in the accusations themselves but in the backlash they create. Mockery, ridicule, and isolation spark a furious overreaction from the left, and that reaction only feeds and fuels the MAGA movement.

Lisa Cook will probably survive the mortgage fight… She just scored a major court victory (the judge was her sorority sister), and just released new documents showing that she labeled her Atlanta condo a second home (not as a primary residence), so Polymarket bettors now put her odds of being ousted this month at a mere 10%.

So, the Trump administration may have botched the execution of this hit. But the caricature—the “diversity hire” turned fraudster put in charge of America’s money printer—is already cemented. That image will outlast her, fueling the next purge of DEI America.

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In June 2025, Pew Research surveyed 24 countries. The verdict was overwhelming: Israel is deeply unpopular worldwide. Only three countries—Kenya, Nigeria, and India—expressed net positive views.

In the U.S., the trend is even more dramatic. Support for Israel has collapsed across all demographics, reaching historic lows. A majority of Americans (53%) now express a somewhat or very unfavorable opinion of Israel. This marks an 11-point increase in unfavorable views of Israel from 2022 to 2025.

Among Americans under 30, support has all but vanished:

• In 2018, 65% of Americans aged 18 to 34 supported Israel. In 2025, that figure has collapsed to just 29%.

• 67% of U.S. 18-24 year olds, regardless of political orientation, believe "Jews are oppressors and should be treated as oppressor.’’

• 55% of Americans support a Palestinian state.

• 18-year old registered voters are now 5 times more likely to say that they have an unfavorable view of the Jewish people than 65-year olds.

According to The Economist poll from last week, just 16% of Americans support U.S. involvement in the Israel–Iran conflict.

There’s not a single demo in the country whose majority is not opposed to US involvement in Israel’s war of aggression against Iran.

This matches another poll from the Democracy Institute, who just reported that 64% of Trump voters oppose going to war against Iran.

Even Charlie Kirk—one of the most aggressive pro-Israel influencers, and a good barometer for where the MAGA base stands—ran a Twitter poll with nearly 500,000 votes. The result? 90% opposed war with Iran.

The pattern is clear: war with Iran is wildly unpopular, even among Republicans.

GrayHouse Analytics: Fake Polling, Real Consequences

So why is the Senate GOP promoting absurd polls this week from ‘‘GrayHouse’’ that claim:

• “Only 10% of Republicans oppose Israel’s strikes against Iran”

• ‘‘79% of Republicans support the United States providing offensive weapons to Israel’’

• ‘‘95% of Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of foreign policy’’

That’s not just implausible… It’s absurd.

In survey research, questions that crack 80% agreement are jokingly called “Mom and apple pie” questions—because loving your mom and loving apple pie are the only things Americans reliably agree on.

To understand how implausible these numbers are, consider what Americans don’t overwhelmingly agree on…

• Is the Earth round? (YouGov, 2018) — 84%

• Do you support democracy? (Pew, 2017) — 78%

• Do you like puppies? (Morning Consult, 2023) — 87%

And yet we’re supposed to believe that bombing Iran polls higher than round Earth or puppies?

Even among Republicans, there is never near-unanimous agreement:

• 41% support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (Pew, 2024)

• 57% want abortion mostly or always illegal (Pew, 2023)

• 68% say their federal taxes are too high (Gallup, 2023)

• 56% supported the 2023 GOP tax bill (Quinnipiac)

Trump’s approval rating among Republicans has also dropped 10 points in the last month (HarrisX/Harvard, June 2025)—yet somehow 95% still support his foreign policy?

The latest HarrisX/Harvard poll, conducted between June 11-12 among 2,097 registered voters, shows his approval among Republican voters has dropped 10 points since last month—from a net +76 to +66.

…

Overall, fewer GOP voters now believe the country is on the right track under his leadership, dropping from 76 percent to 71 percent.

Fake Polls as Psychological Warfare

These aren’t innocent mistakes. Fake polls are tools of psychological warfare meant to demoralize dissenters, suppress anti-war sentiment, and manufacture a false consensus.

This tactic isn’t new:

• 2002: Bush officials cited unsourced polling that Iraqis would welcome U.S. troops as “liberators.” The war killed hundreds of thousands.

• 2011: Obama officials leaned on dubious polling to justify regime change in Libya.

• 2018: Pro-Israel groups inflated support for moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

• 2022: Western media circulated unverifiable polling from Ukraine and suppressed growing public fatigue with the war.

Now in 2025, GrayHouse's polling is being used by outlets like the Daily Wire and Free Beacon to fabricate support for war with Iran.

"President Trump has handled this perfectly, and that’s why his approval is at a record high," Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) told the Washington Free Beacon. "Republican voters are united with Trump to support Israel’s campaign to end the Iranian nuclear threat.’’

Related: GrayHouse does "work" for a nonprofit ‘‘supporting’’ Tom Cotton.

This wasn't even the Free Beacon’s first time shilling an obviously fake GrayHouse poll. Six months ago, they used GrayHouse data to claim that a "majority of American voters support congressional efforts to sanction the International Criminal Court" in order to "protect Israel."

As if the majority of voters even know what the ICC is.

This is pure narrative laundering.

Methodology

GrayHouse’s methodology is laughable. Their so-called “national poll” was based on a text-to-web approach—spam texts with links to online surveys. No verification. Minimal engagement. Their “national poll” was little more than 300 spam texts and a few answered calls.

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Their sample?

• 83% white

• 64% with no college degree

• 7% under age 30

That last number alone disqualifies the poll. In any serious survey, 18–29-year-olds make up at least 20–25% of respondents. Excluding young people—the most anti-war demographic—skews results to favor hawkish narratives.

The questions themselves are rigged to e.g. frame Iran as the aggressor:

• “Do you support Israel’s military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities?”

• “Should the U.S. help Israel defend itself?”

• “Iran is an existential threat to the West.”

None of the questions include non-interventionist or diplomatic options, such as:

• “The U.S. should stay out of the Middle East conflict.”

• “Israel and Iran should resolve this diplomatically without U.S. involvement.”

The design is intentional. Every question presumes intervention. The only debate is over the scale of involvement.

Who’s Behind GrayHouse?

GrayHouse was founded in 2022 by a GOP operative named Landon Wall, but didn’t exist publicly until April 2025. Its Wix-built website was registered anonymously just eight weeks ago. Its social media accounts were all created in April 2025.

• www.grayhouse.com

GrayHouse appears to consist of just two people—Landon Wall and one intern.

In 2025, they moved to D.C. after reportedly receiving a seven-figure investment from conservative donors.

Ask yourself: Who funds a polling firm with no track record, launches it in an election year, and feeds it war messaging that perfectly aligns with Likud party talking points?

One of their few public clients is the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, who needed a poll showing Americans oppose credit card regulations. GrayHouse obliged: “77% oppose regulating Visa/Mastercard.”

When pressed on Twitter, Wall accused me and my friend of misinformation, deleted his tweet, then blocked me.

“GrayHouse conducted a national poll with a mixed methodology of 450 registered voters who report to have voted for Trump in 2024. Chris [Menahan] believes our poll was framed in a biased way, which I dispute.”

Wall previously consulted for J.L. Partners, a British firm notorious for churning out pro-Israel polls used by News Corp (e.g., the New York Post, Wall Street Journal).

• https://jlpartners.com/

One of my sources asked Landon if he was affiliated with J&L, and he responded affirmatively: "... [I] did consult for them on their US methodology for about 2 years which ended at the start of this year. But only worked when there was a mixed mode aspect to the methodology. Their recent poll was a complete coincidence with ours and I have no idea who funded theirs and I did not work on it."

The founder of J&L Partners, James Johnson, is strongly pro-Israel and manufactures polls concluding that ‘‘Americans overwhelmingly back ground invasion and full occupation of Gaza’’ and that ‘‘Israel’s war is America’s war.’’

Last week, J.L. and GrayHouse released nearly identical pro-war polls.

The New York Post ran a headline based on them:

The Wall Street Journal then relied on polling from both J.L. and GrayHouse for a full-page spread branding anti-interventionists as “misguided isolationists.” The establishment conservative response to any dissenting view on Israel has been to gaslight, smear, and dismiss, exactly how liberals treated COVID skeptics.

This op-ed was pushed by Vice President Mike Pence to support bombing Iran.

The Stakes: The Death of MAGA

In 2011–2013, Donald Trump warned that Obama would “start a war with Iran to get elected.”

In 2015, he gutted Jeb Bush onstage over the Iraq War, saying it was a “big, fat mistake.” That moment broke the neocon hold on the GOP. MAGA was born as an anti-war, anti-establishment revolt.

He kept up this anti-interventionist rhetoric well into 2019, declaring that, ‘‘GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE.’’

In 2024, Trump ran explicitly as the “peace president.” He said in his inauguration speech that his foreign policy would “bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and unpredictable.” Now? The same MAGA base that voted for peace is being tricked into cheering war with Iran.

They lied us into Iraq. Now they’re lying us into Iran. But this time, the public isn’t buying it. If Trump drags us into another conflict—on behalf of a foreign power, no less—he won’t just betray that legacy. He’ll destroy it.

This isn’t 2003. Americans don’t want another war in the Middle East. They want peace, borders, and prosperity at home.

So let the bombers fly. Let the propagandists churn out their fake polls. Let the Free Beacon scream that “the base supports it.”

They’re wrong.

When the dust settles—when the body bags return and gas hits $8 a gallon—voters will ask: who lied to us this time? And why did we believe them again?

BREAKING NEWS

Less than an hour ago, Trump announced that he bombed Iran:

Bill Ackman called for “a bomber or two for a few days to finish off an enemy’s nuclear capability.”

Karlstack

Bill Ackman Thinks Your Sons Should Finish Israel’s Fight

Bill Ackman joined Twitter in 2017…

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a year ago · 79 likes · 44 comments · Christopher Brunet

Well, Ackman got his bombers.

So, is he satisfied now?

Will he finally shut up?

Or is this just the beginning?

The next 72 hours will define the future of the GOP—and possibly the country.

Will we repeat 2003, or learn from it?

My grim prediction is that soon the neocon line will be begging for boots on the ground, and anyone who predicted that bombing will escalate to boots on the ground will be smeared as a lunatic isolationist.

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From 2017-2023, he never mentioned Iran.

Then in 2024, he tweeted five times about its nuclear program.

Yesterday, he crossed a new line and revealed his true goals: openly calling for the U.S. to fight a regime change war in Iran.

Ackman won’t be fighting this war. Your sons will.

He cloaks his warmongering in faux humanitarianism, pretending to back the Iranian people’s fight to “take their country back.” But we’ve seen this script before—almost word for word. George W. Bush said the same about Afghanistan: “We are helping the Afghan people take back their country.” In 2003, it was Iraq. That war killed 200,000 civilians. Days before the invasion, Dick Cheney assured Americans, “We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.” Their press secretary, Ari Fleischer, parroted the same line: “The [Iraqi] people want to be free… people will rejoice.”

More than two decades later, Ari Fleischer is still out here, still using the exact same talking points, only this time for Iran:

So is Eli Lake, who helped fabricate and launder pro-war propaganda about Saddam’s WMDs. Now writing for The Free Press he’s become one of the loudest voices calling for regime change in Tehran. Same playbook, new war.

Same with John Podhoretz, one of George H.W. Bush’s speechwriters. In 2006, he said his only regret was that the U.S. hadn’t killed enough civilians.

In 2024, John is now furious that Americans don’t want their sons dying in another Middle Eastern war. According to him, if you object, you're “a piece of shit.”

The people who brought us the Iraq war never faced accountability and in many cases only gained influence and prestige. We are paying the consequences for that failure of accountability now.

Even Newt Gingrich is back, tweeting that replacing the Iranian regime is “the only acceptable outcome” of the current conflict.

In 2001, Newt said the same thing—only it was about the Taliban.

Afghanistan is actually a better comparison than Iraq for this moment. Saddam Hussein was a secular, sectarian strongman with no real ties to Islamist extremism. Iran is far more unified, with fewer internal sectarian fault lines than Iraq. The Taliban, by contrast, mirrors Iran’s current theocratic regime. “Our goal is to create conditions in Afghanistan where the Taliban can no longer function as a government,” said Donald Rumsfeld shortly after the invasion began.

The most important thing about that regime change war is simple: America lost. The Taliban outlasted the occupation and returned to power, stronger than ever. Even if the war had truly been about liberating the Afghan people—which it wasn’t—it still failed on its own terms.

Ackman claimed yesterday that “Iran is not Afghanistan,” suggesting this war would be easy—just “a bomber or two for a few days.” But that’s exactly what they said last time. And like last time, they have no exit strategy, no understanding of the region, and no plan for what comes next.

A ‘‘bomber or two for a few days’’?

What do you mean you need a few dozen Marine battalions for a year or two?

A full-scale war lasting 20 years and costing trillions of dollars is a small price to pay to liberate the Iranian people!

Ackman is lying. There is zero chance of bombing Iran into submission. That means boots on the ground. And once that happens, the war escalates—possibly dragging in Russia, China, or North Korea. If the U.S. gets involved, this spirals into another endless conflict. Maybe that’s the point.

He’s right that “Iran is not Afghanistan.” That’s exactly the problem. Afghanistan’s GDP is 23 times smaller than Iran’s. The Taliban still won. Now we’re supposed to believe we can defeat a far stronger nation with better allies? Spare me.

Ackman then admitted that Israel “does not have the equipment and armaments to complete the job.”

Translation: Israel starts the war, your sons finish it.

Ackman doesn’t even hide it. He says Israel lacks the firepower, and the U.S. should step in and finish what Israel started. That’s the plan.

Why start a war you openly admit you can’t finish alone—unless dragging America into it was the goal all along? For years, the idea that Israel might pull us into a war with Iran was dismissed as paranoid hysteria. Now, it’s official policy.

This isn’t about nuclear weapons. It’s not about democracy or liberation. It’s about destroying Israel’s enemies and installing regimes with Israeli geopolitical priorities—paid for with your tax dollars, and fought with your children’s lives. These wars never serve American interests -- only those of Washington’s most aggressive foreign lobbies.

These are the kinds of wars that destroy Republican presidencies. But the neocon script never changes: Israel will lead, America must “back them up.” And once again, they’re using the same lies to sell it.

But this time, Americans are seeing through it. No amount of propaganda or moral blackmail can hide what’s happening. Unelected neoconservative billionaires with close ties to Israeli policy are pressuring America into another Middle Eastern war. Then they smear anyone who points it out—accusing them of hatred, threatening their livelihoods, trying to silence the obvious. Then they openly demand war for Israel.

But the American people are not confused. They are not afraid. And they are done.

They have endured 40 years of lies and regime change wars in the Middle East.

Americans are tired of paying the price for foreign entanglements that don’t serve their security or prosperity.

No more sons for Israel. Not one.

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‘‘Jenin and Mel talk with independent investigative journalist Chris Brunet about his journey from darling of the anti-woke Right to think-tank outcast in less than a year when his commitment to truth in journalism touched the third rail of conservative media: America's unquestionable support for Israel.’’

‘‘Chris walks us through his latest article on his substack (Karlstack) which outlines the latest set of insane anti-BDS and free speech measures taken by Republicans at the state and federal level.’’

I tweeted out this interview, please throw me a retweet if you feel so inclined:

• https://x.com/realChrisBrunet/status/1930342199595516351

Follow @JeninYounesEsq and @Villgecrazylady on X, and subscribe to them on YouTube and Apple Podcasts, where you can also find this interview:

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Now, living in the United States, I see something new as the greatest existential threat to freedom: Zionism. So, once again, I feel a patriotic duty to write about it.

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America was born from a boycott.

When the Sons of Liberty dumped British tea into Boston Harbor, they weren’t just protesting a tax — they were asserting the freedom to dissent. That’s your birthright as an American citizen: the freedom to speak, to believe, to dissent, and to decide for yourself what you will and won’t support with your own money.

Today, 251 years later, your birthright is under threat.

Across America, 38 states (and counting) have already passed laws banning individuals and businesses from boycotting Israel.

Texas — which I always imagined was the freest state — is one of the most egregious examples. In May 2017, Governor Greg Abbott signed a law prohibiting state agencies from contracting with, or investing in, companies that boycott Israel.

In Texas you can boycott California, Canada, Cambodia or Palestine; but if you boycott Israel for any reason whatsoever, or no reason at all, it’s a hate crime.

Immediately after Abbott passed that anti-boycott law, a speech pathologist who had been employed for nine years at a Texas public school was presented with a contract containing a new clause requiring her to certify that she does not boycott Israel. She refused to sign and was fired.

The most disgusting application of this anti-boycott law was in the city of Dickinson, a city near Houston, where officials required Hurricane Harvey victims to swear allegiance to a foreign nation to receive disaster relief.

Hurricane Harvey killed over 100 people in 2017 and caused $125 billion in damage. Greg Abbott personally observed this disaster. Three years later, in 2020, when George Floyd died from a fentanyl overdose, Abbott called Floyd’s death: “the most horrific tragedy I’ve ever personally observed.”

San Marcos Revolts

Last month, on April 15, 2025, a town in Texas near Austin, San Marcos, proposed a resolution to redirect $4.4 million in taxpayer funds away from the Israeli military and toward community priorities ‘‘such as transportation, education, housing, healthcare, environmental protection, and public goods and services, which currently face neglect due to state and federal appropriations to Israel's military.’’

This is democracy in action: a very poor (median per capita income in San Marcos: $26,900; child poverty rate: 34.1%) and very Hispanic population (46% Hispanic) town wants to prioritize local well-being over funding a foreign army.

Greg Abbott responded with a scorched-earth open letter calling San Marco city councilors ‘‘pro-Hamas’’ and pledged to review and terminate $18 million in active state grants to city, including the Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program, as well as road maintenance, parks, police, and addiction services.

This letter is bigger than Texas: It’s about whether cities in America can make autonomous decisions to not be Israeli slaves without being blackmailed by their own governors and having their basic community services stripped from them as punishment.

Before San Marcos city council voted on the motion, the public comment period lasted over six and a half hours, with dozens of citizens speaking.

Among them was local lawyer David Sergi, founder and president of ‘‘Texans Standing with Israel’’, who called ICE on all the Hispanic speakers.

“Why are some Hamas-supporting members of the San Marcos City Council sponsoring a pro-Hamas resolution?” Sergi wrote. “ICE will be there. Those calls have been made.”

The resolution failed in a 5-2 vote.

Texas Codifies IHRA

After forcing hurricane victims and schoolteachers to pledge fealty to Israel, in 2021, Texas became the first state to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism through legislation:

Specifically, this ‘‘working definition’’ of ‘‘antisemitism’’ makes it a hate-crime to:

• “Deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination.”

  • Read: You can’t critique Zionism or Israel’s founding.

• "Accuse Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations."

  • Read: you can’t accuse Jewish people of dual loyal to Israel.

• "Make mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews.’’

  • Read: you can’t be mean to Jewish people.

• "Accuse Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group.’’

  • Read: you can’t accuse Jewish people of wrongdoing.

• ‘‘Apply double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation."

  • Read: you can’t criticize Israel.

• "Use the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis."

  • Read: you can’t accuse Jewish people of killing Jesus (you legally have to blame his death on Pontius Pilate).

• Draw comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

  • This would criminalize 2024 essay from historian and Israel Defense Forces veteran Omer Bartov outlining how his research of Nazi Germany informed his concerns about Israel.

The IHRA definition is deliberately broad — by design, it criminalizes virtually any criticism of Israel. Zionists just don’t want you to be allowed to criticize Israel, ever, for any reason.

That’s not democracy. It’s a third-world, police-state mindset that has no place in Western Civilization. Zionists clearly hate Western Civilization and treat the U.S. Constitution not as a foundation to honor and protect, but as a hurdle to be cleverly sidestepped through legal loopholes and political influence.

If defending the Constitution makes me an enemy in your eyes—maybe you’re the one who doesn’t belong in America.

From Hurricane Relief to K-12 Education

‘‘Without academic freedoms you don't have an academy you have a Gulag.’’

Texas’s chosen definition of antisemitism initially covered ‘‘hate crimes,’’ but last month, on April 29th, 2025, its scope was expanded to cover any dissent in public K-12 education. Now, in Texas, if students complain about illegal settlements in the West Bank—or if students don’t agree that Pontius Pilate is solely responsible for killing Jesus—they can be suspended or expelled.

The Texas House passed a bill on Tuesday that would require public schools and colleges to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. Lawmakers approved the bill by a 134-2 vote

… SB 326 would add the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism to bullying statutes, requiring schools to abide by the definition in student disciplinary proceedings when examining whether antisemitism was involved in incidents.

The goal of this legislation is not only to censor students (they are censoring literal elementary school students… What are they going to do, take away their milk money?) but to control the curriculum. History teachers won’t be allowed to teach about e.g. the Nakba, the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel or the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre if their students aren’t allowed to talk about these facts.

The IHRA Definition Goes Federal

What began as a state-level hate speech provision, then crept into K12 education, is now metastasizing across every school in the entire country.

The ‘‘Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2025’’ (H.R. 1007, S. 558) was introduced in February in the Senate by Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Tim Scott (R-SC). It’s currently making its way through committee.

It was introduced at the same time in the House by Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Max Miller (R-OH), and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL).

Here is the text of the bill:

• https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/558/text

I highlighted Section (1) because it reveals the bill's core mechanism: it hijacks the Civil Rights Act and reinterprets it to include perceived antisemitism as a special new Civil Rights carveout. If you publicly question U.S. aid to Israel, you will be in violation of the Civil Rights Act and labeled an antisemite under federal law. And once that label is applied, it opens the door to every kind of punishment: deplatforming, blacklisting, job loss, academic censorship, bank account closures—legal consequences that are already happening informally through cultural pressure will now be formalized by statute.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is one of the only voices opposing this legislative assault:

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Federalizing the Anti-Boycott Laws... and Worse

While Congress seeks to federalize the IHRA definition of antisemitism, it is simultaneously pushing to federalize anti-boycott laws through the ‘‘IGO Anti-Boycott Act’’ (known in earlier drafts of the bill as the ‘‘Israel Anti-Boycott Act’’).

• https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/867

The penalties under the legislation include criminal fines of up to $1 million and imprisonment of up to 20 years for supporting calls to boycott Israel.

Think about that for a minute: The nation that once rebelled against an empire for taxing tea is now criminalizing your right to refuse to buy Israeli hummus. Imagine going to jail for 20 years for publicly refusing to buy Sabra hummus. Violent rapists serve less. Zionists believe boycotting Sabra hummus in the grocery store is worse than rape.

This bill has 3 main sections:

• Prohibited Action #1: Boycotting Israel

  • Prohibited actions include (1) refusing to do business with companies organized under the laws of the boycotted country, if the refusal is pursuant to an agreement with or request from the country or IGO imposing the boycott;

• Prohibited Action #2: Boycotting Israeli Employees

  • (2) refusing to employ any U.S. person on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin; and

If the First Amendment doesn’t protect your right to boycott, what exactly does it protect?

Much more insidious than the already unconstitutional anti-boycott clauses, however, is the third clause, quietly inserted at the end of the bill, which is so blatantly unconstitutional that it renders the bill not only invalid but treasonous.

• Prohibited Action #3: Noticing AIPAC

  • (3) furnishing information about whether someone is associated with charitable or fraternal organizations that support the boycotted country.

This clause makes it a federal crime to state a neutral, factual observation, such as noting an individual's affiliation with AIPAC. Meanwhile, AIPAC runs ads bragging about how they “work with” and “urge” congress, to pass laws making it illegal to boycott Israeli companies.

The CEO of AIPAC was caught on leaked audio last month (April 9th) bragging about his organization’s “special access” to top Trump administration national security officials like Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, and John Ratcliffe.

The Grayzone has obtained audio of an off-the-record session from the 2025 Congressional Summit of AIPAC, the main US lobbying arm of the state of Israel. Recorded by an attendee of the panel discussion, the audio features AIPAC’s new CEO, Elliott Brandt, describing how his organization has cultivated influence with three top national security officials in the Trump administration – Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Director Mike Waltz, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe – and how it believes it can gain “access” to their internal discussions.

After bragging about how AIPAC owned Marco Rubio, just three days ago, Rubio announced a new “vigorous” visa policy targeting foreign nationals who criticize Israel. Under this policy, anyone who dares to critique Israeli policy can be denied entry to the United States.

Criticizing America is fine.

Criticizing Israel?

That gets you banned.

Thomas Massie & Marjorie Taylor Greene say no

The "Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2025" is the most serious anti-American threat to the Constitution that I’ve seen in my lifetime. It’s treason.

It was set for a House floor vote on May 5, 2025.

Fortunately, some patriots still exist.

The night before the vote, Greene publicly opposed the bill on X.

Thomas Massie then joined her in the fight:

Soon, other prominent Republicans, including Steve Bannon, Matt Gaetz, and Anna Paulina Luna, joined the mutiny, and the bill was shelved… for now. It remains under consideration in committee and is expected to resurface in a revised form.

"It's beyond outrageous and offensive that House leadership bowed to extreme-right forces and pulled this commonsense, bipartisan bill that makes antisemitic and hate-driven boycotts illegal," said a disappointed spokesperson for Josh Gottheimer, the New Jersey Congressman who introduced the bill.

Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste

Nothing makes people more furious than having their freedom stripped away.

When free speech, protests, and boycotts are outlawed, some people may resort to nastier methods to voice their opinions, like Elias Rogriguez, 30, who shot two Israel embassy staffers to death in Washington earlier this month:

Infinite Jaz

The Civil Assassination Comes Home

A 30-year-old man named Elias Rodriguez shot two Israeli embassy staffers dead outside the Jewish Museum in DC on Wednesday night. The victims had just left an American Jewish Committee reception for “young diplomats,” an event Rodriguez had bought a ticket to hours earlier…

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a year ago · 69 likes · 27 comments

Ken Klippenstein

The Israel Embassy Shooter Manifesto

I’ve obtained the alleged manifesto written by Elias Rodriguez, suspect in the killing of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, DC on Wednesday…

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a year ago · 1569 likes · 117 comments · Ken Klippenstein

After the shooting, the ADL immediately launched a campaign to dismantle the First Amendment.

“These tech platforms are not guaranteed under the Constitution! They're just not!” Goldenberg shrieked. According to this logic, the only valid speech is through a printing press. He demanded sweeping social media censorship, deplatforming, and the repeal of Section 230, arguing that the U.S. needs to abolish the First Amendment because 2 people were shot.

Ironically, the ADL’s favorite weapon against tech platforms is the very tactic it wants banned: boycotts. In 2023, the ADL led an advertiser boycott against X, proudly taking credit when it slashed the platform’s revenue by 60%.

The ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt then called for Congress to ‘‘shut this down’’ and ‘‘rein in social media.’’

Greenblatt then went on CNN and explicitly called for banning prominent critics of Israel from major platforms. His top target is Hasan Piker, a Twitch streamer with one of the largest audiences in the world.

Hasan Piker has the right to say whatever he wants.

I disagree with him on almost everything.

But he’s still an American citizen.

That means he has the right to speak freely on any U.S. platform, even if it pisses off billionaire Jewish lobbyists or makes the ADL foam at the mouth.

The ADL doesn’t just hate the First Amendment — it hates the very idea of freedom for people it can’t control. It’s the single most aggressive enemy of constitutional rights in America today, using every lever of power to force compliance from Big Tech. They want total control over the digital public square, and they’re shockingly close to getting it.

The real question: how did a foreign-aligned lobbying group gain this much influence over U.S. politics, law enforcement, and intelligence — and why won’t anyone in power (other than Rand Paul & Thomas Massie) say a word about it?

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People need to wake up.

That’s why I’m writing this.

Undoubtedly, just by covering this polarizing topic for the first time — believe it or not, I’ve written hundreds of articles over the past 5 years, and not a single one so far has been about Israel — I’ll lose a huge chunk of my free audience, and I’ll lose dozens of my paying subscribers. That’s the cost of telling the truth. But if even one person reads this and starts asking the right questions, it’s worth it.

Karlstack

Opinionated investigative journalism.

By Christopher Brunet

Here is a 15% off coupon to incentivize you to become a paid subscriber, I need your help to make up for the paid subscribers I will lose by writing this:

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Postcards From Barsoom

Post-Mortem for the Canadian Election

Have you ever noticed how election results are regularly broken down geographically, as well by the demographic categories of age, sex, and – depending on the country – race, yet we almost never see the results separated into taxpayer vs taxeater status…

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a year ago · 330 likes · 273 comments · John Carter

No outlet has yet picked up this story, but they should, and probably will, soon, when this agitprop campaign expands from Toronto to every major Canadian city.

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The first source to find this story was the /r/CanadianHousing2 subreddit, 15 days ago, when user ‘‘Tronojin’’ posted a picture of three strange posters plastered on a Toronto street corner — satirical cartoons mocking Canadians who oppose mass immigration as ugly, dimwitted cavemen.

The Reddit post shows three posters, but in reality, there are four.

Let's examine each one more closely and then trace the funding to uncover who is behind this campaign and why.

The first poster depicts Quebecers in 1847 opposing Irish immigration as intellectually disabled troglodytes with drooling, slack-jawed, inbred expressions.

The second poster depicts cognitively impaired Saskatchewanians in 1902 complaining about Ukrainian immigrants, fretting that they might "transform Canada into an agricultural superpower"—as if that was a genuine xenophobic fear people had.

Between 1891 and 1914, roughly 170,000 Ukrainians, primarily from the Austro-Hungarian provinces of Galicia and Bukovyna, arrived in Canada’s prairies under the Dominion Lands Act. There was no safety net waiting for them. No welfare, no child tax credits, no government handouts. The endless sky was their only promise and harsh winters were their only certainty. They built something from nothing.

Today’s immigrants to Canada, in contrast, disproportionately rely on welfare.

How much do illegals and refugees receive in benefits in their first year from Canada's taxpayers?

• $1,899/m monthly allowance.

• $949/m employment incentive.

• $1,800/m child tax benefit.

• $500/m housing top up.

• $8,326/y for basic goods.

• Total: up to $70,115.46 just in the first year.

The third poster shows seemingly mentally-disabled white Canadians in 1949 complaining about Italians ‘‘building homes and opening restaurants.’’ Again — as if ‘‘too many homes’’ and ‘‘tasty food’’ was an actual fear people had, and is if that is comparable to modern Canadians complaining about healthcare shortages.

Let’s be blunt: thousands of people will read this Substack article, and close to 100% of you will agree that thousands of Irish, Ukrainian, and Italian immigrants are infinitely preferable to millions of Punjabi immigrants.

Because that’s what we’re really talking about here, right? Punjabi immigrants?

Most immigrants to Canada come from India, and most of those, in turn, come from the tiny state of Punjab, the 16th-largest Indian state. These Punjabis come here seeking to benefit from the foundations others laid, and the ones who don’t leech off welfare work as UberEats drivers, Tim Hortons cashiers, visa scammers, fentanyl traffickers, and car thieves (Canada is now the car thefts capital of the world)… and then have the gall to compare themselves to the brave and industrious settlers from 200 years ago who built this country.

The fourth and final poster depicts present-day Canadians in an ER, complaining about "immigrants clogging up the ER." Notice how the first three posters specifically name white countries—Ireland, Ukraine, and Italy—yet, in the final hospital scene with brown nurses and a crowded waiting room, no nationality is mentioned. This omission is intentional. By avoiding a direct reference to "Punjabis clogging up the ER," they steer clear of making the message too obvious. However, when it comes to white countries, they’re meticulous in naming them. This is clear propaganda at work.

This is what the Laurentian Elite really think of ordinary Canadians: they think you are retarded; they hate you; they are actively replacing you with your own money.

Becoming Noble

Inside Canada's Laurentian Elite w/ Black Horse

Johann and Black Horse dive deep into Canada’s ruling ‘Laurentian Elite’ caste. Where do they come from? Where do they socialize, and from whence do they draw their power? And why, now, could their grip be slipping?To receive new posts and support my work, become a free or paid subscriber…

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a year ago · 38 likes · 5 comments · Johann Kurtz and The Black Horse

We are in the middle of the worst healthcare crisis in Canadian history. In 2024, emergency room wait times averaged 30 weeks—the longest ever recorded. That’s a 222% increase from 1993. On average, patients now wait 30 weeks between a referral from a GP and seeing a specialist.

The worst healthcare shortage in Canadian history is primarily driven by the largest immigration spike in Canadian history.

Just like the worst housing shortage in Canadian history is driven by immigration.

And declining GDP per capita? Also driven by immigration.

It's completely dishonest to pretend open borders are making Canada better.

Who is funding this propaganda campaign?

The bottom of each poster links to a specific website:

• http://thedifferencemakers.ca

The first thing you will see if you click on that link is a morbidly obese Indian woman laughing in your face, seemingly chosen to be a human middle finger:

The actual institute running this campaign is The Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC), a registered charity whose mission statement is to "deliver programs and special projects that inspire inclusion, create opportunities to connect, and encourage active citizenship across Canada."

• https://forcitizenship.ca/article/institute-for-canadian-citizenship-launches-national-campaign-celebrating-the-value-of-immigration/

According to the ICC's press release, this is a "coast to coast campaign" with "very large wild postings in Ottawa, Toronto, and Calgary, and digital banners at 40 Cineplex locations across Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and British Columbia."

The ICC board is led by a team of 1 Jewish man and 3 Indians.

The CEO of ICC is another Jewish man, Daniel Bernhard.

Bernhard claims that it’s misleading to argue that Canada has too many immigrants for its housing and healthcare systems to handle. Instead, he says that the real problem is not an excess of immigrants, but a ‘‘lack of housing and healthcare capacity.’’ Dishonest semantics. He’s a liar.

With a straight face, he then wrote an op-ed in the Globe and Mail proclaiming that the ‘‘cure for Canada’s housing crisis’’ was to ‘‘boost immigration’’:

Bernhard has 29 employees listed under him on the ICC website—and not a single one of them is a white man. These are the people flooding Punjabis into Canada, and instead of showing gratitude, they sneer and mock us. Ask yourself: if I moved to India, and spent my time trying to replace Indians, wouldn't that make me a monster?

You might think, "Wow that's a big staff for a charity I've never heard of, where do they get all that money?" My friend on Twitter had the exact same thought, and did a deep dive into their funding sources. According to their 2024 financial statements, the ICC received just over $2 million from Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship Canada; this is part of a 5-year grant worth roughly $10 million. In addition they received another $1.7 million in "other government grants."

In total, two-thirds of ICC’s revenue comes from government subsidies.

This isn’t just wasting taxpayer dollars; it’s the government using those funds to actively harm Canadians. Most people are unaware of how billions in NGO funding are being squandered to undermine their lives. Hundreds of institutions exist solely to antagonize Canadians and political parties. The left controls academia and the media, backed by a network of aligned NGOs—like the ICC—shaping culture and cultivating future activists.

As for the third of the ICC’s revenue that comes from private donors, that mostly comes from Canada's largest and most influential corporations (whose business models rely on cheap labor).

Is this legal?

Short answer, strictly speaking: no.

If any other charity put up racist caricatures of Jews, Muslims, Indians, Africans, etc. they would be torn down immediately and the propagandist prosecuted.

Imagine, for example, if I started a charity dedicated to plastering hateful cartoons of Somali immigrants in every major city: not only would the government refuse to fund it, I would be arrested in under a day.

Long answer: I’ve learned that Canada doesn’t really have ‘‘laws,’’ per se; Canadian courts operate on the power and whimsy of the ruling elite. Right now, the ruling Laurentian elite wants to replace white, founding stock Canadians with cheap 3rd-world labor, so it’s legal to be racist towards white people, but illegal to be racist towards non-white people. That’s how power works.

Where to Send Complaints

Canada’s human rights codes are clear: no one should be exposed to hatred or contempt based on race. But in Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and British Columbia, the Liberal Party of Canada is funding advertisements that depict white people as mentally impaired for expressing legitimate concerns about mass immigration. These portrayals are degrading, dehumanizing, and expose individuals of European descent to contempt on the basis of race and political belief. The government should not be in the business of funding content that ridicules or pathologizes political dissent — especially when such dissent is rooted in demographic or cultural preservation.

If you believe in equal rights — not double standards — use the templates below and file a complaint today to request a formal review of these campaigns by each province’s human rights tribunal:

• Ontario Reporting Authority: Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) Submit Complaint: https://tribunalsontario.ca/hrto/

• British Columbia Reporting Authority: BC Human Rights Tribunal Submit Complaint: https://bchrt.bc.ca

• Alberta Reporting Authority: Alberta Human Rights Commission Submit Complaint: https://albertahumanrights.ab.ca

• Nova Scotia Reporting Authority: Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission Submit Complaint: https://humanrights.novascotia.ca

• Manitoba Reporting Authority: Manitoba Human Rights Commission Submit Complaint: https://manitobahumanrights.ca

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Last week, the National Post (a Canadian center-right newspaper owned by an American hedge fund with close ties to the GOP) published an EXCLUSIVE scoop about Prime Minister Mark Carney:

The National Post obtained a copy of Carney’s 1995 thesis for his doctorate in economics from Oxford University titled “The Dynamic Advantage of Competition.” It shows 10 instances of apparent plagiarism, according to the judgment of three university academics who reviewed the material.

This scoop is relevant to me and my audience because so many of my own scoops have been about plagiarism, including my biggest, which forced Claudine Gay to step down as president of Harvard.

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The National Post lays out 10 alleged instances of Carney’s plagiarism, and I’ll start with the first 5:

1. “Domestic profitability is not a good indication of true international competitive advantage for three important reasons.” — Michael E. Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations, 1990, p. 797.

   “There are three reasons why domestic profitability is not a good indicator of true international competitive advantage.” — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 206.

   ---

2. “First, government intervention can impede international competition and artificially support domestic profits.” — Porter, 1990, p. 797.

   “First, government intervention can impede international competition and artificially support domestic profits.” — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 206.

   ---

3. “Second, in an industry or economy where many firms are following harvesting strategies, firms may maintain profitability though they are losing competitiveness. Finally, differences in accounting standards in preparing financial statements make cross-national comparisons in profitability problematic, as does the lack of systematic data in many countries.” — Porter, 1990, p. 797.

   “Second, in an industry or an economy where many firms are following harvesting strategies, firms may maintain profitability even though they are losing competitiveness. Third, differences in accounting standards and the lack of systematic data prevent international comparisons.” — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 206.

   ---

4. “Social norms and values affect the nature of home demand…” — Porter, 1990, p. 129.

   “Second, social norms and values affect the nature of home demand.” — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 90.

   ---

5. “Related industries are those where firms can share activities in the value chain across industries (for example, distribution channels, technology development) or transfer proprietary skills from one industry to another.” — Porter, 1990, p. 782.

   “The former are industries which share activities in the value chain across industries (e.g., distribution channels or technology development) or transfer proprietary skills between them.” — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 84.

Frankly, these are very minor accusations—too trivial to even weaponize for political ends… and keep in mind: I’m saying this as someone who will definitely not be voting for Carney in the upcoming federal election on April 28, 2025.

Carney’s thesis revolves around Porter’s work, and cites Porter dozens of times before and after each of these 5 alleged infractions. Is it shocking that he echoes Porter’s phrasing while describing his model, while citing him before and after? He’s not stealing; he’s swimming in Porter’s framework, maybe too comfortably, but not exactly stealing. You can call it plagiarism if you want to be super strict, but who really cares about slightly sloppy wording from 30 years ago? The only people who ‘‘care’’ about this scandal are paid shills pretending to care for political reasons, or useful idiots who never read past the National Post headline (the editors buried the 10 examples at the very bottom of their hitpiece).

Still, “plagiarist” screams from front pages worldwide:

The National Post contacted 3 experts for comment.

First, Carney’s PhD advisor defended him, saying she sees ‘‘no evidence of plagiarism or any unusual academic practices’’:

The National Post’s second expert, Geoffrey Sigalet, is a right-wing assistant professor of political science at UBC’s satellite campus (Okanagan Campus) who says that Carney is guilty: “He’s just directly repeating without quotations. That’s what we call plagiarism … internally, in UBC, we would consider it patchworking if it did not have the direct citation next to it, and it doesn’t … Even when you’re rewording, you need to cite. It seems like it’s all over the dissertation, not just one part.’’

The National Post’s third expert was particularly weak: an anonymous source, described only as an Oxford University graduate, who spoke "on background" due to ‘‘fear of being sued by Carney.’’ In my opinion, this anonymity is totally unnecessary and cowardly. If this was serious plagiarism, surely dozens of qualified experts could have been found to speak on the record, and this random person’s bland quote was hardly revelatory or spicy enough to be worth being granted anonymity: “Oxford’s guidelines are not atypical from other universities … When you have something lifted verbatim from a source, included without quotation marks or citation, that constitutes plagiarism.”

On Substack, the Former Editor-in-Chief of the Montreal Gazette concurs:

The Rewrite

We know the resume but media have yet to inquire into the character of the man who would rule Canada

Former Editor-in-Chief of the Montreal Gazette and Rewrite contributor Peter Stockland takes a look at the media’s scrubbing of Liberal leader Mark CarneyThe Rewrite is a reader-supported publication. Please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber…

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a year ago · 1 like · 2 comments · Peter Stockland

The side by side comparisons of the offending quotations … makes denial impossible. The clear, virtually exact replication of uncredited language belonging to others is self-evident. Whether they constitute actual academic misconduct remains a matter of debate. But it’s a debate this country’s professional journalists should be doing all in their power to foster … it should be done because it is the job of journalists to provide, without fear or favour, information essential to citizen conversation and democratic decision-making. It is their job at all times, but is especially critical during an election campaign. Plagiarism, with or without subsequent punishment, belongs to the highest order of that essential information. Why? Because plagiarism is theft. It is the stealing of another’s intellectual property. Worse, it is the “cheap sin” form of theft because it steals what has already been publicly provided for the mere price of acknowledging credit. As such, as an issue, it goes beyond the shallow obsession with personality that infests and makes putrid our politics. Plagiarism is a crucial tell by which we discern personality from character.

Phil Magness, the David J. Theroux Chair in Political Economy at the Independent Institute, concurs: “This is Oxford’s policy on plagiarism for students. The examples from Mark Carney’s dissertation clearly qualify as plagiarism under these standards.”

Carney’s 6th alleged example of ‘plagiarism’ is even more trivial and seems to stem from the National Post staff not knowing the mathematical definition of “finite” and “continuous,” which are entirely distinct concepts and are not interchangeable… meaning this is 100% not an example of plagiarism:

6. “The setting for the game is a pure exchange economy with a finite number of states.” — H.S. Shin, “News Management and the Value of Firms,” The RAND Journal of Economics, 1994, p. 60.v

   “The setting for the game is a pure exchange economy with a continuous number of states.” — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 211.

The last 4 instances of plagiarism involve Carney ‘‘stealing’’ from Stein… but Carney cites Stein’s work elsewhere, and is using the standard framework for the game he goes on to analyze. This is really not stealing or plagiarizing his work, he is just setting up a standard economic model.

‘‘Almost all economics papers involve mundanely describing a model in a way that has been done hundreds of times before,’’ writes Alexander Hempel, an econ Postdoc at the University of Alberta. ‘‘There's only so many ways to say that ‘I am using a model (blank) that includes features (blank)’. This is not plagiarism.’’

7. “If stockholders are imperfectly informed, temporarily low earnings may cause the stock to become undervalued, increasing the likelihood of a takeover at an unfavorable price…” — Jeremy Stein, “Takeover Threats and Managerial Myopia,” Journal of Political Economy, 1988, p. 61.

   “This argument assumes that shareholders are imperfectly informed and that temporarily low earnings may cause the stock to be undervalued increasing the probability of a takeover at an unfavourable price.” — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 190.

8. “Maximizing the present value of their income will be equivalent to maximizing the following utility at each time t” — Jeremy C. Stein, Efficient Capital Markets, Inefficient Firms: A Model of Myopic Corporate Behavior, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1989, p. 658.

   “Maximising the present value of their income will be the same as maximising the following utility function at each time t” — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 224

9. “Earnings more than one period into the future can be ignored, as current decisions have no effect on such earnings.” — Stein, 1989, p. 659.

   “Our simple characterisation of the effects of harvesting means that earnings more than one period in the future can be ignored since current decisions have no effect on these earnings.” — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 224.

10. “In a steady state signal-jamming equilibrium, managers will borrow a constant amount each period from the next period’s earnings, and the market will correctly anticipate this borrowing. — Stein, 1989, p. 659

    “In the steady state equilibrium, the managers will borrow a constant amount each period, and the market will correctly anticipate this borrowing.” — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 225.

When confronted 6 days ago, Carney brushed it away with a smirk and a joke:

Comparing Carney to Gay & Oxman

Carney was hit with 10 ticky-tack accusations of plagiarism in just 1 paper, whereas Claudine Gay was hit with 47 moderate to severe accusations across 8 out of her 13 publications, and requested corrections for a total of 7 instances across 3 of those papers. In several cases, Gay stole big ideas, not merely sloppy shortcuts. Just picking 1 out of the 47 accusations at random, she clearly copy-pasted this huge paragraph without citing the authors at all, lol, which is already more egregious than anything Carney is accused of:

The average turnout rate seems to decrease linearly as African-Americans become a larger proportion of the population. This is one sign that the data contain little aggregation bias. If the racial turnout rates changed depending upon a precinct's racial mix, which is one description of bias, a linear form would be unlikely in a simple scatter plot (resulting only when the changes in one race's turnout rate somehow compensated for changes in the other's across the graph.

— Palmquist and Voss 1996, never cited by Gay

The average turnout rate seems to increase linearly as African-Americans become a larger proportion of the population. This is one sign that the data contain little aggregation bias (If the racial turnout rates changed depending upon a precinct's racial mix, which is one way to think about bias, a linear form would be unlikely in a simple scatter plot. A linear form would only result if the changes in one race's turnout were compensated by changes in the turnout of the other race across the graph.

— Claudine Gay’s thesis

I distinctly remember the funniest example, though, was Gay stealing her colleague’s acknowledgement note… she was literally too lazy to write her own *thank you note* for *her own dissertation*:

In another case of Claudine Gay being incompetent to a comical degree, she not only plagiarized, but also flipped the conclusion in the plagiarized chunk from “increased” to “decreased,” making her conclusion wrong.

This Reddit thread provides a solid overview of Gay & Oxman’s plagiarism:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/academia/comments/193gb70/a_comprehensive_summary_of_claudine_gay_and_neri/

I largely agree with the Redditor’s description of Neri Oxman’s plagiarism.

Business Insider has published two articles detailing the instances of Oxman’s academic plagiarism, first on January 4th, then on January 6th.

The BI identified 5 instances of plagiarism of other academic articles or books in Oxman’s PhD dissertation.

1. Weakly paraphrased with citation to Mattock 1998 (178 words)

2. Weakly paraphrased with no citation to Mattock 1998 (48 words)

3. Copied verbatim with no quotation marks, with citation to Weiner and Wagner 1998 (62 words)

4. Copied (almost) verbatim with no quotation marks, with citation to Anker 1995 (60 words)

5. Copied verbatim with no quotation marks, with NO citation to Ashby et al 1995 (63 words)

Unlike most of Gay's accusations, none of these are moderately/heavily paraphrased passages, and although #1, 3, and 4 include citations, they don’t imply this is the source of the text (as Gay does e.g. in #31b)

Also in her PhD dissertation, the BI reporters claim to have identified 15 instances of Oxman copying text directly from Wikipedia (timestamped prior to the publication of her dissertation). They presented 4 examples of the side-by-side text in the article, and I could track down 1 more:

1. Copied verbatim from Weaving page (96 words)

2. Copied (almost) verbatim from Principle of Minimum Energy page (40 words)

3. Copied (almost) verbatim from Constitutive Equation page (68 words)

4. Copied (almost) verbatim from Heat Flux page (144 words)

5. Copied (almost) verbatim from Manifolds page (131 words)

None of these included any kind of citation to Wikipedia or any of the articles cited by Wikipedia. She also took a diagram from the Heat Flux page and included it as Figure 6.20 in her dissertation without attributing the original source. I’ve looked at the Wikipedia editors/IP addresses that added the text Oxman appeared to have copied, and from their histories/locations it seems highly unlikely that any of them were Oxman writing prior to her dissertation’s publication.

Finally, Oxman copied text from two websites (Wolfram MathWorld and Rhino3D) in footnotes in her dissertation:

1. Copied verbatim from MathWorld (54 words)

2. Copied verbatim from Rhino3D (40 words)

Both without any citation.

The total is here is about 1000 plagiarised words, or almost 2 full pages of the dissertation. Remember, this is without the additional 10 instances of Oxman copying from Wikipedia that the BI says they uncovered, but didn’t provide details of in their article.

The BI team also screened 3 of Oxman’s single-author peer-reviewed papers, and identified several instances of plagiarism in two of them:

1. Copied (almost) verbatim without quotation marks or citation from CRC Concise Encyclopaedia of Mathematics (56 words)

2. Copied (almost) verbatim without quotation marks or citation from Zhou 2004 (46 words)

3. Copied (almost) verbatim without quotation marks or citation from Functionally Graded Materials: Design, Processing and Applications (43 words)

4. Weakly paraphrased without citation from Rapid Manufacturing: An Industrial Revolution for the Digital Age (78 words)

In summary, Neri Oxman’s 16 plagiarism accusations can be broken down into:

• Acceptable, not plagiarism: 0

• Borderline: 0

• Plagiarism: 16 (likely +10 for a total of 26)

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My conclusion: although Oxman’s 16 instances of moderate plagiarism surpasses Carney’s 10 marginal cases, they remain far less egregious than Claudine Gay’s 47 blatant cases.

Let’s use an analogy: if the posted speed limit on the highway is 100, Carney was caught by the cops going 105 and given a ticket by a cop who wanted to smear him; Oxman was caught going 115 and was let off because she winked and flirted with the cop; while Claudine finally had her license impounded for being tipsy and going 130 while swerving between the lines.

Pierre Poilievre’s Bigger Plagiarism Problem

Plagiarism has a long and illustrious history in Canadian politics.

In 1989, Toronto Star book reviewer Ken Adachi committed suicide after being caught plagiarizing three paragraphs from Time magazine. This incident marked Adachi's second plagiarism scandal; he had previously been fired for plagiarism eight years earlier but was later rehabilitated and permitted to resume his career.

In 2008 the Liberals dug up a 2003 speech that future-Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered in the House of Commons supporting the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq… that was stolen from Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Harper’s speechwriter, Owen Lippert, took responsibility, admitting he was "overzealous in copying segments" due to ‘‘time pressure’’ and resigned.

While Harper’s plagiarism scandal was happening in 2008, a young man named Pierre Poilievre was getting his feet wet in Canadian politics as the youngest MP in the House:

Pierre's own plagiarism hit in 2023 when he was exposed for stealing parts of a speech delivered by Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo at the 1984 Democratic National Convention:

Mark Carney’s campaign stumbled out of the gate when he was caught (probably unintentionally) copying his logo from an Edmonton-based debt collection firm.

Following his botched logo debut, Carney then ripped off most of Pierre Poilievre’s playbook, running decisively toward the center on key issues like the carbon tax, capital gains tax, and immigration. With these three vectors of attack neutralized, Pierre Poilievre’s campaign is listless and missing une raison d’être.

Carney’s first significant move as Prime Minister was ending the consumer carbon tax. At the signing ceremony, Carney blatantly plagiarized Trump’s style while signing the document. He even used a Sharpie, just like Trump.

What made this photo-op so cynical is that when Trump signs something, it’s at least a real document, a concrete part of the legislative process. In Canada, we have a king, and the Governor General, his representative, signs “Orders in Council” on cabinet’s advice. That document, the one that actually matters, has nothing in common with the prop Carney with a Sharpie.

Carney stealing the Conservative platform has proven highly effective, erasing Poilievre’s once-dominant lead and pushing his own odds of victory to 73%:

Polymarket is on Substack, if you are interested in prediction markets, they are a must-subscribe:

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Another must-subscribe (if you are interested in Canadian politics) on Substack is 338 Canada (https://338canada.com/). They’ve built a sophisticated "model of electoral projections grounded in opinion polls, electoral history, and demographic data," which I regard as the most reliable model available.

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Their model shows Pierre’s epic collapse:

Translating to an easy Liberal victory:

How is Pierre Poilievre reacting, as he’s getting the rug pulled out from under him in real time? He’s rage-tweeting about plagiarism, and it isn’t resonating:

To the Pierre Poilievre staffers reading this: You’re losing. Wake up.

Poilievre had a clear shot at framing the 2025 election around affordability and freedom. Instead, he’s getting outflanked by a Liberal who signs photo-op bills with a Trump Sharpie and steals his messaging line by line. Carney has hijacked your playbook, and your voters.

Crying about a 30-year-old thesis won’t save you. The National Post hit piece flopped. This election is no longer about carbon taxes, capital gains, plagiarism, or even immigration. It’s about Donald Trump.

And you’ve failed to pivot.

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In July 2023, City Journal, the house journal of the Manhattan Institute, wrote a scathing profile of Smith, titled "The Cancel-Culture Troll with a Neo-Nazi Past".

If you attempt to find that City Journal article now, however, it's no longer available. Scrubbed. Erased. Missing. Retraced. Not found.

Oliver Smith, an unemployed autistic man living with his parents, managed to sue The Manhattan Institute and "reached a private settlement agreement."

After the Manhattan Institute deleted their article in shame, an anonymous substacker posted an extended version on …

CancelWatch

Oliver D. Smith

Oliver D. Smith is a British internet stalker known for repeatedly attempting to cancel scholars in behavioral genetics and intelligence. He has been active under many online aliases, including “Atlantid”, “Anglo Pyramidologist”, “Aeschylus”, several variations on “Krom”, and dozens of others. He describes himself as an …

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3 years ago · 4 likes · Cancel Watch

… and Smith promptly sued Substack.

• https://pacermonitor.com/public/case/52278950/Smith_v_Substack,_Inc

Without further ado, here is the article that the Manhattan Institute was too chickenshit to stand behind. Please share it widely.

The Cancel-Culture Troll with a Neo-Nazi Past

A surreal tale of one man’s campaign against an academic field

An online war, led by a British national named Oliver D. Smith, has targeted the field of intelligence research. His campaign, abetted by a user-controlled website’s negligent policies, has led to devastating professional consequences for a number of academics working in this area. Most people are accustomed to online disinformation and cancel culture, but Smith is unique for combining both weapons against his perceived enemies.

The French philosopher Jean-Pierre Faye has argued that the extremes of the political right and left are more similar to one another than either is to the center. If anyone epitomizes this “horseshoe theory” concept, it is Smith, who has moved in his political allegiances from the far-right to the far-left—from one fanaticism to another. His recent attacks on the reputations of academics employ the same methods that he previously used against opponents of his past white supremacist beliefs.

When Oliver Smith first appeared on the Internet during the 2000s, he was an active member of white-supremacist and neo-Nazi online communities. On the forum Stormfront, Smith wrote, in a 2008 post, “I have been in support of white nationalism since i was 16.” Some of his writings from this early period expressed support for the Columbine High School shooters, such as a post in which he argued that the shooters’ involvement in far-right websites was understandable because they had been “bullied all day by non-whites.” In another post made around the same time, Smith claimed that members of his family helped to construct a fake concentration camp after the end of World War II, and that “The bodies and starved people they used in the video were slavs/communists who were paid to act as jews.” He argued that the Holocaust was not a real historical event, but that “It’s all propaganda to make the Nazi’s (sic) look bad.” (The accounts from which he posted these various comments are known to belong to Smith because they posted images from the same image-sharing account that Smith has used for his other known accounts, including photographs of himself.)

A companion article, published at a website called CancelWatch, explains how the various aliases discussed in this article are known to belong to the same person. Smith has boasted about his skill at using large numbers of online aliases to conceal his identity, and to deceive others about responsibility for his actions; still, enough evidence exists to link him to the actions described here.

By 2012, Smith had mostly lost interest in contributing to white-supremacist forums. He had found another place to promote the same ideology: Metapedia, a pro-fascism wiki site. There, he was active enough to be promoted to an administrator. The views presented in Metapedia articles tend to be the most extreme of the extreme right—its article about the Holocaust gives extensive coverage to arguments made by Holocaust deniers, for example, while its article about Adolf Hitler describes the dictator in mostly positive terms.

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One of Smith’s main uses for Metapedia—a pattern that would later continue in a vastly different context—was to create pages attacking various people who had annoyed him. Subjects included a Wikipedia administrator, an administrator at a forum, an artist and writer active in paleontology communities, and several other miscellaneous people. His articles about these people described them using such epithets as “Europhobic propagandist,” “Afrocentric troll,” or “Race denier.” Smith sometimes used two other Wiki sites, Encyclopedia Dramatica and RationalWiki, for further support, creating additional attack pages there about the subjects of his Metapedia articles. While Encyclopedia Dramatica has no specific ideology, RationalWiki is ideologically the opposite of Metapedia: it was founded by ex-members of Conservapedia, a conservative encyclopedia, and originated as an anti-Conservapedia site.

Smith’s and Metapedia’s far-right ideologies may have seemed a natural fit for one another, but trouble was afoot. After a feud with a fellow Metapedia administrator, Smith announced that he was quitting the site, with the following explanation:

I’ve renounced most my former views, and no longer support the aims of the Metapedia project. For this reason I request my account to be permanently blocked. Since I extensively read and process information quickly, my position on race has changed. . . . Fixation with race has also deteriorated my mental health, since I suffer from various disorders, and it is something I am no longer wasting time with.

As per his request, Smith’s account at Metapedia was then permanently blocked from editing. After this, he no longer argued for any of the neo-Nazi positions, such as white nationalism or Holocaust denial, that he had previously supported. In light of what came later, though, his announcement that race was a topic he was “no longer wasting time with” proved ironic.

Over the next few years, Smith completed his journey from one end of the ideological continuum to the other. With his Metapedia account now blocked, Smith shifted his focus to creating attack pages at RationalWiki. From 2016 onward, these attacks had a new target: people involved in the field of intelligence research, especially (though not exclusively) if their research included publications about differences between race or sex averages.

In 2019, Smith posted a list of RationalWiki articles that he took credit for creating. These include entries on some of the most prominent figures and groups in the field of intelligence research, such as Jan te Nijenhuis, Dimitri van der Linden, Heiner Rindermann, and the International Society for Intelligence Research, as well as other targets, such as OpenPsych, “pseudojournals,” Emil Kirkegaard, John Fuerst, Noah Carl, Edward Dutton, Aurelio J. Figueredo, James Thompson, Fróði Debes, Gerhard Meisenberg, Adam Perkins, and the London Conference on Intelligence. (A few of these are articles that Smith also has taken credit for under his real name, confirming that he is the person who posted this list.) This is nowhere near a complete list of his articles, as Smith claims to have created “hundreds of articles” at RationalWiki. Other articles created by accounts that RationalWiki admins have identified as Smith aliases include the articles about Claire Lehmann, Quillette, Peter Frost, Bo Winegard, and Jonathan Anomaly.

Ill-founded hit jobs with content far removed from reputable sources characterize this output. Consider Smith’s RationalWiki article about Claire Lehmann, an Australian journalist who founded the online magazine Quillette. Lehmann has received some mild criticism from mainstream sources—for example, the New York Times described her in mostly neutral terms, but argued that her focus on left-illiberalism overlooked the threat from right-wing demagogues. On the other hand, the RationalWiki entry written by Smith describes Lehmann as an

Australian anti-feminist crank who has been described as “Australia’s Mistress of the Intellectual Dark Web”. She appears to blame everything bad, even including obesity onto feminists, who she argues are destroying “western civilization” alongside leftists and what she calls “blank-slatists” (meaning scientists who reject HBD pseudoscience). . . . As Editor-in-Chief of Quillette, Lehmann has allowed numerous far-right, racist and sexist individuals publish [sic] articles in her online magazine.

This description may seem somewhat comical, and the off-kilter output of an obsessive user of marginal wiki sites may seem irrelevant. But to laugh at or dismiss it is to ignore the danger that these articles pose to their subjects. Some of Smith’s targets have been early-career scholars who are vulnerable to this type of attack. Others have very little biographical information available about them online outside of Smith’s writings, so these articles are the single strongest influence on their public reputations. In several cases, that influence has led to baleful consequences.

Around the beginning of 2016, Smith joined the forum of a website called OpenPsych, an open-access psychology and social-science research publication. After a lengthy argument with other members, he eventually was banned from the forum, rejoined it under a different name, and was banned again and had all of his posts deleted. Within 24 hours after his second ban, Smith retaliated by creating RationalWiki articles attacking OpenPsych contributors, starting with an article about John Fuerst, the main person with whom he had been arguing there, and followed the next day with an article about the site’s owner, Emil Kirkegaard.

Smith later took credit for creating both these articles in a blog post made under his real name. In a comment posted at RationalWiki from one of his alias accounts, he also credited these RationalWiki articles with publicizing OpenPsych contributors as “far-right extremists and paedophile-apologists.” He explained in a subsequent comment: “The person who wrote those RationalWiki articles sent a tip-off to some newspapers. The story now has national coverage.” (The account that posted these two comments is known to belong to Smith because it created RationalWiki’s article about the right-wing blogger Anatoly Karlin, which is on Smith’s list of articles that he has taken credit for creating.)

Smith’s claim about his role in causing this media coverage was no empty boast. A date-restricted Google search for “OpenPsych,” limited to before Smith began creating these RationalWiki articles in February 2016, produces fewer than 30 results, mostly from obscure forums and blogs. But from 2018 onward, OpenPsych began to be covered in a series of newspaper and magazine articles by a student journalist. The earliest of these articles—published on 10 January 2018—included details about obscure, ill-judged posts that OpenPsych contributors had made at blogs and at Facebook years earlier, which prior to that point had received no coverage anywhere outside of Smith’s writings. Some of these details about their past blog posts, which apparently had been based on Smith’s writings at RationalWiki, were then repeated in several highly trafficked mainstream sources.

One of the most prominent targets of Smith’s RationalWiki campaign was the young academic Noah Carl. Aged 28, Carl had an impressive publication record for someone so early in his career—having published articles not only in OpenPsych but also in the highly respected PloS ONE, American Sociologist, European Union Politics, Electoral Studies, British Journal of Sociology, and Political Quarterly. After earning his doctorate from Oxford University, Carl was offered a research fellowship at Cambridge University in fall of 2018. But shortly after his appointment was announced, an open letter began to circulate, demanding that Cambridge disavow Carl and open an investigation into him. It stated: “A careful consideration of Carl’s published work and public stance on various issues, particularly on the claimed relationship between ‘race’, ‘criminality’ and ‘genetic intelligence’, leads us to conclude that his work is ethically suspect and methodologically flawed. . . . We are deeply concerned that racist pseudoscience is being legitimised through association with the University of Cambridge.”

The open letter did not cite any specific papers from Carl, but it appeared to be referring to a paper he had recently published in Evolutionary Psychological Science titled “How Stifling Debate Around Race, Genes and IQ Can Do Harm,” because at the time of the open letter, this was the only one of Carl’s papers that discussed the topic of race and IQ. This paper did not take any specific position on the cause of group differences in average IQ scores, but argued only that research into their cause must not be suppressed—a position that was also supported by the renowned cognitive scientist James Flynn, after whom the Flynn Effect is named. The open letter’s objections closely paralleled statements that Smith had made in his RationalWiki article about Carl.

After the open letter began circulating, Smith posted an announcement at RationalWiki titled, “Notable news: RationalWiki page on Noah Carl leads to 200 academics signing open letter.” Smith, using an account whose other actions he has taken credit for in a deleted blog post made under his real name, explained the role that his RationalWiki article about Carl had played in sparking the protest: “The RationalWiki page was first emailed to Nuffield College, Oxford University that removed his university email on his OpenPsych papers as mentioned on the talk page. It was then emailed to Cambridge where he works.”

I can verify that this RationalWiki article was indeed sent to Carl’s employer shortly before the protests over his hiring got underway. This email was not mentioned anywhere on the Internet before Smith’s announcement. It was sent under a pseudonym; Smith has denied having ever contacted Cambridge about Carl, but it is difficult to imagine how Smith could have known about this email if he were not the sender. The email was sent from a pseudonym and email address that had previously been used in connection with some of Smith’s other known aliases.

Carl’s story did not have a happy ending. The open letter ultimately received signatures from 586 academics, along with 874 students, though most of these academics worked in unrelated fields such as history, English literature and geography. Quillette subsequently published a counter-petition in Carl’s defense signed by 606 academics. Unlike the earlier petition, this one included signatures from intellectual heavyweights in closely related fields, such as Douglas Detterman, founder of the journal Intelligence; Todd K. Shackelford, editor-in-chief of the journals Evolutionary Psychology and Evolutionary Psychological Science; Matt McGue, former president of the Behavior Genetics Association; Hal Pashler, a major figure in cognitive psychology; and the renowned cognitive psychologist and public intellectual Steven Pinker. Nonetheless, in May 2019, Cambridge acquiesced to the demands of the original open letter, and fired Carl only a few months after hiring him.

A similar case occurred later that year. The evolutionary psychologist Bo Winegard had, in 2018, been appointed to the position of assistant professor of psychology at Marietta College. Several of Winegard’s publications related to evolutionary influences on human psychological traits, or to global human genetic variation. These sometimes are controversial topics, but up to this point, no significant controversy had emerged over Winegard’s work. In spring and summer of 2019, Smith created a RationalWiki article about Winegard using two of his alias accounts.

In October 2019, when Smith’s article about Winegard had existed for about three months, Winegard presented a lecture about the evolutionary basis of human genetic variation for an evolutionary-biology group at the University of Alabama. Though the lecture itself went without incident, Winegard’s troubles began the following day, as he explained in an article about his experience:

I was then supposed to meet professors and students for lunch, but instead my guide delivered me to an empty room where I received a number of texts from my host: The professors had found my RationalWiki entry, which accuses me—inter alia—of writing “racist bullshit for the right-wing online magazine Quillette.” . . . Professors routinely warn their students not to cite Wikipedia, but the lies and misrepresentations on my RationalWiki page were thought to be so unanswerable that the faculty who read them refused to meet with me so I could speak in my own defense.

Following this incident, the University of Alabama student newspaper, The Crimson White, published an article attacking Winegard, claiming that his research “has been criticized for resembling the pseudoscience employed by eugenicists.” This statement apparently referred to Smith’s writings about Winegard at RationalWiki, because at the time when the student-paper article was published, Smith’s writings were the only other place that Winegard had been described in those sorts of terms. As Christopher Ferguson, a professor of psychology at Stetson University, commented: “This claim was unsourced: who, exactly, has claimed this about Winegard, other than the author of the Rationalwiki article?”

Winegard’s summary of his experience states that a pseudonymous individual went on to email the Crimson White and RationalWiki articles to the provost and president of the university where Winegard taught. Initially, the reaction of the university administrators was only to ask Winegard to be more strategic in his discussion of controversial topics. But following a campaign of emails by the same pseudonymous individual to Winegard’s entire department, and a second, tenser meeting between him and the university administrators, they ultimately fired him.

By the late 2010s, Smith had become notorious among members of the websites where he was a regular participant, including RationalWiki, Encyclopedia Dramatica and Kiwi Farms. In February 2019, one of his accounts was permanently blocked from editing RationalWiki, with the understanding that this decision also applied to all his other accounts there. The following year, Smith was formally banned from the site. One of the reasons given for the ban was that Smith had begun creating attack articles about other members of RationalWiki, as well as posting their personal information on external sites. Another was that, while being sued for libel by one of his targets, Smith had unsuccessfully tried to mass-delete several of his RationalWiki articles about intelligence researchers. The site administrator proposing the ban argued that, by doing this, Smith was trying to shift legal responsibility onto the site’s other users who voted to retain the defamatory articles.

However, this ban proved to be only a symbolic gesture. When administrators determine that an account at RationalWiki belongs to Smith, they usually block it from making further edits; but the material that Smith added from the account usually is not removed, nor does anything stop him from creating more accounts to replace those that have been blocked. RationalWiki used to have two administrators who were diligent about trying to keep Smith off the site, together having blocked about 60 accounts for being Smith aliases, but neither of these admins is present there anymore. Smith has therefore continued to evade his ban, and continued to write RationalWiki articles.

One of Smith’s more recent RationalWiki attack pages created in violation of his ban is about Emily Willoughby, a paleontological illustrator and behavioral geneticist who has published on the heritability of IQ. (Willoughby and I are acquainted.) Willoughby’s dinosaur illustrations and recent book had made her a popular figure in the online paleontology community; in 2019, she was listed as the second-most influential current paleoartist in a survey of that community. In July 2022, she was awarded the most prestigious prize in the world for paleontological illustration: the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s Lanzendorf–National Geographic PaleoArt Prize.

In August 2022, Willoughby became the target of a Twitter cancellation campaign. At the center of these attacks was an adoption study that Willoughby had published with colleagues at the University of Minnesota that provided new evidence for the persistent effect of genetics on IQ in adulthood—a mainstream and highly replicated finding within the field of psychology. Nevertheless, this paper fueled Twitter attacks claiming that “IQ is a pseudoscientific myth” and that her research in this area was “directly tied to eugenics, racism, and classism.”

On August 18, 2022, around a week after these attacks got underway, Willoughby was contacted by someone within the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, who asked her to prepare a statement in case she needed to defend herself. Two days later, she was contacted by the award committee again, informing her that they “cannot find any violation of our Code of Conduct anywhere in what has been alleged in the Twitter threads, and have no desire to wade into anyone’s academic freedom,” and therefore they were “leaving the whole issue alone.”

The RationalWiki article about Willoughby was created one week later. Several converging lines of evidence indicate that its creator and primary author—a relatively new RationalWiki account, around half of whose edits are to this article or its talk page—is another Smith account created to evade his ban. There is not enough space here to list all the indications that this account is a Smith alias, but they are described in the article at CancelWatch.

On October 24, Willoughby was informed by SVP’s ethics committee that the society had reversed its earlier decision. Her Lanzendorf award was now being revoked, following an anonymous complaint to the ethics committee accusing her of “scientific racism and discriminatory statements” and a subsequent investigation. The award shortly thereafter was given to someone else. By this point the Twitter attacks against Willoughby had mostly subsided, and the only significant thing about her that had changed since SVP’s previous decision was that she was now the subject of a RationalWiki article. While SVP did not directly cite RationalWiki as their reason for revoking her award, circumstantial evidence suggests that Smith’s article about her played a role in this reversal: the RationalWiki article’s Google ranking had abruptly spiked just before they informed her of their new decision, jumping from the third page of results for her name to the first page within the space of two days. (A page’s Google ranking is influenced by how often the page is linked to.)

The original winner of the 2022 Lanzendorf-National Geographic 2D Paleoart Prize, whose award was revoked three months later. This illustration depicts a scene of Early Cretaceous northern China (126 million years ago), featuring the dinosaur Tinanyuraptor with chicks (foreground), along with Microraptor, Sinosauropteryx, Confuciusornis, and others behind. Copyright Emily Willoughby; used with permission.

Willoughby’s penalty is smaller than those inflicted on Carl and Winegard, but in another way it is more unreasonable. When an academic is fired for the views they have expressed, the reason—at least theoretically—is that their views are incompatible with the goals of the university where they work. But the purpose of the Lanzendorf award is simply to recognize the best work of paleontological illustration created during a given year. Smith’s allegations against her at RationalWiki, and the subsequent complaint to SVP’s ethics committee, should have been irrelevant to judgments about this illustration.

Most of Smith’s RationalWiki articles are focused on their subjects’ scholarly work, but his article about Willoughby is an exception. None of Willoughby’s publications pertain to controversial aspects of human intelligence, nor has she ever contributed to any of the journals or conferences strongly associated with research about group differences—OpenPsych, Mankind Quarterly, or the London Conference on Intelligence—or co-authored with anyone who has. Rather than discussing her publications, most of the RationalWiki article attacks her involvement in Wikipedia, and a large portion of its statements about her Wikipedia presence are written in a deceptive way.

A typical example of Smith’s disingenuous approach is his linking to RationalWiki’s article about behavioral geneticist and neuroscientist Richard Haier, whom Willoughby had cited at Wikipedia, in order to accuse Willoughby of legitimizing Haier’s “dubious” work. RationalWiki’s article about Haier was not written by Smith—it was created as a parody to subtly mock Smith’s attack pages about intelligence researchers. Smith has long been aware that this article is a parody, having brought this up in 2020. By linking to this article, he is unironically supporting one of his statements about Willoughby with information that he knows is not meant seriously.

Despite this, Smith has gone to greater lengths than any other RationalWiki user to try to keep this parody material out of articles there, likely because it exposes RationalWiki’s low standards for article content. Ironically, on articles related to human intelligence at Wikipedia, most of Willoughby’s recent activity has been opposing another likely parody account, whose behavior closely parallels the accounts that Smith has opposed at RationalWiki. This similarity has been pointed out by a few members of Wikipedia, and is described in further detail at CancelWatch and in a discussion at Twitter.

Smith is aware that the parody accounts he’s opposed on RationalWiki articles, and the user that Willoughby has opposed on Wikipedia articles, probably have been used by the same person trying to damage the credibility of both sites. He acknowledged this in the above linked Twitter thread, though he deleted these comments before they could be archived. Why did Smith, being aware of all this, nonetheless decide to attack Willoughby over her involvement in Wikipedia? Here that question will be left as a mystery, though the article at CancelWatch explains the likely answer.

One difficulty shared by everyone who has been a Smith target is that RationalWiki articles usually have a prominence and permanence that none of his targets can match. Most articles and academic papers fade from public attention after a while, so any attempt to respond to Smith’s accusations will eventually be forgotten. RationalWiki articles, on the other hand, always remain a fixture in a Google search for a person’s name, at least if they are not deleted. When Smith updates these articles with rebuttals to his targets’ attempts at defending themselves, in the long run a Google search will usually turn up only his rebuttal, and not the original post to which he’s responding. For example, Winegard’s 2019 post attempting to defend himself no longer shows up in a Google search for his name; Smith’s RationalWiki article about Winegard, including his rebuttal to Winegard’s rebuttal, is the third-highest result.

Attempted rebuttals also inevitably cause the target to receive an entry on RationalWiki’s list of people “pissed at us,” which mocks all the people who have objected to statements made about them in RationalWiki articles, bringing increased attention and traffic to the articles about these individuals. Thus, trying to respond to Smith’s allegations usually leaves the target worse off than before.

This overall situation has created a climate of fear among intelligence researchers. Two prominent and tenured academics, who had not previously been attacked by Smith, initially offered to write this article; both later reneged out of concern over what Smith might do to their careers in retaliation. I ultimately agreed to write it because as someone outside academia, my career is less vulnerable than theirs to these types of attacks.

Legal action might appear an attractive solution. But like the Wikimedia Foundation that runs Wikipedia, the RationalMedia Foundation claims no responsibility for the material that it hosts. According to the site’s legal FAQ, defamatory statements in articles must be dealt with by using the site’s internal community processes, such as by raising the issues on article talk pages, and the members of RationalWiki tend to be dismissive of such attempts. After making several unsuccessful attempts to remove such content, one member of RationalWiki commented, “It appears to me that the effect and likely intent of the policies (as enforced) is to retain defamatory content except in the most egregious cases, and to generally be biased against removing such content.”

Unlike at Wikipedia, RationalWiki’s policies do not permit its administrators to view the IP addresses of its users. Thus, it is usually impossible to connect material posted from a RationalWiki account to any person’s real identity, at least not with the degree of certainty that could stand up in a court. This is not speculation. In 2018 and 2019, OpenPsych’s founder Emil Kirkegaard sued Smith for libel for spreading the statement that Kirkegaard was a pedophile. Yet the libel case, heard in Britain, was able to examine only Smith’s statements made under his real name on various blogs. Though Smith had taken credit under his real name for creating the RationalWiki article about Kirkegaard, Kirkegaard’s legal team concluded that this was not enough to prove Smith’s legal responsibility for his statements on RationalWiki.

These circumstances give RationalWiki’s articles a unique legal status. If neither the RationalMedia Foundation nor its individual users can be held legally responsible for the contents of articles there, for practical purposes these articles have legal impunity. In general, people libeled on RationalWiki pages are left with no legal recourse.

It therefore falls to the public to understand that the reliability of RationalWiki’s articles related to intelligence research relies on the authority of a single person, who is evading his ban from the site. Smith’s usage of RationalWiki as a revenge site grew out of his previous use of Metapedia, an extreme-right encyclopedia that favorably describes Adolf Hitler. Nevertheless, he set in motion the events that ended Carl’s and Winegard’s academic careers, and he has damaged the careers of Willoughby and various other academics. This has happened because many journalists, authors of open letters, and professional organizations don’t look carefully at who is writing these articles, or why.

For people who publish research about human intelligence, the most important factor that makes the difference between success and failure is not the quality of one’s research, one’s ability as a teacher, or the social connections that one makes with other researchers. All those things matter—but the single most powerful influence on their careers is public-facing commentary from non-experts. Members of that field would be wise never to underestimate the influence of Twitter users who create threads about them that go viral, student journalists who write articles about them, and the RationalWiki administrators who think that Smith’s ban from the site is not worth enforcing.

David Zimmerman is an independent writer who has worked as a producer in conservative talk radio.

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The National Post picked up the story:

• https://nationalpost.com/opinion/michael-higgins-liberal-mp-attacks-canadians-by-spreading-p-e-i-protest-fire-hoax

MP Sean Casey, who supported the hoaxsters, is now projected to LOSE his seat in the upcoming federal election. CDNprojections 's model shows a 64% chance of a Conservative win in Casey's district:

The PEI protesters remain steadfast in their belief that the incident was arson, still outright dismissing the police’s conclusion that a mosquito coil was to blame.

To be clear: these protesters are accusing Canadians of attempted murder, while also insinuating that the Charlottetown police are corrupt, incompetent, and 'low IQ.'

After I exposed the hoax, the protesters were silent. They left their camp. They left their tent. They left their litter. They did not clean it up.

A couple of days ago, however, the PEI_protest_2024 group triumphantly announced that they are rebranding as the ‘‘United Labour Alliance of Canada,’’ unveiling a sweet new AI-generated bird logo via TikTok:

@pindmemesFollow for more @pind_memes_ Follow for more @pind_memes_ #memes #viral #reels #instagram #puniabimemes #memes #funnymemes #newmemes #contentcreator #reels #vancouver #peiprotest #pei #protest #india #indiancommunity #immigrants #immigrationcanada2023🇨🇦 #pei

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Their TikTok comments are overwhelmingly abusive, lol:

This newly formed ‘‘United Labour Alliance of Canada’’ then sent a public letter to the minister of workforce begging for extensions:

From the beginning, their stated goal has been to advocate for the 'reform' of Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) policies, which they claim are unjust. They've even linked to this petition in the bio of their Instagram account:

The provincial government responded surprisingly swiftly and decisively to the protesters yesterday, leaving no room for ambiguity with a firm and unequivocal "No." This screenshot update comes directly from their group chat:

After that rejection, a video emerged from yesterday showing them dismantling their encampment.

I texted Singh. I asked if he had any last words.

And so, the saga of the PEI protesters comes to an end.

It’s time to pack up and go home.

I intended to finish the article here, but as I was writing, three new developments came to light…

Update #1

Yesterday, media coverage of this PEI protest got caught in a Russian sting.

• https://pressprogress.ca/far-right-media-outlet-linked-to-secret-russian-influence-campaign-produced-50-videos-focused-on-canada/

New U.S. charges allege that a media company linked to six conservative influencers was a front for a Russian influence operation.

…

Tenet Media was founded by a Canadian right-wing social media influencer named Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovon.

…

Tenet Media released a xenophobic 30-minute documentary-style video about international students in Prince Edward Island. The video insinuates the international students have 'gamed Canada’s immigration system' and 'don’t really care about Prince Edward Island.'

Update #2

Last week, a YouTuber released an in-depth investigation into 20 years of corruption within PEI's immigration system.

To ensure it wasn’t also a Russian sting, I researched Spoke Media, the publishers of the video, and found that the creator is an independent YouTuber from Ontario who identifies as an investigative journalist. No funding sources were disclosed.

Update #3

Two days ago, Manitoba did the opposite of PEI, announcing that they would extend permits for their protestors.

• https://news.gov.mb.ca/news/index.html?item=64877

The contrast between the two provinces is striking: Manitoba opted for leniency, while PEI maintained a firm stance. I’d like to think that my reporting played a role in guiding PEI toward this more responsible decision.

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Karlstack

Prince Edward Island to Indian Immigrants: "We're full.''

Prince Edward Island (PEI), where my mother was born and I have too many cousins to count (I think I’m related to half the island), is Canada’s smallest province. With a population of just 176,00 and an area of 5,660 km², geographically speaking, it is somewhere between the sizes of Delaware and Rhode Island…

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2 years ago · 128 likes · 49 comments · Christopher Brunet

That hunger strike was one of my most popular stories, with 62,000+ reads:

It went viral on /r/CanadaHousing2, hitting 1.4 million impressions, 1,200+ comments, and 1,300+ shares:

The X thread received 5M impressions:

India Today, the most widely circulated magazine in India with 8 million readers, then featured my report in an article: "Why a Canadian Province Doesn't Want More Indian Students."

That’s impact!

Please subscribe to support independent media:

Today I will reveal the next major twist.

But first, let's pick up from where we left off, with the hunger strike.

As I predicted, their hunger strike was an empty threat.

After the botched hunger strike, Plan B was to set up an encampment in front of St. Paul’s Church, across the street from the province’s legislature, and just sort of… mill around for 3 months, looking sad and pitiable.

The leader of the People’s Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier, flew to the encampment and got into an entertaining argument with the protest leader, telling him that ‘‘young Canadians can work at Tim Hortons.’’

WATCH:

Rupinder Singh, the man debating Bernier in this video, isn't just another protester—he's the pivotal figure in today’s unfolding drama. Rupinder’s visa expired a month ago (on July 14th), leaving his current status unknown. He has a habit of spinning unverifiable stories for sympathy, e.g.:

Last week, a tent occupied by Rupinder was set on fire in what was reported as a racially motivated hate crime. The incident, which occurred early Saturday morning, saw four people inside the tent at the time.

As luck would have it, Rupinder managed to capture the event on film for TikTok.

The protesters immediately took to social media, claiming, "someone tried to burn us in our sleep" due to "racism." They posted several TikToks, although they have since turned off comments on their recent videos and deleted the one telling Canadians to STFU. They also shared many tweets and Instagram posts, all asserting they were victims of a vicious hate crime.

The gravity of the situation cannot be overstated.

If this incident is indeed arson, it constitutes attempted murder.

Punjabis all across Canada condemned the hate and racism. One group from Brampton posted a video about “racist bodies,” while another threatened that ‘‘If there is any damage to any [PEI protestor] then the federal government is going to be accountable for that.”

In a striking display of misjudgment and craven opportunism, Charlottetown’s Member of Parliament, Sean Casey, a Trudeau Liberal, immediately characterised the recent tent fire as an “act of intimidation.” Casey’s assertion—made with no zero evidence, before any investigation—attributes the blaze to a “proliferation of online abuse.”

As a lawyer, one would expect Casey to adhere to a higher standard of evidence and prudence.

His constituents called him out immediately:

SaltWire (a newspaper in Halifax) fell for the hoax, publishing an article condemning Atlantic Canadians for ‘‘hate-motivated crimes’’ and ‘‘arson.’’

I asked Saltwire editors to retract or apologize for this misinformation but did not receive a response.

The Most Predictable Plot Twist Ever

Police and firefighters conducted an investigation and concluded that the fire was ‘‘accidentally’’ caused by a mosquito coil.

The protestors did it themselves.

MP Sean Casey had to eat crow & walk back his previous statement:

Public sympathy is… not on the protestors’ side, to say the least.

Canadians see right through these frauds.

Nobody is falling for it.

The Firecracker lie

One weird aspect of this hoax is that Rupinder’s group repeatedly alleged that racist teens were walking by and threw a firework or firecracker in the tent and took off.

This video is 1 minute long, and they make the firecracker allegation at the 30-second mark:

They proceed to make several Instagram/TikToks about how they were attacked by firecrackers:

No one is convinced by the claim that racist teens attacked them with firecrackers. Despite police findings to the contrary, the protest leader continues to insist on this absurd lie, which has since become a meme.

Smoking Gun: Premeditation, Confrontation, and Refusal to Face Reality

Here is ANOTHER major plot twist, exclusive to Karlstack.

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I spoke with Jeremy, a former moderator of the /r/CanadaHousing2 subreddit, who texted with Rupinder. I verified the authenticity of the messages. In these messages, Rupinder claims that "someone tried to burn the tent at night… threw fire… lack of humanity in this country."

The crux of the matter lies in the dates on the screenshots, which document Rupinder's claims from July 22—well before the purported attack on August 11.

This timeline suggests Rupinder had been planning the fire for weeks.

This shows premeditation.

Nevertheless, Rupinder persists in asserting today that racist teenagers were responsible, despite clear confirmation from police and firefighters to the contrary. His comments below about teenagers pertain only to a separate fire that occurred on August 11. He has yet to address the false claim from July 22, which was never reported to Charlottetown PD.

Next, I obtained Rupinder’s number directly.

We went back and forth a couple of times and he was evasive / non-responsive.

When I confronted him directly, he weirdly responded simply: ‘‘God bless you.’’

No further reply.

Eviction

While researching this video, I contacted Scott McPhee, the President of the PEI People’s Party of Canada Regional Association (follow him on X!). McPhee is well-connected within the community and has a keen sense of local sentiment, so I asked him for a statement and he was kind enough to explain the situation in detail:

Great stuff.

Finally… here comes ANOTHER plot twist… Scott told me that St. Paul's Church staff revealed they neither invited the protestors nor wanted them on their property and planned to ask them to leave after the recent fire.

Scott says:

On the 14th, I visited St. Paul's Church and spoke with the church staff (I am not familiar with their official titles). They informed me that the church had never officially invited the protesters to set up camp on their property; it had simply occurred without their endorsement. Furthermore, since the recent fire, the church staff has become increasingly uncomfortable with the presence of the protestors. They were planning a significant meeting on Friday (August 16) to discuss asking the protestors to vacate the premises.

Eviction underway.

Do you know how bad you have to screw up to get evicted from a church?

Conclusion

The Charlottetown Police in PEI have effectively debunked the protestors' claims, revealing that the incident was either accidental or orchestrated internally.

Consequently, the sensational allegations of death threats have been thoroughly discredited. Their deceitful propaganda threatens to alienate the Punjabi community and tarnish its reputation. The true victims here are the long-standing Indian-Canadian community, whose good name is being tarnished by a few scammy newcomers.

These protesters not only tarnish the reputation of older Indian Canadians but also cast a negative light on Indians worldwide. Here’s a video from an Indian vlogger discussing the scandal:

Please note that the video is in a language other than English, so any translation inaccuracies should be attributed to the translator.

The vlogger comments:

• The vlogger describes the incident regarding the fire in tent and the subsequent posts made by the protestors, going as far as claiming threat to life and threatening / blaming the locals and the Canadian government.

• How the PEI Charlottetown Police quashed the protestors' claims by confirming it was either accidental or setup internally. He says far fetched claims of death threats fell flat.

• The PEI protestors @Protest_pei are blatant liars and should be ashamed of themselves. They're spreading fake propaganda & even THE PUNJABI COMMUNITY WOULD DISOWN THEM.

• Calling those who disagree as liars & pigs is shameless. You're digging your own grave by pushing people who tried to help you. No one stands with liars. Quoting "humanity over racism" is shameless. Stop shaming good Indians and enforcing a stereotype that we are scammers.

I will give the final word in this story to my friend who writes , perhaps the only PEI-based Substack in the world. I asked him for his take on how locals are reacting to this saga.

THE BURN

The charred, blackened writings of Evan Riggs.

By Evan Riggs

Riggs says:

"PEI has always been a small, quiet place, and the people who call this province home would like it to stay that way. Those who seek to upset the tranquility of this island for their own petty and aggrandizing reasons should understand that the locals see right through their selfish acts. There is no lack of humanity in PEI; there is only a lack of humility among the shortsighted few involved in this fire who think they can fool the people they pretend to call neighbors."

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P.S.

This is the second Canadian hate crime hoax I have written about, lol.

The first came last year when a far-left Member of Provincial Parliament in Ottawa claimed he was ‘‘punched in the face’’ for ‘‘queer and trans youths’’ — but it turns out he actually just smacked himself in the face with his own megaphone, which he lied about, despite it being on camera. Nobody punched him.

Karlstack

Ottawa's Jussie Smollett Moment

Canada has one of the most closed-off media landscapes on the planet: 69% of all media revenue goes to just 6 media corporations (Bell, Telus, Rogers, Shaw, Quebecor, & CBC); 90% of all telecommunications revenue goes to just 3 companies (Rogers, Bell, & Telus); and 90% of the online advertising market goes to just 3 companies (Google, Facebook, & Amazo…

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3 years ago · 37 likes · 8 comments · Christopher Brunet

The few remaining journalists work clandestinely, omitting their bylines. I stand with them and the Nicaraguan people yearning for liberty, so after two months wandering around half a dozen Nicaraguan cities I proudly sign this article with my name as a defiant gesture to President Daniel Ortega’s regime: I will write whatever I damn well please about your tinpot pseudo-Marxist dictatorship.

…

Read the full article here:

• https://www.theamericanconservative.com/paradise-and-oppression-in-nicaragua/

Retweets are always appreciated:

• https://x.com/realChrisBrunet/status/1800244562327183669

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Conservative candidate Damon Scrase, running for the Courtenay-Comox riding, has abruptly resigned after a series of mean tweets surfaced, tweets denouncing kids being exposed to BDSM fetishists at Pride parades.

While the mainstream media has yet to catch wind of the story, by tomorrow, it will be headline news across Canada. Here on Substack, however, I can beat the MSM to the punch and show the tweets directly, allowing you to draw your own conclusions rather than relying on the filtered interpretations of whichever newspaper columnist is **describing** these tweets to you.

Karlstack

Opinionated investigative journalism.

By Christopher Brunet

Three hours ago, Scrase was "cancelled" by Jas Johal, a journalist in Vancouver and former Liberal Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. Johal unearthed four, of Scrase’s old tweets, and despite how thin the substance of this political hitjob was, the hit was remarkably effective. These 4 tweets ended Scrase’s political career.

EDIT: It was more than 4 tweets; there were more! For instance: I just found this article from 5 days ago, hitting Scrase for old tweets on abortion. But again, the source of that article was from Jas Johal, so all the same points apply. Responding to Johal on X, the Comox Valley Record newspaper wrote: ‘‘You broke the story and you were the catalyst for his resignation.’’

The first two tweets from two years ago expressed Scrase’s opposition to children attending a drag queen parade. Unfortunately, the original posts he was quoting have been deleted, making it impossible to see the full context.

Scrase’s third tweet was a retweet of Kingsley Cortes, describing furries* as “man-made horrors beyond your comprehension**.”

*I am being told this is actually “pup play”, which is different than being a ‘‘furry’’.

** ‘‘man-made horrors beyond your comprehension’’ is a meme, edgy humour borrowed from a Nikola Tesla quote.

Scrase has a valid point. Men in fetish gear don’t belong around kids. This statement shouldn't be considered extreme, yet in Canada, it has now officially fallen outside the Overton window.

Many of my gay readers (I definitely have thousands) surely agree.