The Conservative Cave

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is right to classify a proposed wealth tax in woke California as essentially theft of private property.

The Founding Fathers were not fans of income taxes, but they were particularly opposed to our unjust graduated or “progressive” income tax system where success is punished and discouraged with inflated taxes. The wealth tax California Democrats want would be even worse. You’d think even Democrats would eventually realize they are driving all business and wealth out of their state, but they seem to have zero learning curve.

Ackman is not a resident of California, but his critique is valid nonetheless. California is facing an $18 billion budget deficit, and instead of cutting its many freebies for illegal aliens and boondoggle projects like the high-speed rail that never materializes, Democrats want to spend drunkenly and just steal more of their taxpayers’ money. No wonder so many people and businesses move out of California.

In an X post last week, Ackman wrote, “On the topic of billionaires and wealth taxes in California, I am opposed to wealth taxes because they effectively represent an expropriation of private property and have many unintended and negative consequences that have occurred in every country that has launched such a tax.”

The Minnesota governor abandoned his reelection campaign due to the thinnest of right-wing stories about fraudulent childcare centers.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has abandoned his 2026 reelection campaign. In his announcement Monday, Walz pointed to right-wing conspiracy theories about the state’s Somali immigrant community as having played a part in his decision. It has been nine years since Pizzagate, and yet such conspiracy theories have gotten worse—and as they have further eroded many people’s sense of shared political reality, combating them has only become harder.   Late in December, YouTuber Nick Shirley recorded himself going to several childcare centers in Minnesota, an attempt to “prove” that Somali immigrants have been using the centers to steal public money. When Shirley showed up, at least one childcare center did not open its door, one owner said, “because we thought it was ICE.” The resulting video was quickly rebutted and fact-checked: The state’s Department of Children reported the childcare centers he descended upon were “operating as expected.” It didn’t matter. By then, the video had millions of views, and the childcare center “fraud” narrative had become part of the right-wing cable news cycle of anti-immigrant grievance and cruelty. Workers at the childcare facilities Shirley targeted said they had received “hateful” and “threatening” messages. One day care center reported a break-in, and sensitive documents were found missing.

Earl is a complete idiot

For the billionth time: Trump has been the one drawing attention to the Epstein files all these years, even making it a campaign issue.