It's Cartoon/Meme Time! #476c

It's Cartoon/Meme Time! #476b

It's Cartoon/Meme Time! #476a

GOP Senator Just Hit the Brakes on the House's Amnesty Push for Haitians

More than a dozen Republican traitors in the House voted yesterday to extend Temporary Protected Status to hundreds of thousands of Haitians. There were cheers on the House floor, but this isn’t a unicameral legislative body, folks. The Senate has to approve, and they’re not going to do it. 

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) just told the panicans in the House their amnesty victory is short-lived—The Senate isn’t backing this motion:

The Senate will not expand TPS. The House’s bill is an insult to the millions of people patiently waiting in line & a tacit approval of Biden’s border invasion where TPS became de facto amnesty. Republicans will not continue to allow wage suppressing illegal migration to destroy working Americans with high prices, healthcare shortages, housing scarcity, and degradation of our social safety nets.

I’m sorry, guys—this is a dead end. 

I don’t want to hear sob stories or excuses—I don’t care. Illegal aliens are being sent back. If anyone is to blame, it’s Joe Biden, whose open border policies created this chaos deliberately. It was meant to entrap people into these stories.

Nope. Au revoir.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2026/04/17/gop-senator-warns-tps-extension-for-haitians-isnt-passing-the-senate-n2674663

Leading From The Rear: Macron and Starmer Announce Hormuz Mission After Trump Opens It

European leaders continued their talks on the Iran war on Friday, this time considering a future mission to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which saw President Trump announce the strategic waterway open as the group spoke in Paris.

Britain’s Sir Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Fredrich Merz, and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni met in Paris on Friday to host a virtual conference with 50 countries discuss a theoretical future military deployment to the Persian Gulf to ensure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic bottleneck through which a fifth of global seaborne oil is traded in normal times. Yet the wind was taken out of the mega-conference’s sails, somewhat, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced he’d already reopened the Strait while the conference was ongoing.

Starmer moved to recover the initiative after the meeting broke, saying “We welcome the announcement that was made during our meeting”, but stating “we” not need to “make sure that that is both a lasting and a workable proposal”. President Trump having come to an understanding with Tehran “if anything” proves the need for Europe to talk about potentially deploying their navies one day, he said.

To View Social Media

View on twitter.com

The language from the European leaders remained cautious. As noted by the Associated Press, Macron said after the meeting that talking about the Strait would continue, and that they had another meeting planned for next week. Starmer said any mission would be “strictly peaceful and defensive, as a mission to reassure commercial shipping and support mine clearance” and emphasised this mission would only begin “as soon as conditions allow”.

Starmer and his European colleagues have been clear this means well after the war is over and there is no longer any threat to their navies, somewhat leaving the question open over what the mission actually hopes to achieve.

U.S. President Donald Trump pointed to this contradiction of a peacekeeping mission that would only deploy to a peaceful Middle East. He wrote on Friday: “Now that the Hormuz Strait situation is over, I received a call from NATO asking if we would need some help. I TOLD THEM TO STAY AWAY, UNLESS THEY JUST WANT TO LOAD UP THEIR SHIPS WITH OIL. They were useless when needed, a Paper Tiger!”.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/04/17/leading-from-the-rear-macron-and-starmer-announce-hormuz-mission-after-trump-opens-it/

Property Taxes Invert the Moral Order of Ownership

True reform means cutting them now and eliminating them over time.

A property deed should mean ownership, not a renewable lease from the government. 

Yet that is what property taxes amount to in practice. A family can earn the income, buy the home, pay off the mortgage, maintain and improve the property, and still owe the government every year merely to retain possession of it. Miss enough payments, and the state can seize the property. That may be common. It is not normal in any morally serious sense.

That is why the standard economist’s line that property taxes are the “least bad tax” has always missed the deeper problem. The issue is not only economic efficiency in the abstract. It is whether a free society should tolerate a tax that permanently weakens ownership, punishes stewardship, ignores ability to pay, funds excessive spending, and treats citizens as perpetual tenants of the state. From a taxpayer’s perspective, and from a classical liberal, constitutional view of limited government, the answer should be no.

Our core humanity consists of responsibility, work, and the right to enjoy the fruits of honest labor. Property ownership flows from that principle. What people build, buy, improve, and care for should be theirs to keep. Property taxes invert that moral order. They place governments above the owner and convert secure ownership into conditional possession.

An Old Tax With a Long Record of Failure

Property taxes are not merely flawed in their current iteration. They are an old tax with a long history of administrative failure and political abuse.

In early America, taxing visible property was convenient because land and buildings were easier to identify than income or financial assets. But convenience is not justice. Over time, states expanded the old general property tax into a supposed tax on nearly all forms of wealth.

It sounded fair in theory. In practice, it became arbitrary and unworkable. As the economy modernized, wealth became more mobile, financial, and complex. Local assessors could not reliably find it, value it, or tax it evenly. Real estate, however, stayed put. So governments kept taxing what they could easily see and seize.

The history of property taxation in the United States shows the pattern clearly: what began as a supposedly broad and equal tax became increasingly narrow, uneven, and disconnected from any real measure of ability to pay. That problem never went away. Today’s system still leans heavily on immovable property because homes, land, and buildings cannot flee the jurisdiction.

In Texas, where I reside, the system became so contentious and inconsistent that lawmakers eventually created central appraisal districts and related review structures to standardize valuations. That did not make property taxes elegant. It merely professionalized the bureaucracy around appraisals, protests, hearings, and litigation.

Property taxes are not a simple tax. They are an elaborate administrative machine for guessing values and then fighting about them.

Property Taxes Violate the Meaning of Ownership

The core case against property taxes is moral rather than economic.

Property is the foundation of liberty because it protects the individual’s right to control what they earn, save, buy, and build through voluntary exchange. That right creates independence, responsibility, and the ability to form families, build communities, and leave a legacy. A government strong enough to tax ownership forever is a government already reaching beyond its proper role.

Defenders say property taxes help fund local services. Roads, police, and courts are not free. But that does not justify an annual tax on mere ownership. Governments exist to protect life, liberty, and property, not to establish a permanent claim on property once acquired. A tax that says, in effect, “pay us every year or lose your home” is not a neutral funding mechanism. It is legalized extortion.

That is why my research on securing ownership through property tax reform starts from a different place than much of the standard literature. The usual conversation begins with the government budget and asks how to preserve it. I begin with the taxpayer and ask what kind of tax system best protects ownership, respects the constitutional limits of government, and lets people prosper. On that test, property taxes fail badly.

The Tax Is Inefficient, Costly, and Detached From the Ability to Pay

Property taxes are often defended as stable and efficient. Stable for government, maybe. Efficient for taxpayers, not even close.

They require appraisal districts, valuation models, protest procedures, review boards, appeals, compliance staff, and legal disputes. That is a costly way to raise revenue. A broad consumption tax on final goods and services is not perfect, but it is generally more transparent and less administratively invasive than a recurring tax on ownership filtered through appraisal bureaucracies. And to be clear, the better alternative is not a value-added tax (VAT). The superior choice is a tax on final consumption, not a tax layered throughout production chains, and not a tax piled on top of property taxes forever.

Property taxes are also disconnected from the ability to pay. Income taxes apply when income is earned. Sales taxes apply when purchases are made. Property taxes arrive whether someone got a raise, lost a job, retired, or suffered a financial setback. A rising appraisal does not mean a family has more cash. It just means the government sees a larger tax base. That is why retirees and fixed-income households get squeezed so hard. They can be asset-rich on paper and cash-poor in real life.

Milton Friedman and many other economists in the free-market tradition preferred taxes on consumption over taxes that punish productive activity, investment, or saving. Property taxes do exactly that: they punish ownership itself. They are not neutral. They discourage improvement, raise the cost of holding property, and hit people for simply staying put.

Highly Regressive in the Real World

The standard defense of property taxes also downplays their regressive nature in practice.

Lower- and middle-income households spend a greater share of their budgets on housing. Renters bear a significant portion of the burden through higher rents. Businesses pass along property tax costs through higher prices, lower wages, and reduced investment. And assessments can be regressive, meaning lower-value homes may bear a higher effective tax rate than more expensive properties.

Then there are the behavioral distortions. Property taxes create lock-in effects, where people stay in homes that no longer fit their needs because moving means a new assessment and often a higher bill, driving up prices for everyone else. They also create push-out effects, in which seniors and lower-income residents are forced from homes they have already paid off because taxes rise too quickly for them to absorb. At the same time, they make it harder for people to purchase a home. That is a rotten combination. It punishes staying, moving, and buying. All things that typical regressivity calculations cannot easily compute, thereby making property taxes much more regressive than those calculations suggest.

Stable Revenue for Government Means Endless Revenue for Government

One reason property taxes remain so popular with officials is that they are a wonderfully stable way to finance bigger government.

That stability is often praised as a virtue. But stable revenue for the government is not the same thing as stability for households. It simply means politicians have a dependable stream of money to keep spending. Local officials can hold nominal rates steady while appraisals rise and collections swell, then pretend they never raised taxes. That is not transparency. It is camouflage.

The real driver of the property tax problem is not undertaxation. It is overspending. 

This is why so many so-called reforms disappoint. Levy limits, appraisal caps, homestead exemptions, and rebates may slow the growth of the burden for a while, but without strict spending restraint, they do not change the underlying trajectory. Kansas and Texas have both tried versions of these limitations, and property taxes remain a major problem because spending has continued to grow and loopholes have remained.

Levy Limits Can Help, but Only if They Are Truly Tough

This is where the debate needs more honesty.

Yes, property tax growth can be limited with levy caps. But most caps are too weak, too narrow, or too easy to bypass. A serious limit should apply to all property, with no carveouts, no games, and no exemptions that merely shift burdens around.

The right standard is simple: zero percent levy growth in all property taxes collected unless a supermajority of voters explicitly approves more. Even then, truth-in-taxation rules should require that rates fall automatically when values rise, unless voters say otherwise.

That is a good guardrail. But even a strict levy limit mostly slows the growth of property taxes. It does not reduce them meaningfully on its own. People do not want a slower climb up the hill. They want the burden reduced. That is where my budget surplus buydown approach comes in.

The Best Path: Spend Less, Use Surpluses, Buy Down the Tax

Real property tax reduction should start with a hard spending limit below population growth plus inflation for state and local governments, not as a target but as a ceiling.

When government spending grows more slowly than the average taxpayer’s ability to pay, as measured by population growth plus inflation, budget surpluses emerge. Those surpluses should not be used for new programs, bigger bureaucracies, or one-time political goodies. They should automatically go to reducing property tax rates.

This surplus-driven buydown is a sustainable path to durable relief. It is predictable, pro-growth, and fiscally disciplined. It allows taxes to come down without sudden budget shocks. And unlike gimmicks, it works because it directly reduces the government’s claim on property.

At the state level, the first priority should be school district maintenance-and-operations (M&O) property taxes, because states already control most school finance systems. That is the obvious place to start.

States should use surpluses generated above strict spending caps to buy down school district M&O rates until they reach zero. That can also support a transition toward truly universal education savings accounts, where money follows students rather than being routed through district monopolies. 

Yes, state constitutions still generally require some form of schooling system, and that language is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. But nothing in that reality requires permanent dependence on school district property taxes.

Local governments should use the same surplus-buydown model to reduce city, county, and special district property taxes until they reach zero as well. The logic is the same: spend less, generate surpluses, and use those surpluses to compress rates downward over time.

Could this be accelerated? Yes. States and localities could also broaden the sales tax base to include more final goods and services, and even raise the rate if needed, to replace property taxes more quickly.

But the key is not the exact mix. The key is spending limits. Without strict limits, any tax swap just funds the same bloated government through a different collection method.

The Goal Should Be Elimination

My argument runs counter to much of the conventional wisdom because it starts with the taxpayer, not the tax collector. From a constitutional perspective, the government’s role is limited. It should protect rights, not build endless revenue structures around violating them. 

From a pro-growth perspective, income taxes are more destructive and should be eliminated where possible. But after income taxes are gone, property taxes should be next. They are more coercive than a sales tax on final consumption, less connected to the ability to pay, more administratively wasteful, and more corrosive to secure ownership.

That is why more states are now reconsidering them. As my work shows, lawmakers and commissions in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Wyoming are debating reforms ranging from modest relief to full elimination. They should aim higher than temporary relief.

Property taxes are arcane. They are immoral. They are inefficient. They are highly regressive once all effects are counted. They fund excessive spending and never let people fully own what they have earned. A free society should not settle for trimming them at the margins forever. It should start reducing them now through strict spending limits and surplus buydowns, and it should put in place a serious path to eliminating them for good.

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/property-taxes-invert-the-moral-order-of-ownership/

Charlie Kirk case stalls as accused shooter delays plea and eyes media limits

Erika Kirk, Charlie's widow, asked the court to safeguard media access and conduct a speedy trial

PROVO, Utah - Charlie Kirk's suspected assassin Tyler Robinson is back in court Friday for a hearing on his defense team's motion to exclude news cameras and delay next month's preliminary hearing months after he allegedly killed the conservative icon in front of thousands at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.

Robinson's attorneys and prosecutors spent the first portion of the hearing arguing over whether to delay next month's hearing. His attorneys said they have not had enough time to go over the evidence and prepare, while prosecutors said a delay is unnecessary and laid out four categories that the evidence will be broken into.

Utah 4th District Court Judge Tony Graf established a strict schedule Friday, limiting both sides to 30 minutes to argue for a potential delay of next month's preliminary hearing. 

Following that motion, the court will allocate two hours per side for arguments and witness testimony concerning media access in the courtroom. Graf said that the court will briefly close to the public during a midday recess before allowing the state to present its case and the media to offer a 15-minute response. 

Tyler Robinson and defense attorney Kathryn Nester in 4th District Court in Provo on Friday, April 17, 2026 during a hearing for Robinson, accused in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk. 

A final ruling will be issued at a later date via WebEx to allow the court time to fully review the evidentiary record, he said.

Robinson arrived at the courthouse in an armored vehicle with a police escort shortly before 9 a.m. local time Friday. Fox News Digital observed 14 armed SWAT members arriving, including snipers on the roofs around the courthouse.

Robinson, with shackles on his wrist, was seen smiling and talking with his lead attorney, Kathryn "Kathy" Nester. Robinson's parents were also in court Friday, looking tense. 

Video

Tyler Robinson, left, is accused of fatally shooting Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, right, at a public speaking event at Utah Valley University in September. 

Defense attorney Richard Novak began the hearing by arguing that Robinson’s preliminary hearing must be delayed because the prosecution has failed to turn over critical digital DNA data held by the FBI and ATF. Novak said that proceeding without this "raw data" violates Robinson’s constitutional rights and prevents the defense from verifying the reliability of the state’s scientific evidence.

"We're not asking somebody to go looking for a needle in a haystack," Novak said. "We know that these data files exist because we have summary FBI and ATF reports summarizing the data analysis that go all the way back to September."

During Novak's opening statement, Robinson's parents, Matt and Amber, listened quietly; his mother fidgeted in her seat directly behind him.

Prosecutor Ryan McBride laid out a massive "mountain of proof" against the suspected assassin, arguing that a six-month delay requested by the defense is unnecessary because the state’s evidence already far exceeds the legal bar for trial.

McBride identified four distinct pillars of evidence, including surveillance footage of a "limping" Robinson with a rifle down his pants, saying that it was "clearly him," matching political "etchings" on ammunition found at both the scene and Robinson's home, and multiple written confessions stating he "took the opportunity" to kill Kirk. 

He further detailed DNA matches from both the FBI and ATF on the weapon and a nearby screwdriver, arguing that these "astronomical odds" of a match create a mountain of proof that far exceeds the legal requirement for probable cause.

Defense attorney Richard Novak in 4th District Court in Provo on Friday, April 17, 2026 during a hearing for Tyler Robinson, accused in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk.

The prosecution's narrative met immediate resistance from the gallery, where Robinson's mother, Amber, was seen leaning over to a family member to whisper, "He was not wearing shorts," as McBride described surveillance video from the University of Utah that allegedly showed Robinson.

"Justice delayed is justice denied," McBride said, arguing that a lengthy continuance would infringe on the victim's right to a speedy trial while witness memories fade.

Novak characterized the state's production as "gigantic and voluminous," telling the court that his lawyers haven't finished reading the thousands of pages of discovery already sitting on their desks.

"Have we had a reasonable time to do so? No," Novak told the judge.

Graf questioned how the state’s proposal to use "forensic hearsay reports" without providing underlying data could satisfy the "heightened standard of reliability" required by the Eighth Amendment in a capital case.

"I don't think that just because it's a capital case, you throw, you know, the baby out with the bathwater here," McBride said, arguing that while the court should be rigorous, the rules of evidence do not change because the death penalty is at stake.

Judge Tony Graf in 4th District Court in Provo on Friday, April 17, 2026 during a hearing for Tyler Robinson, accused in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk.

Following a short break, defense attorney Staci Visser told Graf that they need "at least four months to finish processing" the evidence that they've been given. During the defense's bid for more time, Amber Robinson was nodding her head in agreement.

"We're dealing with dozens of law enforcement agencies, hundreds of reports," she said.

Robinson's lead defense attorney argued that she needs additional time, revealing that they have not yet seen the gun used to kill Kirk on September 10, 2025, and they have not been able to get into Robinson's phone.

"We still have never seen the gun. The gun is at Quantico, so we've never been able to look at the gun. I actually think that's really important," she said. "I also have not been able to get into my client's phone, the electronics that we have, required an expert to because they're so massive, we had to all get these huge hard drives shipped to us from our digital expert. I have not looked at my client's phone, and that concerns me, especially because the states indicated they may call individuals, uniquely connected to my client."

Nester noted that she had been working on another trial, notably the recent trial for Kouri Richins, the Utah children’s book author accused of poisoning her husband with a fentanyl-laced drink before publishing a book about grief for their children. Richins was recently found guilty in March. 

We still have never seen the gun. The gun is at Quantico

— Kathryn Nester, Tyler Robinson's Lead Defense Attorney

Judge Tony Graf in 4th District Court in Provo on Friday, April 17, 2026 during a hearing for Tyler Robinson, accused in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk.

Graf has already allowed a news camera to be present for the hearing, under the condition that it does not record any private conversations or the faces of Robinson's family, which is expected to sit in the front row of the courtroom.

Defense attorney Michael Burt informed the court that the defense would call two witnesses – social psychologist Dr. Edelman and Dr. Christina Rouva – to support their motion, condensing the original plan for three witnesses to save time. Edelman has worked on a number of major cases, including playing a role in Bryan Kohberger's successful motion for a change of venue in the Idaho student murders and the trial of Buffalo supermarket mass shooter Payton Gendron.

Dr. Edelman said that the news coverage on the Kirk assassination and Robinson was widespread and included "sensationalized" media content. 

During Edelman's presentation, the court heard several clips from NBC News, ABC News, CNN, KSTU-TV and Fox News.

During the ABC News clip, Amber Robinson teared and held a tissue. Tyler Robinson sat watching, with no visible reaction. As the court moved to watch the KSTU-TV segment, Tyler Robinson appeared to begin fidgeting, with one of his hands moving and rubbing his fingers back and forth. 

Deputy Utah County Attorney Ryan McBride in 4th District Court in Provo on Friday, April 17, 2026 during a hearing for Tyler Robinson, accused in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk. 

Burt presented several declarations from witnesses expressing privacy concerns, including a prosecution witness who objected to being televised.

"There are over 3,000 witnesses," Burt said, noting the difficulty of surveying every individual. "We have not been able to survey any of them except the two that we're providing to the court in terms of whether they have privacy concerns."

Deputy Utah County Attorney Chad Grunander in 4th District Court in Provo on Friday, April 17, 2026 during a hearing for Tyler Robinson, accused in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk.

Cole Christiansen, an investigator with the Utah County Attorney’s Office, testified that national media coverage of the case has not been one-sided. When asked by state prosecutors if the electronic coverage was generally negative toward Robinson, Christiansen replied that the tone "went both ways."

"I think the tone of it went both ways. I think some of the tone of it was negative toward the prosecution and some of it was negative toward the defense as well. Some of it was negative toward Erika Kirk, and some of it was negative toward Charlie Kirk," he said.

Next, Dr. Christine Ruva, PhD., a professor and campus chair of psychology at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee who researches jury decision-making and pretrial publicity, discussed the impacts of negative pretrial publicity.

"What I reviewed was predominantly anti-defendant," she said.

Erika Kirk appears emotional after President Donald Trump posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to her late husband Charlie Kirk, in the Rose Garden of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. 

Erika Kirk, Charlie's 37-year-old widow and the designated victim's representative, has asked the court to safeguard meaningful media access as the case plays out. Two groups of local and national media outlets, one of which includes Fox News, have also asked the court to allow cameras to remain.

Robinson is accused of shooting Kirk during a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University in September 2025. He allegedly climbed to a rooftop across the courtyard from where Kirk was speaking and fired a single shot from his grandfather's Mauser rifle.

Bystander video shows the bullet struck Kirk in the neck — in front of a crowd of roughly 3,000 people. He died from the injury. Surveillance video shows a man in dark clothing dropping down from the far side of the building running off campus.

Charlie Kirk throws a "Make America Great Again" hat to the crowd at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025 in Orem, Utah. Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was speaking at his "American Comeback Tour" when he was shot in the neck and killed.

Prosecutors have said campus police found marks left behind on the gravel rooftop moments after the shooting "consistent with a sniper having lain [there] — impressions in the gravel potentially left by the elbows, knees and feet of a person in a prone shooting position." They also found the suspected murder weapon in the woods in the direction the suspect ran.

Prosecutors have said that text messages between Robinson and his romantic partner, Lance Twiggs, allegedly discuss wanting to retrieve the weapon.

"Stuck in Orem for a little while longer yet," Robinson allegedly wrote in the hours after the murder. "Shouldn't be long until I can come home, but I gotta grab my rifle still."

People run after shots were fired during an appearance by Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025, in Orem, Utah. Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was speaking on his "American Comeback Tour" when he was shot in the neck and killed. 

Twiggs is cooperating with investigators and has not been charged with a crime.

Robinson could face the death penalty if convicted of the top charge against him, aggravated murder. He is also accused of felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and committing a violent offense in the presence of a child.

Charlie Kirk was a conservative activist who led Turning Point USA.

Kirk, 31, was a married father of two.

A preliminary hearing, in which prosecutors will have to show probable cause for bringing the case, is scheduled for next month. It's already been put off repeatedly in the wake of Robinson's arrest in September 2025.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/charlie-kirk-case-stalls-accused-shooter-delays-plea-eyes-media-limits