Good morning and Happy Wednesday! Thanks for reading this morning.
I recently came across a piece with a headline that read “There’s Nothing Clever About Comparing America to Idiocracy.” I didn’t read the piece, but because I make this comparison often, my first thought was, “I’m not trying to be clever, Ding Dong. I am trying to make a point.”
Never has invoking Idiocracy been more apt than in learning that the entire basis for the Iran War — Iran’s “nuclear” program —has possibly been because Americans (including the President) hear the word “nuclear” and immediately freak out, whether the word “nuclear” precedes “civilian infrastructure” or “weapons programs.”
I grew up relatively close to the Byron nuclear plant in Byron, Illinois. As a child, the spectre of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island always made those giant cooling towers (I used to think that was where they housed all the bad nuclear stuff) seem sinister and terrifying. When I got older, I learned that much of the EU relies on nuclear power, including France, which gets upwards of 70 percent of its power from nuclear reactors. Other countries that rely heavily on nuclear power include Belgium, Slovakia, China, Japan, Germany, the UK, and (wait for it) … the United States. We get approximately 20 percent of our power from nuclear sites.
I’ve always seen nuclear power referred to as “clean” energy, and while I’m no expert in how power is generated, having to bury tons of spent fuel doesn’t seem all that “clean” to me, especially compared with wind and solar power. Anyway, my point is that while nuclear power usage has declined from its peak in the 1990s, it remains a common and widely used power source worldwide.
So imagine my disgust when I learned that much of the rhetoric around “Iran’s nuclear program” is actually referring to its civilian power infrastructure. And, like I said, Americans hear “nuclear” and assume a nefarious purpose. The Day After really did a number on us.
The media campaign designed to convince Americans Iran has a nuclear weapon or is always, asymptotically, about to and is, by implication or explicit demagoguery, going to nuke Davenport, Iowa, exists on what we will call a Gradient of Nuclear Iran Bullshit. It most often does not rely on explicit lying (though there is that), but usually innuendo and repetition of certain scare phrases. Let us examine this Gradient of Nuclear Iran Bullshit to get a sense of how the American public is misled, and has been for 20+ years.
Here is the Gradient of Nuclear Iran Bullshit in order from least false to most false:
“Iran’s nuclear program.” This phrasing is technically true but, through nonstop repetition and how our reptile brain interprets the word “nuclear,” it misleads in the aggregate. Many will see the words “nuclear program” and correctly interpret this as Iran having a nuclear energy program, but most, as polls indicate, see it as a form of nuclear weapons development. A more accurate phrasing would be “Iran’s civil nuclear program,” or “Iran’s nuclear energy program.” But this wouldn’t steer the media consumer into a state of panic so these more clarifying phrases are almost never used.
And, of course, Americans can’t rely on the mainstream media to tell them the truth, because Big Media has been taken over by billionaires who care little for the geopolitical literacy of their viewers and more about what reality shows and podcasts they can churn out to rake in ad dollars.
As I’ve been detailing since 2017, US media frequently refers to a nonexistent Iranian “nuclear weapons program.” Here are just a few examples causally tossed out by Western media in the past month:
New York Times: “Iran’s nuclear weapons program” (3/4/26)
ABC News: “Iran’s nuclear weapons program” (3/4/25)
Washington Post | Opinion: Iran’s “nuclear-weapons program” (3/17/26)
Fox 2: “Iran’s nuclear weapons program” (2/28/26)
The Independent: “nuclear weapons program” (3/2/28)
According to US intelligence, as recently as March of 2025, Iran didn’t have a nuclear weapons program, and other assessments came to the same conclusion. If that’s true, what the hell are we bombing right now? Civilian power stations? That’s a war crime, per the International Criminal Court, which charged four Russian military commanders for doing exactly that in 2024 in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has plunged America into yet another war in the Middle East, without any kind of explanation for why we are there, what the overriding objective is, or when this thing might be over. And whether the war is over or escalating depends on what mood you catch Trump in. Yesterday, he declared the war “over” while also deploying thousands of troops from the 82nd Airborne to the region. Whether it’s 1,000, 2,000, or 3,000 paratroopers depends on which media outlet you read.
Trump: "This war has been won. The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-03-24T18:49:52.062Z
And then there’s the Strait of Hormuz, which Trump insists we have to reopen to assure the flow of oil to the rest of the world — a waterway that was only closed after he bombed Iran. Now, we’ve got the NYT trying to explain why it’s so difficult to defend the Strait while ignoring that it was Trump’s reckless impulsivity that got us in this situation to begin with.
So, to recap, we’ve got a war that the President of the United States won’t deign to justify to Americans, a worldwide traffic jam that he caused and is now using as the main objective for ending the war, and a populace that is being fed lies and half-truths by mass media, which is either too villanous or too ignorant to be bothered to fact check their work.
My fear is that Americans have gotten so used to a government that refuses to give them answers and a news media that doesn’t bother to verify what they’re broadcasting that all this becomes normal.
In other news: Greg Bovino sure is a special guy; DHS makes an oopsie; Zuckerberg goes down in New Mexico; and The High Note.
Here we go.
The NYT devotes many inches to Greg Bovino
Did we need an in-depth interview with former CBP “Commander at Large” (eye roll) Greg Bovino? We did not. Did the NYT give it to him anyway? They did. Did we learn many more disturbing things about Bovino? Sort of.
It’s no surprise that Bovino uses words like “master plan” to refer to immigration enforcement and “neutralize” when referring to protestors. We knew he was a Nazi the first time he stepped out in his little SS coat. But YIKES. Greg also firmly denies that he was tossed out of a Las Vegas bar for being himself. Do not print that he was tossed out of a bar in Las Vegas. He had a great time at the bar in Las Vegas, which definitely did not toss him out!
Here are the weirdest things I had to read about Bovino (all of these are quotes from the NYT piece), and I had to cut these down to a reasonable number:
Mr. Bovino eventually started referring to himself in the third person as “Chief Bovino,” one administration official said, and assumed the title of “Commander at Large.”
“We wanted total border domination,” Mr. Bovino said… “When you use terms like that, perhaps it scares some of the weaker-minded people. Domination. I want you to dominate that border. I’m not going to ‘control’ it. We’re going to dominate the hell out of that damn place.”
First, he was mocked on social media after making a brief stop in Las Vegas, where management at the Bottled Blonde, a nightclub on the Strip, said that they had asked him to leave and escorted him out at around 12:30 a.m. Mr. Bovino insisted the bar had lied and that no one had kicked him out. The night was a “really positive experience,” fueled by his appreciation for ’80s cover bands, he said. “The bartenders loved us.”
At Burgers and Beer weeks later, Mr. Bovino wore a form-fitting black T-shirt and a beaded “good luck” bracelet that he said was given to him by a friend for protection. He was a high-voltage presence, prone to intense eye contact.
By the end of his national tour, one official said, Mr. Bovino was deliberately seeking out confrontations at convenience stores or on the street to get content for social media.
Mr. Bovino said he had a master plan that was in motion before his exile back to El Centro. It would have neutralized protesters, he said, and made it possible to deport 100 million people.
He graduated from Western Carolina University in 1993, a degree he said he paid for in part by harvesting ginseng in the mountains. In later years, he claimed, “illegal aliens” scoured the hillsides and depleted his “prized ginseng patches.” (Scientists attribute the decline of wild American ginseng to other factors.)
He advocated for amending immigration law so that the government could deport even green-card holders for low-level offenses such as illegal fishing.
Previously unreported legal documents show that Mr. Bovino also admitted he had referred to undocumented people as “scum,” “trash,” and “filth” while giving a speech to his agents. He said that at the time, he had been referring to criminals such as child rapists, but he also refused to back down. “All illegal aliens are criminals,” he said.
Mr. Bovino made a surprising claim to minority status: He identified his race as “Native American” and his tribe as Cherokee. He testified that he had identified this way since he was 8 years old, but said he was not registered on any official tribal rolls. To reward top performance, he said, he gave out tomahawks.
As for retirement, Mr. Bovino said he is planning a new campaign in the North Carolina backcountry to hunt a “non-native invasive species”: the coyote.
You know that (usually really small), really aggressive kid in school who was always doodling guns and bombs in his binder and played dodgeball like it was an actual war? Yeah. Also, the NYT devoted way too many words to telling us Greg Bovino is the racist we knew he was.
Oopsie! DHS deported 100 people by accident
Pobody’s Nerfect, am I right?
BALTIMORE—In surprise testimony in federal court Thursday, an immigration officer revealed that more than 100 asylum seekers were wrongfully deported in violation of a court-ordered settlement agreement in a long-running case that has gotten national attention.
Before today, the number of wrongfully deported asylum seekers in the case was thought to be less than a dozen. But under persistent questioning from plaintiff’s counsel, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services asylum officer Kimberly Sicard testified that in the past three to four weeks it had come to her attention that more than 100 asylum seekers covered by the settlement agreement have been removed. She put the number in the “low 100s.”
***
“It’s certainly news to me that there with this many removals,” (U.S. District Judge Stephanie) Gallagher interjected. “I am very concerned having that number.”
The attorney for the plaintiffs, Michelle Mendez of the National Immigration Project, said she fears this is just the tip of the iceberg. To seek asylum in the United States, applicants have to fear persecution in their country of origin, “due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or social group membership.” God only knows how many of those deported are still free or even alive wherever they were removed to.
New Mexico sticks it to Zuckerberg
A jury in New Mexico has found Meta liable for knowingly harming children’s mental health.
SANTA FE, N.M. — A New Mexico jury determined Tuesday that Meta knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its social media platforms, a verdict that signals a changing tide against tech companies and the government's willingness to crack down.
The landmark decision comes after a nearly seven-week trial, and as jurors in a federal court in California have been sequestered in deliberations for more than a week about whether Meta and YouTube should be liable in a similar case.
New Mexico jurors sided with state prosecutors who argued that Meta — which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp — prioritized profits over safety, and violated parts of the state's Unfair Practices Act.
Sadly, the jury only awarded the state $375 million, less than one-fifth of what prosecutors had asked for. Meta is valued at over $1 trillion, and its stock actually went up after the verdict, because Wall Street is a soulless hellhole.
Just imagine if every state sued for the same reason, we could make a pretty big dent in Mark Zuckerberg’s wallet. What else can we sue him for? Harming women? Harming People of Color? Harming moms who fell into the MAHA pipeline via mommy “wellness” groups? Harming Boomers who believe everything they see on Facebook? Harming America by getting rid of moderators? Let’s get some more lawsuits going!
The High Note
Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.
This is for all the Gen Xers out there!
Hey, survive and advance out there today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
