An Ohio appeals court made clear in a ruling this month that the Buckeye State cannot count refusal to affirm against parents, while upholding the custody determination in that case.
"There is no requirement in Ohio law that parents must unquestioningly accept and support their minor children's claims of transsexual identity or preferred pronouns," reads the opinion, noting ongoing litigation over Ohio's statutory ban on so-called gender-affirming care for minors and the Supreme Court's decision upholding Tennessee's similar ban.
[AT] Politico, an online political magazine, used to be left-leaning. Now, though, it’s so left-leaning that it’s embraced the Nazi side of socialism. And no, I don’t use the word "Nazi" lightly. At American Thinker, we’re very, very careful about falling into the trap of reductio ad Hitlerum. However, Politico’s latest political cartoon about the Iran war is a dead ringer for anything that might have appeared in Der Sturmer, the most rabidly antisemitic paper in Nazi Germany.
It’s late, and I’ll keep this post short because there’s not much to say. Wikipedia offers a decent enough summary of Der Sturmer’s content (hyperlinks omitted):
Unlike the Völkischer Beobachter (The Völkisch Observer), the official Nazi Party paper, which gave itself an outwardly serious appearance, Der Sturmer often ran obscene material such as the blood libel and graphic caricatures of Jews, as well as sexually explicit, anti-communist, and anti-monarchist propaganda. As early as 1933, [publisher Julius] Streicher was calling for the extermination of the Jews in Der Sturmer. During the war, Streicher regularly authorized articles demanding the annihilation and extermination of the "Jewish race". After the war, Streicher was convicted of being an accessory for crimes against humanity, and was executed by hanging.
One of the things the paper specialized in was grotesque cartoons presenting Jewish as hideous, blood-soaked creatures who manipulated the world’s leaders for their benefit. I will not reproduce any of those cartoons here.
On Friday, Politico featured a cartoon that would have been welcomed at Der Sturmer. The Free Beacon describes it:
The image depicts President Donald Trump, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Republican members of Congress wearing blood-covered Jewish prayer shawls and yarmulkes.
The cartoon, drawn by former New York Post cartoonist Sean Delonas, depicts the lawmakers aboard a rowboat labeled "Ship of Neocons"—a play on the Hieronymus Bosch painting Ship of Fools—that is about to plummet over a waterfall. A bag of blood-smeared money crowns the mast, and the word "Amalek," a reference to a historical enemy of the Jewish people from the Hebrew Bible, appears in the background.
Netanyahu, depicted with an exaggerated nose, is also shown wearing a blood-covered Jewish prayer shawl and eating from a table covered in blood, while Trump, also in a Jewish prayer shawl, is drawn underneath the word "Amalek."
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who is not Jewish, is depicted wearing a yarmulke and a Jewish prayer shawl and holding a bottle of blood. Graham and Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), also drawn in a blood-covered Jewish prayer shawl, have supported the Iran war and are longtime supporters of Israel.
It is one of the most disgusting images I’ve ever seen—and again, I won’t reproduce it here. What’s so shocking is that it didn’t run in the American Neo-Nazi paper (The Daily Stormer). Instead, it ran in Politico, a mainstream American online political publication. Estimates suggest Politico’s monthly readership is as high as 55 million.
Do you want to know what’s really ironic? In 2021, Axel Springer SE, a German media company, acquired Politico. The price was secret, but it was reported to be over $1 billion. Moreover, as part of the price, Wikipedia claims,
Axel Springer SE’s CEO Mathias Dopfner said that Politico employees would be required to adhere to the company's principles of support for Israel, support for a United Europe and a free-market economy. [Hyperlinks omitted.]
Update from Politico in the middle of the night: If you go to the link the editorial gives for the cartoon (here), you will see it replaced with an announcement that after weighing comments from their readers, the editor decided it does not meet editorial standards and was pulled. This would, of course, have been much more impressive had it been pulled before the article went to press and shocked the sensibilities of even Politico subscribers.
#2
The Post shows the silly thing. Hardly worth all the hyperventilating. Of course, I always was a Comus fan (not that I'd have taken a running piss on 'em if the flambeaux had chained 'em to the floats and set 'em alight).
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Dmitry Gubin
[REGNUM] March 28th marked the 250th anniversary of the Bolshoi Theatre.
An achievement to be proud of!
Its history has seen many things: a long journey through the estates of aristocrats, fires, and great productions. We'll focus on the event that led to the theatre existing in its current form, albeit somewhat reconstructed internally.
The history of the Bolshoi Theatre begins with the work of Prince Pyotr Urusov, who served as the provincial prosecutor in Moscow. It was he who received the imperial permission from Catherine II to "maintain... all kinds of theatrical performances, as well as concerts, vauxhals (the term then used to describe entertainment venues), and masquerades."
Prince Urusov began staging operas on the stage of the private theater in Count Roman Vorontsov's mansion on Znamenka Street. Soon, they purchased the very site where this temple of art "houses" today from the Lobanov-Rostovsky princes for the construction of a stone theater building.
Fires plagued the future Bolshoi Theatre troupe on numerous occasions. In 1780, the first stage of the theater, still a private establishment on Znamenka Street, burned down, leading to Prince Urusov's bankruptcy.
Fire destroyed the stone building both in 1805 and during the Great Fire of 1812. It was only in 1825 that the now-famous building with its classical portico and eight columns, the work of architect Osip Bove, was erected.
At that time, the theatre was called Bolshoi Petrovsky, after the name of the square, which later became known as Teatralnaya.
Those who find themselves on Theatre Square can easily discern elements of this architect's vision for post-fire Moscow; this reconstruction was, as subsequent events showed, neither the last nor the final one.
HOW THE IRON CURTAIN FAILED TO SAVE THE BOLSHOI THEATRE
On March 23, 1853, the Bolshoi Theatre suffered another fire—the fourth, largest, and final one in its history. "When the theater burned, it seemed as if a dear person, who had filled us with beautiful thoughts and feelings, was dying before our eyes," wrote one Moscow newspaper at the time. The flames raged for three days.
At 10:00 a.m. on March 11 (March 23, New Style), a fire broke out on stage. Police determined that a drunk stagehand had lit a cigarette in an unauthorized area.
Moreover, thanks to the reconstruction of the building, which took place six years earlier under the supervision of one of the most competent architectural specialists, Academician Alexander Nikitin, such catastrophic consequences could have been avoided.
After all, there was an iron curtain for such a situation, separating the stage from the auditorium if necessary. But on that occasion, it wasn't used, and the entire building caught fire.
Fortunately, the fire broke out when the theater was empty and the actors hadn't yet gathered for rehearsal. Thanks to the demolition of the old buildings surrounding the theater and the destruction of Theater Square, the fire didn't spread to the surrounding buildings.
The fire was quickly spotted from the watchtower, and extinguishing efforts began immediately. The chief of police, Major General Ivan Luzhin, personally led the team. But it was in vain. The fire destroyed not only the stage and auditorium, but also the sets, most of the costumes, the theater machinery, and the entire music library. By March 26, when the fire was extinguished, all that remained of the theater was a charred skeleton and the columns of the portico.
THE FEAT OF VASILY MARIN
A 30-year-old peasant from Rostov district, Yaroslavl province, Vasily Gavrilovich Marin, performed a heroic deed while extinguishing a fire. For over half a century, newspapers wrote about him, leaflets and brochures were published, but during Soviet times, if he was mentioned at all, it was only in passing.
Marin was passing through Moscow. He was home on leave during the winter and heading to Kolpino for seasonal work. While waiting for his train, he met some fellow countrymen at a pub.
That's where they heard the news of the fire. When they reached the theater, they saw police, firefighters, and a huge crowd of onlookers, which they joined. Vasily heard screams from the theater roof and decided to help those in distress.
He approached the police chief and said he could save those in distress. As a roofer, Marin had climbed drainpipes many times. The firefighters gave him ropes and began to stretch out a tarp.
They couldn't save one worker; he fell dead from the roof, but Vasily managed to rescue the other. People saw his heroic deed and began collecting money for the hero; police chief Luzhin himself handed him 25 rubles and warned him that a reward awaited him. "I absolutely don't remember how I got down or how they brought me down, because several times I was nearly suffocated by the smoke, and how I held on, only God knows!" Vasily Gavrilovich later recalled.
Marin's actions were immediately reported to the Tsar, and upon his arrival in St. Petersburg, he was summoned to the capital's police chief, who took him to see Nicholas I himself. The Emperor received the peasant, presented him with a gold medal, 150 rubles, and new boots to replace those damaged in the theater fire. After this, Marin lived another 47 years, was respected, and raised his sons with dignity.
ALBERT KATERINOVICH IS BUILDING A NEW BOLSHOI
For two years, the center of Moscow lay in ruins. There was no time for them: the Crimean War was raging, and the Moscow Governor-General, Arseny Zakrevsky, the directorate of the imperial theaters, and the Tsar himself had other concerns.
When Alexander II ascended the throne, preparations had to be made for the coronation in the capital. And it was desirable that an opera performance be included among the ceremonial events. But where would it be performed? To achieve this, the theater building needed to be restored. In May 1855, clearing the ruins began.
A competition was announced in which the best Russian architects participated, among whom was the famous Konstantin Ton, the author of the designs for the Grand Kremlin Palace and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
But the competition was won by the chief architect of the imperial theatres, Albert Katerinovich Cavos, the son of the Russified Italian composer Caterino Cavos, who was the first to embody the feat of Ivan Susanin in music.
Mikhail Glinka created the famous opera after Cavos and based on a different libretto.
Kavos Jr. proposed increasing the building's height by two meters, altered its proportions, and completely overhauled the architectural decor. Above the entrance, in place of the alabaster statue of Apollo that had perished in the fire, a bronze sculpture by Pyotr Klodt was installed, depicting the Greek god on a quadriga.
…the ancient Greek racing chariot pulled by four horses abreast that represents victory…
The same sculpture is now depicted on the hundred-ruble note.
In addition, a plaster relief depicting the state emblem appeared on the façade (it was replaced during the Soviet era and then put back in place).
But Kavos's greatest achievement wasn't outside the building, but inside. Performances could now accommodate up to 2,300 spectators. Albert Katerynovych achieved the best acoustics in the auditorium at the time.
Before the fire, music and singing were barely audible in many parts of the hall, but now, even in the side boxes and upper gallery, the sound was remarkable. This effect was achieved by using different types of wood for the parts.
Clever.
To improve the acoustics of the hall, Kavos also filled the space under the amphitheater with soil, where the cloakroom had been before the fire, and placed the hangers at the level of the stalls.
"I tried to decorate the auditorium as lavishly and at the same time as simply as possible, in a Renaissance style mingled with Byzantine style. The white, sprinkled with gold, the bright crimson draperies of the inner boxes, and the main feature of the auditorium—a large chandelier with three rows of lamps and crystal-adorned candelabra—all of this earned universal approval," wrote Cavos.
Opposite the hall stood a special, royal box. It was there that the Tsar arrived on August 20, 1856, after his coronation in the Kremlin's Assumption Cathedral for the theater's opening. That day, the premiere was being given—Bellini's opera "I Puritani."
Thus began the new history of the building, which still exists with minor alterations to this day.
[SupplyChainDive] The investigations reviewing potential disruptions to global supply chains and the trade of green products come as leaders of the two countries prepare to meet in May.
Text taken from the Telegram channel of kanzlerdaddy
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics [ColonelCassad] BlackRock's protégé, German Chancellor Merz,
Is he Black Rock’s protégé really, or is that just Russian propaganda?
has publicly spoken out against Trump.
The Americans and Israelis are getting deeper into this conflict every day. And I feel they have no strategy.
Your feeling is wrong. Try thinking instead — on this kind of subject, thinking works much better. But do go on…
What do you really want? Is regime change really the goal?
Regime change is up to the Iranians. Israel and America want to destroy Iran’s ability to wage an external war, including making nuclear bombs and the missiles to deliver them, and supporting terror groups like Hamas and PIJ, Hezbollah in Lebanon, in the Americas, and in Europe, the Houthis, and others, a much more limited goal.
If so, I don't think they will achieve it. I told him (Trump), if you want our help, please contact us directly, not through the newspapers. He told me two or three times in a half-hour conversation, "I don't need NATO." Then he publicly declared that our behavior was wrong. I think the government (and probably the president himself) has now accepted the fact that we cannot participate in the conflict. And as long as the war continues, that is not an option for us either.
The question is whether NATO and Europe will step up to protect the shipping lanes that they need much more than America does. As Hillel the Elder said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”
What Trump is doing now in Iran is not de-escalation or an attempt to find a peaceful solution,
…very true. What he is doing instead is working with Bibi to permanently fix the problem of the Mullahcracy...
but a large-scale escalation with an unpredictable outcome. But we are not yet militarily strong enough to defend the European continent on our own.
So what are you doing about that?
Therefore, it is important to me not to jeopardize the transatlantic alliance unnecessarily. We are currently trying to maintain this delicate balance. Germany's old business model no longer works. Cheap energy from Russia, intermediate products from China, exports all over the world, the Americans guaranteeing our security—all of this is gone and will not return. This is the end
Trump promised yesterday that he will not forget the behavior of some NATO countries after the attack on Iran, where they refused to help him. And that he will hold them accountable for it.
More from Boris Rozhin: The deadlines are slipping away
The timeline is slipping. According to American media, US Secretary of State Rubio informed G-7 ministers that the war against Iran will last at least another two to four weeks.
The American side of the war, anyway. The Israeli side will last overtly and/covertly, until the Mullahs are broken, because they understand they have no choice, despite their protesting idiots.
The US already understands that it will not be able to meet the previously stated deadline of four to five weeks for aggression. And the further the war extends beyond this deadline, the greater the pressure will be on the Trump administration with its chatter about having "already won."
The deadline has already grown from "Tehran in three days" to eight weeks, and this is certainly not the limit. Meanwhile, Iran has achieved the greatest success in weakening American military potential since World War II, and no other side has been able to achieve this level. (c) New York Times
Granted, the US lost far more in Vietnam, but Iran undoubtedly inflicted enormous damage on the US on various levels. This is something the US certainly did not expect from Iran, overestimating its own strength and underestimating Iran's capabilities.
In recent news, the Iranians shot down another American F-16 last night and, according to their claims, destroyed two AWACS aircraft in Saudi Arabia. This is in addition to several tanker aircraft destroyed at Prince Sultan Air Base. Hangars housing P-8 Poseidon maritime reconnaissance aircraft were also hit in Bahrain.
"What Trump is doing now is not de-escalation or an attempt to find a peaceful solution, but a large-scale escalation with an uncertain outcome," the chancellor said during a conference organized by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.
According to him, this escalation already poses a threat not only to those directly affected, but to the entire world.
Merz also expressed doubt that Washington's stated goal of regime change in Tehran could be achieved.
"Is regime change really the goal? If that's the goal, I don't think they'll achieve it. In the past, such attempts have mostly failed," Merz pointed out.
[Ynet] Jennifer Murtazashvili, a professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, arrived in Israel in January with her family as part of her academic work and found herself in the midst of a multi-front regional war. In an Op-Ed published over the weekend in The Washington Post, she describes what she calls an "alt-war" — in which people in her home country are exposed to false information and fake videos online, while the reality on the ground, as she describes it, is entirely different.
"Something strange is in the air. I wake up every morning in Tel Aviv having survived another day. Sirens go off in the middle of the night; we go back to bed countless times. We wake to news that the Iron Dome intercepted the vast majority — 92 percent by official counts — of incoming rockets," she writes. "I step onto my balcony and hear the never-ending construction. An Israeli economist I know says, 'We are always building and rebuilding the Jewish state.' I sip my coffee, get my kids into their remote school lessons and then open my email and direct messages to see what happened in the imagination of the United States the day before."
...According to Murtazashvili: "We are living through the first alt-war: a conflict in which the war fought online and the war fought in reality have diverged so completely that they might as well be happening on different planets. It’s not that people lack information, it’s more that they are constructing an entirely different alternate reality — one that confirms what they already believe."
She writes that, most mornings, "my phone is full of panicked messages. A friend in Pittsburgh. A colleague in Central Asia. A relative in New York. They have all seen the videos of intense missile barrages ravaging Tel Aviv. One video sent to me featured what were ostensibly Israelis marching in droves, on foot across what appeared to be the Judaean mountains escaping the country as it collapsed behind them."
..."The videos I’ve been sent are all fake. They are either generated by artificial intelligence or simply old footage from somewhere else. I know, because I am here," she writes.
Murtazashvili says the first night of the war was the most frightening. "A missile struck about a quarter of a mile from our apartment. The noise shook our building. One person was killed — a woman who did not reach a shelter in time. That tragic event lodged the importance of the shelters in the mind of my children like no lecture of mine ever could."
"But after that first night, my kids saw that life continued. In shelters across Tel Aviv, I have found myself alongside Muslims, Jews, Christians and recent arrivals. The furious debate consuming the American internet feels distant in these spaces. People are mostly tired but hopeful that a better future is on the horizon."
She adds that "What worries me more than the fake videos are the people who cannot fathom that this war is going well for the United States, for Israel and maybe even for the long-suffering people of Iran. The strategic picture is more favorable than the online narrative suggests. Iranian options are narrowing to outcomes that all leave Israel better positioned than before, whether that is regime change in Tehran, a negotiated arrangement under American pressure or a ceasefire along the lines of the Houthi deal."
"You would not know any of this from Washington," she writes. "Two weeks into the war, I watch otherwise reasonable analysts sprint to catastrophe. Former officials, thinktank scholars, credentialed professionals who are supposed to know how to read a conflict. Within days they had written the obituary: quagmire, overreach, disaster. And that narrative has continued unabated.
"The liberal internationalist left and the isolationist right — two camps that have agreed on almost nothing for decades — have suddenly found themselves in lockstep, racing to declare the war a failure before it had barely begun," she argues.
"This is the defining feature of the alt-war," Murtazashvili writes. "It is not that people lack information, but that the success of the war conflicts with their priors and so they have constructed an alternative war: one in which Tel Aviv is burning, Washington never heard of the Strait of Hormuz before last week and the whole enterprise is doomed. Because that is the only version they can psychologically accept."
..."There is a demand that fuels an alternative reality — sharper, more colorful, more viral — far beyond anything the enemy could produce. Meanwhile, in the real war, she concludes, "I step onto my balcony each morning. The construction crews are already at work. My kids log in to school. Israel, bruised and tired, keeps building toward a better future for itself, and the region."
Posted by: Grom the Affective ||
03/29/2026 02:06 ||
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[1764 views]
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[MilitaryStrategy] On the one hand, high-powered lasers can be “game-changing”. Speed, precision, a huge reduction in cost per shot, unlimited ammunition—at the tactical level, the confluence of these effects can be transformative. Further still, getting to the point we are at now is no small technological marvel. In 213 BC, Archimedes’ supposed use of the Sun and mirrors, acting as a collective parabolic reflector to burn attacking Roman ships during the siege of Syracuse, has for centuries held the fascination of philosophers and scientists alike.
On the other hand, technological innovations, however brilliant, do not necessarily equate to “changing the game” strategically. Just ask Archimedes, who, despite his ingenuity in turning the sun into a weapon, could not stop the sacking of Syracuse. Few technologies, military or otherwise, reach the rarefied air of being truly “game-changing”.
Indeed, this is not the first time high-powered lasers have been heralded as “game-changing.” On 23 March 1983, then–U.S. President Ronald Reagan shared his “vision of the future”: a programme “to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive. Let us turn to the very strengths in technology that spawned our great industrial base and that have given us the quality of life we enjoy today.” Reagan was referring to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a comprehensive nuclear missile-defence system.
Mark Levin makes the case for putting troops on the ground in Iran: "Why would we need troops on the ground? ...We've got to get the uranium... [Iran] can make dirty bombs... You need to get to the uranium."
Assuming the uranium gas is still contained. But if the containers cracked and the gas flowed to the lowest point, and from there seeped into the bedrock below? Surely nobody expects them to mine the stuff and refine it again for transport…
Many years ago, when I drove to and from work, I would listen to Michael Savage on the way home. I didn't always agree with him, mostly I did, but he was always entertaining and informative. Sometimes he'd get tired of politics and he'd talk about Italian food or about his dog. Sometimes I'd laugh out loud in the car. Well, it was a long drive and he sure as hell beat all the other radio stations and I'd gotten tired of my extensive CD collection.
The problem with the Michael Savage show was that it was followed by Mark Levin. He'd start out loud and get louder. Even though I agreed with most of what he was saying, he was annoying. It was no fun listening to him. He had no sense of humor. None at all. He could have used some. Good thing I was usually getting a lot closer to home by then. Otherwise I'd start the CD player.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/29/2026 18:36 Comments ||
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Some text taken from the Telegram channel of poisk_mil
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics
[ColonelCassad] Iran's Counter-Landing Strategy The strategy to counter a US amphibious operation in the Iranian island zone is based on the layered use of reconnaissance and strike unmanned aerial systems and high-precision missile weapons of the Iranian Armed Forces to implement the anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) concept. During the initial phase, stealthy Shahed-171/181 UAVs continuously monitor the movements of expeditionary forces, providing Iranian headquarters with real-time targeting data.
Upon entry of the landing group into the kill zone, a massive launch of Shahed-136 kamikaze drones is initiated, operating in swarms to deliberately oversaturate the ship's air and missile defense systems. Jamming the enemy's radar and depleting its anti-aircraft missiles creates the conditions for a decisive strike with Fateh-family ballistic missiles against the most vulnerable transport vessels and fire support ships.
This allows for the landing of personnel and equipment to be blocked before they reach the coast, while mobile coastal air defense systems protect the islands from air strikes, completing the formation of a zone of total fire damage for the landing force.
We'll probably soon see how this works in practice.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/29/2026 00:00 ||
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[1753 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[ColonelCassad] BlackRock's protégé, German 
