Pete Hegseth Rolls Out Troop Testosterone Screenings

Defense War Department Secretary Pete Hegseth just announced a bold new initiative to optimize troop health and readiness. In a video posted to X, he unveiled plans for routine testosterone screening across the U.S. military.

What the Policy Includes

• Annual screenings for all service members age 30 and older as part of regular health checks.
• Younger troops (under 30) can volunteer for testing.
• The program covers all personnel, including women.
• If deficiency is found and medically recommended, troops can opt for supervised testosterone replacement therapy (TRT).

Hegseth described the effort as focused on restoring natural capabilities, not enhancement:

“This initiative — it’s not about artificial enhancement; it’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities, protecting your longevity, and ensuring you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight.”

He branded the Pentagon under this push as “The High-T Department of War,” aiming to keep forces at peak performance and on the “leading edge of lethality.”

Brexit at 10: Wins, Costs, Immigration Realities, and Starmer’s Mounting Crisis

Fresh reports say UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer could announce a resignation timetable as early as Monday. The Observer detailed his weekend at Chequers and internal pressure, while Reuters and BBC covered the shifting mood inside Labour and speculation about successor Andy Burnham. President Trump weighed in on Truth Social, declaring “Keir Starmer will resign” and citing failures on immigration and energy.

I watched Bloomberg Originals’ This Is What Brexit Cost the World amid this news. Here’s a concise breakdown.

Does "Suicidal Empathy" Explain Our Soft-on-Crime Policies?

 Empathy is a virtue — the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. But when it's misdirected, excessive, or untethered from reason and consequences, it can become suicidal empathy.

As evolutionary psychologist Gad Saad explains in his PragerU video (and upcoming book Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind), civilizations don't always die by murder. Per historian Arnold Toynbee, they often die by suicide — from within, through well-intentioned but self-destructive choices.

Watch Saad's full take here [VIDEO]

George Kamel: Trump's Plan to Abolish the IRS (What This Means for Your Money)

 

[VIDEO] I know this has been discussed and have little issue with the idea of abolishing the IRS. However, what does doing this entail? Does this mean prices go up for the essential goods (say the staples in your kitchen for example)?

Realistically without a solid plan this may or may not happen. At the same time I can't conceive of any issues with no more filing taxes and keeping more of my income.

The 16th Amendment

 Every once in a while you would hear about President Donald Trump talking about eliminating the income tax. He could start with the 16th amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

What Trump has been talking about is eliminating or cutting taxes on overtime and on tips. As far as tips there has been movement in Chicago at least to eliminate tips. Tips is of course for workers such as servers or bartenders to make some extra income.

Either way, who knows if Trump is serious about eliminating the 16th Amendment. Amending the constitution seems like a long and difficult process anyway.

At least the repeal prohibition amendment (18th Amendment) wasn't exactly an unpopular deal during the Great Depression. How much support would repealing the 16th Amendment receive?

Also, I'm all for Trump and Elon Musk's D.O.G.E. having a look at what goes on with the Internal Revenue Service.

Also, it came out the President wants the U.S. Treasury to cease production of the penny. This was something that was mentioned last month. It cost more to produce a 1¢ coin and I'm for it, now does this mean that prices will be rounded to the nearest nickel. If that's the case I'm for it!

I just hope prices for goods and services doesn't increase as a result.

D.O.G.E. might cut the penny

From CBS News:

In Tuesday X post, Musk's DOGE wrote that the U.S. spends about 3 cents to mint each penny, which, of course, is only valued at 1 cent.

"The penny costs over 3 cents to make and cost U.S. taxpayers over $179 million in FY2023," DOGE wrote. "The Mint produced over 4.5 billion pennies in FY2023, around 40% of the 11.4 billion coins for circulation produced."

In pointing out the penny's costliness, DOGE is taking aim at an issue that has sparked debate for years, although the price of manufacturing the cent has only grown over the past several years. In 2016, for instance, the U.S. was spending about 1.5 cents to mint each penny, or less than half of its current manufacturing cost.

Still, the cent's $179 million in costs represents mere metaphorical pennies when it comes to DOGE's mandate to cut federal spending. President Donald Trump has said DOGE will provide recommendations to "slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies." Musk has said the group will aim to trim $500 billion in annual federal spending.

Probably time to cash in the pennies I have around the house. Convert it into some real cash.

Federal officials have proposed suspending the penny in prior years, with former Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew pushing the idea in 2015. Some economists have also advocated for dropping the penny from circulation, but there could be a costly downside to ditching the cent, as transactions would be rounded to 5-cent intervals, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond said in a 2020 blog post.

"For a single item or small-value purchase, rounding up or down could represent a significant price change," the post noted.

Other nations have ditched their equivalent of the penny, including Canada, which stopped minting its one-cent coin in 2012. One 2018 economic analysis found that Canadian consumers paid about $3.27 million in additional Canadian dollars at grocery stores each year due to prices being rounded higher after the change.

"On the other hand, there may be additional, hard-to-quantify costs to using pennies that would argue in favor of elimination. Counting pennies to make change takes time, and as the old business adage goes, time is money," the Richmond Fed noted.

I don't know. I often don't use change when I spend cash. It has become more convenient for me to use a debit card for every day purchases. Although most of the time I do prefer cash.

I suppose since there are more options than cash when you have to spend at the store (any store - especially supermarkets) is it possible that change will have to be rounded up to a nickel?

Time will tell.

h/t Newsalert 

Tucker Carlson interviews Dave Ramsey

 

[VIDEO] As you may know Ramsey is more of a personal finance guy who advocates mostly for cutting up your credit cards and say no to debt. Even going so far to advise that people shoot for a 0 credit score bceause that means they have no debt.

Of course as you may see from his interview with Donald Trump fairly recently he's into discussion the economic plans for both the Democrats' Kamala Harris and the Republicans' Trump.

Ramsey and Tucker talk about personal finance and their dislike of big banks and economic policy in this recent sit down.

Mark Levin: Why do Democrats hate America?

 

[VIDEO] The Great One Mark Levin discusses current progressive Democrat policies and their destabilizing effect on this country. The energy policies, the high crime, illegal immigration, etc.

Happy Columbus Indigenous People Day!

O'Reilly: Dealing with the homeless problem

 

[VIDEO] Bill O'Reilly discusses the issue of the homeless. Perhaps addressing the homeless crisis in places like San Francisco, California. And the permissiveness of those policymakers who have opted not to adequately address the many issues involved with homelessness. 

Timcast IRL: People flee cities en mass as woke liberals & corporations destroy cities

 

[VIDEO] I haven't fully watched this video, however, as it starts the discussion is very interesting. Discussing Dave Chappelle standing up for his small town and the businesses within. And then we start talking about issues of high crime in our cities in part due to the policies of progressive politicians.

Tucker: This will destroy the US over time

 

[VIDEO] Tucker Carlson discusses today's news, the influx of illegals in Martha's Vineyard in addition to a bus load going to the Washington, DC residence of the Vice President who also doubles as America's border tsar. And who insists that there is no border problem just as she refused to visit the border.

So anyway, a group of migrants arrived by plane to Martha's Vineyard and the locals aren't happy about it. They're fine with a very porous border people can just cross with no questions asked and hardly any consideration to their needs. Just let them loose in America it's OK. 

Until red state governors such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (oh dear the most wonderful presidential press secretary reportedly referred to the Gov. of Texas as Ted Cruz, oh man she needs to go!) and then Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis - the greatest Governor in American and hopefully a future President sends migrants fresh from the border there way and it's no good. Diversity is our strength until you find out what diversity really means.

It causes me to wonder why the progressives insist that we bring in people with hardly any connection with America other than hopefully a dream of opportunities and liberty. Some of those people don't care about opportunities and liberty. Some of those immigrants are thugs, but we can't reason with that because it's racism...

And now with their own destructive social policies in their backyards these progressives see the consequences. The fact that a bus dropped off migrants near the DC home of the Vice President was definitely a political move, that was perfect orchestration.

Reason: Great moments in unintended consequences

 

[VIDEO] So we go from rent control, to incentives for alternate fuels, to ballot access.

The ballot access is interesting as it pertains to Georgia. I almost thought they were talking about 2020 but that issue was hardly about ballot access as it was about mail-in voting. In Georgia they wanted to keep Communists off the ballot, however, the unintended consequence was to keep Republicans & Democrats in power. However, since this law was enacted in 1940 perhaps it was more about keeping Democrats in power since there was a very small chance until recently that a Republican would be elected.

Anyway, the rent control and alternate fuel issues. Keep those in mind especially alternate fuel because of late gas prices are high and there is a push for the typical American consumer to buy an electric vehicle...

#Tucker: If the US can't do this, we will be poor

 

[VIDEO] Tucker Carlson's monologue from last nite. He talks about situations in Sri Lanka - an outright real revolt not like the January 6, 2021 weirdness that the Democrats want to keep blowing up. In Sri Lanka the population realized the folly of gov't policy which has caused the food supply to diminish and made that island nation near India poorer. They wanted farmers to go full organic and not use any fertilizer because that's supposed to be better for the environment but by golly that didn't help the food supply.

I never thought that Tucker would ever discuss ESG scores. He brings it up here, that's a Glenn Beck thing. The information on this is out there, ESG is related to the climate change deal. A nation wants a good ESG score for the purposes of investments in their nation. Of course having a good ESG score leads to some disruptive consequences as we see in Sri Lanka for example.

Tucker also mentions Ghana and South Africa another disruptive consequence of ESGs well power outages. Can't use fossil fuels no coal no petroleum leads to food shortages and the inability of the power grid to support the population. Ghana has some protests there over their own gov'ts policies.

Could this possibly happen here? Well to answer that question we hear about power outages in California and even Texas. Remember what happened in winter last year in Texas...

He specifically refers to Congresswoman AOC. She's bought into the climate change crisis, what crisis it seems every so often some activist claims that in like 5 months, 5 years hell let's just say 5 mins the world will be in a real crisis. If that doesn't come true then just restart the clock. UGH!!!

Green politics is a 'new form of Marxism'

 

[VIDEO] Nigel Farage listed as the Brexit leader - British Exit, get it? He was one of the leaders of the effort to get Great Britain out of the European Union - joins Paul Murray. 

I've been noticing that Australia has been experience some energy issues primarily with their electric grid. In some parts of that nation there have been blackouts and on top of that they just recently installed a new gov't which does want to address climate change. That means more green energy - solar power, windmills, etc.

You know you hear this marxism thrown around. Climate change is one thing if it's a legit issue - not that I've actively have a serious look at this issue. It's another thing when it's being cloaked in the language of social justice. I want clean air and certainly don't want to see global warming become an issue, it seems the marxism is forcing people to make major changes in their lives for something that may not be a serious issue.

Bill O'Reilly: Proof Biden is worse than Trump

 

[VIDEO] Bill O'Reilly explains President Trump has to deal with coronavirus, however, there were no supply chain issues or inflation or high gas prices (well I added gas prices it's true though). Now we have President Biden coronavirus is still an issue, but not to where it was blown up to in 2020. And consider we have high gas prices, inflation and supply chain issues.

The emphasis on green energy has hurt everyday Americans (meaning that because of an emphasis on eliminating fossil fuels gas prices has gone up), food prices have gone up, over the holiday season consumers were concerned about having Christmas presents for example, we have inflation.

2020 was a rough year as the nation was shut down over coronavirus concerns. However after the election President Trump was able to ensure the development of a vaccine. Meanwhile many Americans wanted Trump out believing the hype of the MSNBC or CNN of the world and the verdict is clear to me Biden hasn't made anything better. President Trump seems to have better results.

Prager U: Homelessness The Reality and The Solution

 

[VIDEO] This is an eye opening documentary about the homelessness situation in California. It's definitely believable that this is a situation created by addiction and gov't unwillingness to really curb the issue of addiction. 

Mark Dice: Not all Dems are happy with Joe Biden

 

[VIDEO] This video from Dice discusses the recent State of the Union Address where President Brando....Joe Biden discusses the issue of defunding police. Even he recognizes the folly of that policy enacted in many cities in the aftermath of George Floyd's demise. We see quotes from a number of Democrats on this many of them support defund police. 

I suppose even he recognizes - or perhaps whoever wrote his speech recognizes - that defunding police is a mistake in the face of crime waves in our urban centers. We've been hearing about smash and grabs in many of our retail stores around the country. Of course we also have issues with assaults and gun crimes and of course homicides that we need police to adequately deal with.

The next step is to deal with these prosecutors who treat some of these violent crimes with kid gloves, however, in order to deal with the crime for certain we need to drop this defund police fantasy. Some of the Democrats you see in the video above including San Francisco Mayor London Breed even recognizes that public officials are failing on this issue and enough is enough.

Still some will still choose politics over keeping the citizenry safe.

Stossel: Bad gov't brings bad inflation

 

[VIDEO] John Stossel takes on this subject of inflation. One take away from this: inflation results in too much money chasing too few goods. Gov't spending more money is actually gov't chasing too few goods. Ahhh economics why are you my weakest subject....

Stossel: Why do progressives ruin cities?

 

[VIDEO] John Stossel speaks with former San Francisco progressive and author Michael Shellenberger who can no longer subscribe to the "progressive" policies that are starting to ruin the very nice city of San Francisco, California. Basically progressive policies are designed to not punish those individuals or groups that they believe are victims. That means if a "victimized" group is engaging in outright shoplifting then authorities can choose not to keep them in custody. Or if a homeless person is in public getting high as he lives on the streets there will be lax enforcement against that. It leads to this idea of a progressive ruining a city...

Tucker: We're watching civilization collapse in real time

 

[VIDEO] Well the monologue you see on Tucker Carlson's FOX News program is really him ranting about the homeless issue in a number of major cities around America. Public policy isn't really eradicating homelessness, it's in fact enabling it.

The bad news is that the answer to this issue isn't to just give them housing. How many of them in their various states of mental illness or addiction would be willing to settle down in one place with a roof over their head guaranteed (though most likely that's for a limited time anyway if someone else is footing the bill). Also is it really a good idea to let those dealing with addiction issues to have a safe space to continue imbibing their addictions?

Anyway I don't want to paint this issue with a broad brush. The root causes are as varied as the individuals it affects, yeah perhaps some have had a stroke of bad luck. Others well there's only so much one can do unless they are willing to address their addictions. The mentally ill is a whole other issue that is also very difficult. What can one do?