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Don Surber delivers his take on this week’s news items as only he can. He’ll make you think, laugh, and learn to recognize the absurdity of the media’s coverage of the news.
ITEM 1: Yahoo reported, “A Popular ED Medication Was Just Linked to a Greater Risk of Blindness in Men Over 40.’
As the movie asked, can I do it till I need glasses?
Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst reports on U.S. strikes against three Iranian oil tankers after the IRGC launched missiles at U.S. Navy warships on ‘Fox Report.’
Before America entered World War II, Uncle Sam looked at the Singer Sewing Machine Company and essentially asked, “Nice factory. Can you make a .45?” The result was just 500 Singer M1911A1 pistols—one of today’s great military-firearms collectibles. Singer wasn’t forced into gunmaking by the Defense Production Act; that law wouldn’t exist until 1950. Instead, the Army paid civilian companies to learn military production before the shooting started. It was industrial mobilization with refreshingly little mystery: you cannot surge a factory you don’t have.
The Pentagon doesn’t fight just one kind of war. Some are fought with tanks and rifles; others with spreadsheets, PowerPoint, and somebody quietly asking, “Where haven’t they spent their money yet?” Born from Robert McNamara’s 1960s-era attempt to bring rational analysis to defense spending, the POM process evolved into an institutionalized food fight where the Active Army, National Guard, and Army Reserve defend their rice bowls while hunting for everyone else’s leftovers. I happened to be pretty good at looking under the fiscal seat cushions—and somewhere, I suspect, a retired National Guard programmer still mutters my name. Welcome to the Pentagon Wars.
The Greatest Generation didn’t have Wi-Fi, DoorDash, FaceTime, scheduled port calls—or an expected return date. They had a war to win. Today’s sailors aren’t the problem; they’re products of a culture that has become extraordinarily good at eliminating discomfort. The question isn’t whether young Americans are “soft.” It’s whether America still teaches resilience before history demands it the hard way.
The Pacific Ocean doesn’t have an HR department, and the enemy doesn’t care about your deployment schedule.
I grew up during the Cold War. We were told, taught, cajoled, and force-fed that communism was evil. And it was and remains. Our politicians said so, our teachers taught us, the Church preached it, and the media warned us. History has shown it to be true. It was common knowledge.
America once produced men who wouldn’t leave the house without a sword hanging from their belt. Washington carried one. Patton designed one. West Point cadets still have them. Yet today, strap on a saber for a trip to Home Depot and suddenly you’re the weird guy. Maybe it’s time to bring back the original open carry. Swords are arms. Shall not be infringed. Support the right. Respect the right. Carry a sword.
As President Donald Trump teases hard retaliation against Iran after the two sides traded strikes over the weekend, some observers think the ‘failed regime’ believes in can outlast the U.S. and influence the outcome of the midterm elections.
Shiver me timbers. Bloomberg reported:
Arrr! The Department o’ Justice be makin’ ready to wake a long-sleepin’ prize court o’ the high seas, so as to make swift the seizin’ by the king’s men-o’-war o’ them Iranian oil tankers as Yankee prizes—so say three souls what be in on the plot.
Me mateys that means, “The Justice Department is preparing to activate a long-dormant maritime war court to streamline military capture of Iranian oil tankers as U.S. prizes, according to three people familiar with the plans.”
The Vietnam War was a landmark event of the Cold War for World and U.S. history. It was a defining dividing line for our Baby Boomer generation. It opened a split across America which came as a shock after our greatest period of national unity ever in World War II.
For us, Vietnam was personal.
America’s next battlefield may not begin with missiles, tanks, or troops crossing a border. It may begin with a transformer failure, a cyberattack, a communications outage, and a supply chain that suddenly stops supplying. The new executive order protecting America’s bulk-power system recognizes an uncomfortable reality of fifth-generation warfare: the electrical grid is now strategic terrain. Securing foreign vulnerabilities and rebuilding domestic manufacturing are important first steps—but preparing for the next war means building a nation resilient enough to keep fighting, communicating, manufacturing, and rebuilding even when somebody tries to turn the lights out.
In 1763, Fort Michilimackinac fell without an artillery barrage, a breached wall, or a prolonged siege. The Ojibwe used something far more effective: deception, surprise, a lacrosse game—and a British commander who ignored warnings that an attack was coming. What followed was one of the most audacious actions in Michigan history, preserved for us through the eyewitness account of a fur trader who somehow survived it.
Colonel Townsend Whelen spent a lifetime proving that only accurate rifles are interesting. But imagine handing him an iPhone and asking ChatGPT for a 6.5 Creedmoor load. After staring at it for thirty seconds, he’d probably ask, “What the hell is Wi-Fi?” Then he’d type, “Best accuracy load. 140 Berger. H4350. Go.” After 41 years behind a rifle, I did exactly that—and one of the best first-round load developments of my career popped out. Luck? Maybe. Or maybe AI just read a hundred years of load manuals, match reports, and internet arguments in about half a second. Either way, it didn’t pull the trigger. It just saved a little barrel life. And these days, that’s worth its weight in powder.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth upgraded the valor awards for U.S. service members who served at Abbey Gate.
If I were Dr. Evil, I wouldn’t build a death ray—I’d build three crises. Light up the Middle East, keep NATO and Russia occupied in Europe, then watch China eye Taiwan while America tries to put out three fires with one garden hose. The nightmare isn’t one enemy defeating America; it’s several adversaries realizing they don’t have to take turns.
Imagine explaining to a military planner in 1985 that the laser weapons designed to blind enemy soldiers would never become the future of warfare. During the Cold War, some experts genuinely believed that bullets would eventually give way to directed-energy weapons that would simply remove an enemy’s ability to see. Then reality intervened. It turned out that permanently blinding someone wasn’t viewed as the humanitarian breakthrough some had imagined. The battlefield stayed remarkably old-school, and the age of the battlefield ophthalmologist never quite arrived.
Imagine spending your entire life being told your country is the greatest civilization on Earth… then someone hands you a Wi-Fi password. According to a widely circulated—but unverified—report, North Korean troops may have discovered unrestricted internet access and promptly demonstrated why every dictatorship fears broadband more than bombs. Tanks can level buildings. The internet levels narratives. Somewhere, a political commissar is still trying to explain why the greatest threat to operational readiness wasn’t enemy artillery—it was the guest Wi-Fi passsord to PornHub.
Don Surber escorts us through another week of the media’s treatment what it considers news. We need this reporting on the media or we’d never know what was actually going on.
ITEM 1: The New York Times reported, “Harry and Meghan Will Move Back to Britain After 6 Years in U.S.”
Two more self-deportations for Trump (4 counting the kids).
I want to make something clear about my support for President Donald Trump. Supporting many of his policies does not mean I approve of his personality, every word that comes out of his mouth, or every person he chooses to place around him. I do not believe Christians are called to surrender their judgment to a political party, and I certainly do not believe we are supposed to turn any president into an object of devotion.
Technology has made us faster, smarter, and more capable than any generation that came before us. But somewhere along the way, we forgot an uncomfortable truth: every technological advantage eventually becomes a dependency. The Romans understood it. Napoleon understood it. The Army wrote it down more than a century ago. Use the calculator. Use the GPS. Use the ballistic computer. But never forget the skills that allow you to function when the batteries die. A truly advanced military isn’t the one that fights brilliantly when everything works. It’s the one that can still fight when nothing does.