Bill Ackman quote-tweeted a graph showing the partisan gap between young men and women almost doubled in 25 years.

Women moved radically left. Men stayed roughly where they were.

Good question. Most answers I've seen are either tribal ("women are emotional") or surface-level ("social media bad"). Neither traces the actual mechanism.

Let me try.

The Predator State:

In the lexicon of polite political discourse, we are told that "kleptocracy" is a phenomenon reserved for the decaying regimes of the third world — banana republics where dictators in gold-braided epaulets stuff suitcases with cash while their people starve. This is a comforting fiction. It allows the American mind to believe that corruption is something that happens over there, in places without marble capitols or Ivy League economists.

But this definition is archaic. It fails to capture the sophistication of the modern predator state. A true kleptocracy in the twenty-first century does not require a dictator with a Swiss bank account; it requires a bureaucracy with a grant-making authority. It does not steal with a gun; it steals with a regulation.

Los Angeles schools discriminate against white students under the city's longstanding desegregation policy, a new lawsuit from a conservative group claims.

The suit says that white students suffer "inferior treatment and calculated disadvantages" in LA public schools, which enroll a majority Black, Hispanic and Asian students.

The group that filed the suit, 1776 Project Foundation, is challenging decades-old desegregation rules in the LA Unified School District that critics say continue to divide students along racial lines. The defendants are listed as the LAUSD Board of Education, the Board President, and Superintendent Alberto Carvalho.

Israel is attempting to force the UN aid agency for Palestinians to cease operations for Israel.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir led Israeli forces as they demolished the headquarters of UNRWA (the UN aid agency for Palestinians) in East Jerusalem.

Gvir said:

"[This is] a historic day for sovereignty in Jerusalem. Today, these terror supporters are being kicked out along with everything they built. This is what will be done to every terror supporter."

Aryeh King, the mayor of Jerusalem, made an even more aggressive statement:

"God willing, we will expel, kill, eliminate and destroy all UNRWA personnel."

Tel Aviv has been attempting to end UNRWA operations in Israel and the occupied territories, an effort that has intensified since the October 7 Hamas attack. UNRWA provides key services to Palestinians, including food, education, and medical care.

UNRWA chief, Philippe Lazzarini, slammed the destruction of his agency's headquarters in a post on X.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that former CNN host Don Lemon has been put "on notice" by the Justice Department and could face charges under federal civil-rights laws, including the Ku Klux Klan Act, for his role in storming a church service in Minnesota. Lemon allegedly joined a far-left mob that was on the hunt for a pro-ICE pastor at a St. Paul church.

"The Klan Act is one of the most important federal civil rights statutes. Its a law that makes it illegal to terrorize and violate the civil rights of citizens. Whenever people conspire to do this, the Klan Act can be used," Dhillon told Johnson.

Dhillon continued, "Everyone in the protest community needs to know that the fullest force of the federal government is going to come down and prevent this from happening and put people away for a long time."

People in the UK are wary of saying good things about Russia for fear of repercussions, former police officer Mark Bullen has told RT. The level of Russophobia among the British authorities has reached untold proportions, Bullen said, who had his UK citizenship revoked after moving to Russia.

Although he had been living in Russia since 2014, Bullen was detained at Luton Airport when he arrived in Britain to visit relatives in November 2024. A year later, he was informed about his British citizenship being revoked for the "public good."

According to the former officer, he was detained under the Terrorism Act. Five men who refused to identify themselves interrogated him for hours in a "very cold interview room." They also refused to provide him with legal counsel despite repeated requests, and barred him from contacting family.

Donald Trump's threat to cancel the midterm elections is not a feign. He attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election and said he would not accept the outcome of the 2024 election if he lost. He ruminates about defying the Constitution to serve a third term. He is determined to retain absolute control — buttressed by an obsequious Republican majority — in Congress. He fears, if he loses control of Congress, impeachment. He fears impediments to the rapid reconfiguration of America as an authoritarian state. He fears losing the monuments he is building to himself — his name emblazoned on federal buildings, including the Kennedy Center, his scrapping of free entry to National Parks on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and replacing it with his own birthday, his seizure of Greenland and who knows, maybe Canada, his ability to put cities, such as Minneapolis, under siege and snatch legal residents off the streets.

Dictators love elections as long as they are fixed. The dictatorships I covered in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans staged highly choreographed election spectacles. These spectacles were a cynical prop whose outcome was preordained. They were used to legitimize iron control over a captive population, mask the enrichment of the dictator, his family and his inner circle, criminalize all dissent and ban opposition political parties in the name of "the will of the people."

When Saddam Hussein held a presidential referendum in Oct. 1995, the only question on the ballot was "Do you approve of President Saddam Hussein being the President of the Republic?" Voters marked "yes" or "no." The official results saw Hussein win 99.96 percent of some 8.4 million votes cast. Turnout was reported at 99.47 percent. His counterpart in Egypt, the former general Hosni Mubarak, in 2005 was re-elected for a fifth consecutive six-year term with a more modest mandate of 88.6 percent of the vote. My less than reverential coverage of the elections held in Syria in 1991, where there was only one candidate on the ballot, President Hafez al-Assad, who reportedly got 99.9 percent of the vote, saw me banned from the country.

These spectacles are the model, I expect, for what comes next, unless Trump gets his deepest wish, which is to emulate Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia — whose security detail assassinated my colleague and friend Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul — and hold no elections at all.

Families in western North Carolina say they are being forced to vacate homes provided by FEMA after storm Helene struck in 2024. Many residents have received abrupt eviction notices, including one woman who must leave her temporary housing by 1 p.m. Tuesday.

The direct housing assistance program from FEMA offers rent-free housing for 18 months after the storm. However, residents like Ginger Hall, who has been living at the Old Fort RV park since her camper was destroyed, have been notified they must move out earlier than anticipated. Hall has documentation stating she could remain at the home in McDowell County until March 29.

Israeli farmers warn the country's agricultural export industry is facing a looming "collapse" due to international opposition to the Gaza genocide. Recent reports show the impact of boycotting Israel, and why the Israeli 'brand' may never recover.

In recent months, Israel's public broadcaster aired several reports on Israel's massive problem in exporting fruits, particularly to European markets.

The reports, which indicate what the growers themselves describe as a looming "collapse," unwittingly testify to the importance of the continuing international boycott of Israel.

Israel now finds itself alongside Russia in the "alliance of the boycotted," Israel's public broadcaster, Kan 11, said.

It's hard to trace a single party that is responsible for Israel's export problems, but Europe is a big part of the story.

A grower tells Kan 11:

"They don't want our mangoes. In Europe, they talk to us only if they're missing something. Only then do they buy from us. If they have an alternative, they avoid it."

Demonstrators interrupted services at Cities Church after online claims connected a church leader to federal immigration enforcement, as protests against ICE continue across the Twin Cities.

Protesters in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area disrupted a Sunday service at Cities Church this week after discovering online claims that one of the church's pastors also serves in a senior role with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Videos and posts circulating on social media show demonstrators chanting and speaking out inside the church as the service was underway.

According to social media posts, the pastor identified by protesters is David Easterwood, who has been listed in federal records as the Acting Field Office Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations in the Saint Paul Office of ICE. Protesters say they entered the church and interrupted the service to call attention to what they describe as an unacceptable overlap between religious leadership and immigration enforcement roles.