Back in 2008, while running for the White House, Barack Obama declared that our planet is “in peril” due to climate change.

He continued, saying one of the major challenges facing the U.S. is “what we will do about our addiction to foreign oil.”

In that address, known as the “New Energy For America” speech, Obama said, “We simply cannot pretend, as Senator McCain does, that we can drill our way out of this problem.”

He went on, saying, “Breaking our oil addiction is one of the greatest challenges our generation will ever face. It will take nothing less than a complete transformation of our economy.”

In June 2013, Obama again mocked the idea of increased oil and gas drilling.

During a speech at Georgetown University, Obama introduced what he called a “new national climate action plan” that he claimed would make the U.S. “a leader — a global leader — in the fight against climate change.”

In that speech, Obama used the word “climate” two dozen times.

He claimed Congress should “end the tax breaks for big oil companies, and invest in the clean-energy companies that will fuel our future.”

The line from that speech that resonates today is this one: “We can’t just drill our way out of the energy and climate challenge that we face. That’s not possible.”

Those speeches haven’t aged well.

When the liberal media isn’t buying the Democrats’ talking points, you know they’re in trouble.

On Sunday’s edition of This Week, host Jonathan Karl walked Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) through the reality of the Democrats blocking funding for the Department of Homeland Security, and things got a little testy when Van Hollen was confronted with some uncomfortable truths

“I guess what's confusing here is you have fought and blocked the funding for the Department of Homeland Security because you object, as you just outlined, to what ICE has been doing, and you wanted to force changes,” Karl said. “And yet, the only thing that has been assured throughout all of this is that ICE already has the money. Because, as you said, $75 billion passed in the budget bill last year.”

This isn’t new information; we’ve known for months now that ICE is funded through 2029, which made this standoff completely pointless, not to mention dangerous and reckless.

Karl pressed the point further, spelling it out in plain English. “So you're holding up the entirety of the Department of Homeland Security because you object to ICE, and you want changes to ICE,” he said. “Through it all, ICE continues to have the money it needs.”

…Then Van Hollen had the audacity to claim, “We're not holding it up.”

There are chapters in American history that demand to be written not in ink, but in fire.

The Obama administration, cloaked in the sanctimony of intellectualism and the false patina of moral superiority, unleashed a corrosive strain of political malice that did not dissipate with the passage of time.

It metastasized.

It deepened through the first Trump administration, calcified under the Biden presidency, and even now its vestiges linger like a stubborn contagion within the body politic.

This was not governance. This was something far more insidious; a slow moving institutional rot. And now, at long last, the day of accountability may be coming.

On March 19, 2026, in a development that has sent tremors through the upper echelons of the intelligence and law enforcement establishment, former FBI Director James Comey received a federal grand jury subpoena from prosecutors in the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the Southern District of Florida (SDFL).

The timing, reported since March 3, 2026, is no accident. Nor is the venue incidental.

This subpoena seeks documents related to Comey’s role in the drafting and assembling of the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), the now infamous report that asserted Russia collusion hoax in the 2016 election to benefit Donald Trump.

Not testimony. Not yet. Documents. Paper trails.

The quiet architecture of decisions made behind closed doors.

This is not an isolated inquiry. It is part of a sprawling investigation that has already issued more than 130 subpoenas since 2025. As a nation we must all pause and ask a question that cuts to the marrow: What exactly are prosecutors looking for that requires such breadth and persistence?

There is a small but vocal strain of “America Only” commentary that endlessly repeats a falsehood: “We get nothing from our aid to Israel.”

Au contraire, mon frère.

The truth is, America’s alliance with Israel is not a favor or a handout. It is a major pillar of American strength.

It’s a strategic investment, an extraordinarily inexpensive way for the United States to buy intelligence, military innovation, strategic reach, regional leverage, and a reliable democratic ally in the most dangerous and unstable region on earth.

Even if you strip away every moral, cultural, religious, historical, and civilizational consideration — and there are many — the U.S.-Israeli alliance would make overwhelming sense on the coldest possible national-interest grounds.

Israel is not merely an ally. It is a force multiplier. It makes American power cheaper, smarter, and more effective than it could be otherwise.

And that points to something larger still. Israel is not just a valuable ally. It is the prototype ofTrump’s vision for the rest of our alliances.

How fortunate Massachusetts is to have Bill Galvin!

After almost a half-century in politics, the 75-year-old secretary of state would like nothing better than to close his long career as an elected official and enjoy a comfortable and lucrative retirement.

He has already served a record-setting eight consecutive terms in his current position as the Commonwealth’s chief elections officer and record keeper.

Since Galvin’s tenure as secretary of state began in 1995, Beacon Hill has cycled through seven governors, five House speakers, and seven Senate presidents. Galvin has easily dispatched every challenger, cruising to reelection every four years.

After so many decades in public life, Galvin is amply entitled to let someone else take over the responsibilities of secretary of state.

But this selfless warrior, knowing that there is no one else in Massachusetts who can defend the state’s interests properly, refuses to abandon his post.

“To leave a battlefield in the middle of a battle, it’s something I’m not going to do,” Galvin declared last month, announcing his campaign for a ninth term that would keep him in office through 2031.

That battle seems to never end. When he ran for reelection in 2018, Galvin told the Globe’s editorial board that it was probably the last time.

Four years later, he was back on the ballot for another term — but he made it clear that it would be his last hurrah. “I am certainly done here with this job,” he assured my former colleague Scot Lehigh in 2022.

Alas, circumstances are always conspiring to keep him at his post.

Galvin is hardly an exception. Indeed, he’s practically a role model. The inability to relinquish power is among the most reliable constants in American politics.

There was a very interesting article in European Business Magazine last Friday. This extensive quote explains what's been happening:

For over 300 years, Lloyd’s of London has underwritten maritime insurance for the tankers and cargo ships that carry the world’s oil, gas, and goods.

Its dominance over the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow chokepoint through which approximately 30% of the world’s seaborne oil supply passes — represented one of the most quietly powerful financial monopolies in history.

Control the insurance, and you control who can sail. Control who can sail, and you control the flow of energy that powers the global economy.

Then Iran’s attacks on Gulf shipping spiked maritime insurance rates by 400% overnight. Lloyd’s panicked. Coverage was pulled. 

The energy market consequences of the Iran conflict had just produced an entirely unexpected second-order effect — and into the vacuum stepped America.

The 48-Hour Shift

Within 48 hours of Lloyd’s withdrawal, two things happened simultaneously.

The US Navy, operating through US Naval Forces Central Command, expanded its escort operations across the Gulf — effectively offering the physical protection that insurance underwrites.

And American insurers began moving to replace Lloyd’s coverage entirely, stepping into a market that British financial infrastructure had monopolised since the reign of William III.

The Crown’s 300-year chokehold on global energy insurance was severed — not by war, not by sanctions, but by filling a vacuum created by an institution that blinked at the wrong moment.

Britain is an island.

An island trading power does not get to treat sea power as optional.

It does not get to assume that trade routes, undersea cables, overseas territories, distant bases, and maritime deterrence will somehow take care of themselves.

And it certainly does not get to discover, in the middle of an actual crisis, that it has preserved more brass than ships.

Yet that is where Britannia is today. She no longer rules the waves, not even in junior partnership with the United States. She can barely put to sea.

The Royal Navy’s escort fleet is down to just 13 destroyers and frigates, only a handful of which are actually usable at any given time. Britain began the year with only seven frigates in service, one already in deep maintenance, with only around four effectively available.

For shameful perspective, the last official parliamentary count showed 41 admirals across Navy Command, the Ministry of Defence, other government service, and NATO. The Navy’s headquarters culture is robust, the brass is plentiful, and the fighting fleet is vanishing.

That’s not a statistic. It’s an indictment.

Nor is it merely Britain’s problem.

Britain is not some modest continental state freeriding quietly under somebody else’s umbrella.

It sits astride the North Atlantic approaches.

It anchors the GIUK Gap.

It is a nuclear power, a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council, and a nation with sovereign territories scattered across the globe.

It is supposed to be, alongside the United States, the premier maritime power in NATO.

Instead, it has spent decades dismantling the material basis of that role while continuing to speak as if the role still existed.