MMN Editor

Virginia’s Democratic Governor, Abigail Spanberger, took credit for billions in economic achievements secured under her GOP predecessor, earning her backlash from Republican leaders and their representatives running the state before she got there. Spanberger touted signing legislation that authorized four separate investments from the aerospace, energy, and pharmaceutical industries earlier this week. The investments, according to a press release from Spanberger’s office, would welcome 3,250 new jobs and $7.1 billion in business investment to the state. “From my very first day in office, I have been working to create a stable business environment so companies can hire, expand, and continue to invest in our Commonwealth,” Spanberger said in her press release. “I am signing these bills into law so we can continue to grow Virginia’s economy and create opportunities for Virginians.”However, Spanberger’s signature was effectively just a formality, as the deals she touted were part of Youngkin’s broader push to spur economic development as governor of Virginia, which included a record of $156 billion in total CEO commitments during his term. As he was exiting office, the former GOP governor garnered more than the previous six gubernatorial administrations combined,  according to a press release from Youngkin’s team.BIDEN ALLY TELLS SPANBERGER TO EXIT ‘BUNKER’ AS EX-GOV RENEWS DEBATE PUSH”She’s trying to take credit for somebody else’s work,” former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares told Fox News Digital. “In grade school we call that cheating.””The last three months have been nothing but horrible news for Virginians as Abigail Spanberger broke every single promise she made on the campaign trail and now has the lowest approval rating of any Virginia governor this century,” added Youngkin spokesperson Justin Discigil. “Governor Youngkin is happy that Virginians are being reminded of some good news, even if it means Gov. Spanberger taking credit for the economic deals he secured for the Commonwealth.”Spanberger did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the matter. WHO IS ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, AND WHY DID DEMOCRATS CHOOSE HER FOR TO THEIR STATE OF THE UNION RESPONSE?The four bills she signed, which with her signature authorized the awards, were announced during Youngkin’s term as governor. The first, HB 1531, allocates $537 million to aerospace company Avio USA and is expected to create over 1,500 jobs. The award, according to public reports at the time, was announced in December 2025. The next bill, HB 799, will allocate $457 million and is expected to create over 825 jobs. This award was announced by Youngkin in September 2025. HB 800, allocating over $2 billion to pharmacuetical manufacturer Eli Lilly and expected to create more than 450 jobs to manufacture the active ingredient in major cancer, autoimmune and other advanced drugs, was announced in September 2025 as well. Meanwhile, rounding out the handful of investments touted by Spanberger this week was HB 1076, which invested $4 billion into pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and is expected to create around 500 jobs. That commitment was announced in October 2025.”Attracting new businesses and jobs to Virginia is a core focus of my administration — and I’m proud of the hundreds of millions of dollars in investment we have already announced this year,” Spanberger continued in her press release this week announcing the Virginia investments. “I look forward to continuing to work with legislators, local communities, and business leaders as we make clear that Virginia is the top state in the nation to grow or start a business.”In a background section of the press release, the announcement continues touting Spanberger’s commitment to growing Virginia’s economy.FORMER VIRGINIA GOV GLENN YOUNGKIN HINTS AT POLITICAL FUTURE, SAYS HE’S ‘CHOMPING AT THE BIT’ AFTER EXIT”My simple message for Abigail Spanberger is, to quote Elizabeth Warren, ‘You didn’t build that!’” Sean Kennedy, president of Virginians for Safe Communities, said. “Spanberger has to take credit for her Republican predecessor’s accomplishments bringing jobs to Virginia because her policies are actually raising taxes, killing jobs, and hiking energy costs. Spanberger has to play make believe that she is delivering on her affordability agenda to impress the 2028 Democratic Party kingmakers. I expect that Spanberger will nevertheless persist in her false claims.”Critics of Spanberger have questioned the moderate campaign message she campaigned on, as well as her economic strategy, which has included ushering in new taxes in the state despite campaigning on a message of affordability.”Abigail Spanberger’s first 100 days in office have been a disaster when it comes to economic development, argued Miyares, who lost to current Democratic Attorney General Jay Jones in November. Jones infamously called for the murder of his GOP rival, something that ultimately did not matter enough for voters as he and Spanberger came out victorious in November. “Three pillars of a good business environment is a good tax environment, a good regulatory environment and an environment that – from a litigation perspective – is not anti-business. Spanberger has already indicated and done a rash of bills that will make Virginia less competitive. Virginia does not compete by itself, we compete with 49 other sates, and Spanberger seems hellbent to hurt us with her tax, regulatory and litigation.” Miyares added that he was aware of multiple Virginia businesses that former Governor Youngkin had recruited and were thinking about expanding in Virginia, but will no longer do so as a result of Spanberger’s policies. He also pointed out that Spanberger “does not believe in energy abundance” despite touting energy infrastructure investments this week. “I find it in some ways laughable and pathetic what she is attempting to do,” Miyares said.”Abigail Spanberger inherited a $2.7 billion surplus and benefitted from hundreds of thousands of new jobs created under Republican leadership,” the Virginia GOP added in February, in response to headlines about rising Virginia unemployment numbers. “Her and her Democrat allies are squandering it all in a matter of weeks while breaking every promise they made on ‘affordability.’”

Is The Dollar Collapsing? 8 Key Indicators You Can’t Ignore

Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

There are eight key indicators to watch as the US government falls deeper into the self-perpetuating debt spiral.

Indicator #1: Federal Budget Deficits

The chart below shows the actual and projected federal budget deficits.

It’s important to note that these projections rest on the ridiculous assumption that there will be no wars, recessions, or other events that drive additional federal spending. That assumption is already out the window with the Iran war: the Pentagon has requested an additional $200 billion, for starters.

Even with this rosy and unrealistic forecast, the US government is projected to run a cumulative deficit of over $22 trillion over the next ten years—deficits that will have to be financed by issuing more debt, a significant share of which will likely be bought by the Federal Reserve with “money” it creates out of thin air.

Indicator #2: The Federal Debt

The federal debt has exceeded $39 trillion, representing more than 124% of GDP.

It’s important to remember that GDP is a flawed statistic. For example, it counts government spending as a positive. A more honest measure would count government spending as a big negative, as it compounds the debt spiral. In the US, government spending accounts for at least 37% of GDP.

In other words, the amount of debt relative to the productive economy is much more than the official numbers suggest.

Indicator #3: The Federal Interest Expense

Annualized interest on the federal debt exceeds $1.2 trillion and is surging higher. That means more than 23% of federal tax revenue is going just to service interest on the existing debt.

The interest cost on the federal debt is already the US government’s second-largest outlay. It’s set to exceed Social Security and become the biggest federal expenditure in a matter of months.

Indicator #4: The Federal Funds Rate and the 10-Year Treasury Yield

Whenever discussing the Fed or central banks, it’s essential to keep the basics in mind.

You have to start with the most fundamental concept: central planning doesn’t work. That’s the first principle.

Central planning of shoes doesn’t work. Central planning of wheat doesn’t work. And central planning of (fake) money doesn’t work.

Central banks in general—and the Fed in particular—are on a mission impossible. They don’t know what the interest rate should be. Nobody does. That’s something only a voluntary market of savers and borrowers, dealing in honest money, can determine.

A politburo can’t centrally plan interest rates any more than it can potatoes. They are inevitably going to fail—and cause significant damage in the process.

It’s also crucial to remember that central banks have nothing to do with the free market. They are, in fact, the antithesis of it.

In Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, central banking is the fifth plank.

With that important context in mind, consider the following.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed brought interest rates to roughly 0% and held them there for years.

Then, in late 2015, they started a rate-hiking cycle that lasted until the repo market turmoil in late 2019.

After the outbreak of the Covid hysteria in early 2020, the Fed brought interest rates back down to around 0%.

Inflation subsequently hit 40-year highs in 2022, forcing the Fed into another rate-hiking cycle, one of the steepest in history.

In just 18 months, the Fed hiked rates from around 0% to over 5%.

The Fed has now pivoted back to monetary easing and rate cuts without having defeated inflation.

The Federal Reserve essentially controls short-term interest rates, such as the Federal Funds rate, which is the interest rate at which banks lend to each other overnight.

Long-term interest rates, like the 10-year Treasury yield, work differently. These rates are shaped by a much larger market influenced by various factors beyond the Fed’s control.

While the Fed has significant influence and can impact long-term rates by purchasing bonds like the 10-Year Treasury, other market dynamics also play a role. In short, the Fed can exert some influence over long-term rates but does not fully control them.

The 10-year Treasury yield reflects the annual return an investor can expect if they purchase a 10-year US Treasury bond today and hold it until maturity.

The 10-year Treasury yield is perhaps the most important financial benchmark in the global fiat system, as it drives valuations and market trends worldwide. It is widely (and erroneously) thought of as the risk-free rate of return.

The 10-year Treasury yield can be thought of as a key barometer of the US dollar-based fiat system—a critical measure akin to its “beating heart.”

Bond yields move inversely to bond prices. When bond prices fall, bond yields rise.

A rising 10-year Treasury yield signals trouble for the US dollar because it indicates that investors are selling off bonds, which increases the US government’s borrowing costs.

Indicator #5: The Fed’s Balance Sheet

The Fed recently announced that it has ended the shrinking of its balance sheet and will now begin expanding it again.

The Fed insists this isn’t quantitative easing, calling it “reserve management” and pointing out that it isn’t explicitly targeting long-term Treasuries. That’s just wordplay. Buying Treasuries with newly created money is money printing, regardless of what label they attach to it. The Fed’s balance sheet is expanding again. A new printing cycle has begun.

We’ve seen this pattern repeatedly. The Fed expands its balance sheet, then tries to shrink it. Something eventually breaks in the financial system, and the Fed pivots right back to easing and money creation. Each time this happens, the balance sheet never returns to its prior level. It ratchets permanently higher with every cycle of debasement.

What makes the current situation especially telling is that the Fed is entering another balance-sheet expansion phase even though the balance sheet is still more than 50% larger than it was before the Covid mass psychosis.

Before 2020, the Fed’s balance sheet was roughly $4 trillion. It exploded to nearly $9 trillion during the Covid response. Even after so-called “quantitative tightening,” it remains nowhere near its pre-Covid level.

This completely contradicts the Fed’s long-standing claim that programs like QE are temporary.

Remember when former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke promised the balance sheet would eventually normalize after the 2008 financial crisis? That promise was made nearly 15 years ago, when the Fed’s balance sheet was around $2.5 trillion and was supposed to shrink back toward pre-crisis levels below $1 trillion. Instead, today the balance sheet is more than double what it was when Bernanke made that pledge — and now the Fed is entering yet another expansion cycle that threatens to push it even higher.

The long-term trend is obvious. The balance sheet only goes one direction: up. And the implication is unavoidable. Every time the Fed expands its balance sheet, it debases the currency. This isn’t an accident or a temporary policy error — it’s the core feature of the system.

If you’re wondering what comes next, look at the chart below—and note what followed the last time the Fed shifted from shrinking its balance sheet to expanding it.

We are now in the top of the first inning of what may become the most aggressive balance sheet expansion cycle in the Fed’s history.

Indicator #6: Money Supply

Imagine working 9 to 5 for 50 years, only for the Federal Reserve to print 40% of the money supply and inflate away 20 years of your hard work.

You don’t have to imagine—it actually happened during the COVID mass psychosis, as governments worldwide indulged in a frenzy of currency debasement.

I have no doubt that something like this or much worse will happen again soon.

Remember, the Fed has only two tools in its toolbox: currency debasement and gaslighting.

The skyrocketing interest expense forces the Fed to implement interest cost control policies, which inflate the money supply. These include buying Treasuries with money the Fed creates out of thin air and similar measures.

No matter what the Fed calls it, the only way they can try to control interest costs is to inflate the money supply.

However, that is ultimately self-defeating because it creates inflation, which causes bond investors to demand high interest rates to compensate for.

Regardless, the Fed inflates the money supply anyway in a misguided attempt to control interest costs because that is the only thing it can do.

The long-term average YoY change in the money supply is 6.8% per year.

Indicator #7: Consumer Price Index

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the most politically manipulated statistic in all of government. That is saying something because many government statistics are completely manipulated, but inflation, as measured by the CPI, is probably the most manipulated.

The CPI is a basket of prices trying to measure the average price changes for 340 million Americans.

It’s an impossible task because every individual has a different price basket. Consider someone who lives in New York City compared to someone who lives in rural Montana. They have totally different price baskets.

Using the CPI as a measure of price increases for 340 million people is even more preposterous than taking the average temperature across 50 states in the US as a meaningful statistic to determine what clothes you should wear today.

Further, the government gets to cherry-pick what items go in the CPI basket and their weightings. It’s like letting a student grade his own paper.

In short, the CPI is misleading government propaganda intended to conceal the government’s atrocious currency debasement.

All that being said, it is useful to monitor the CPI, not as a meaningful metric to gauge inflation, but as a metric to analyze the Fed’s actions and gaslighting.

Indicator #8: The Gold Price

Gold is mankind’s most enduring form of money—for over 5,000 years—because of its unique characteristics that made it best suited to store and exchange value.

Gold is durable, divisible, consistent, convenient, scarce, and most importantly, the “hardest” of all physical commodities.

In other words, gold is the one physical commodity that is the “hardest to produce” (relative to existing stockpiles) and, therefore, the most resistant to debasement.

Gold is indestructible, and its stockpiles have built up over thousands of years. That’s a big reason why the growth of new gold supply—typically 1-2% per year—is insignificant.

In other words, nobody can arbitrarily inflate the supply.

That makes gold an excellent store of value and gives the yellow metal its superior monetary properties.

People in every country of the world value gold. Its worth doesn’t depend on any government or any counterparty at all. Gold has always been an inherently international and politically neutral asset. This is why different civilizations around the world have used gold as money for millennia.

From a historical point of view, using fiat currency as money is a relatively new concept. As it fades, I expect people will rediscover the world’s premier money: gold.

This trend is already well underway.

I expect the price of gold, which is already hitting record highs, to soar as this all plays out.

These eight indicators all point in the same direction: more debt, more money printing, and more damage to the dollar’s purchasing power.

To see what this could mean for your financial future—and the three practical moves you can make now—I recommend reading a free special report I just published before the next stage of the crisis unfolds. Click here to get the free report now.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/09/2026 – 06:30

Bryson DeChambeau is putting together a solid season at LIV Golf, and is looking to carry some of that momentum into the Masters this week in search of the first green jacket of his career.DeChambeau is second in the LIV Golf standings behind Jon Rahm. But he enters Augusta National with back-to-back wins in Singapore and South Africa. As he heads into the first major of the golf season, DeChambeau is carrying something new in his bag.CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COMHe will use a 5-iron made with a 3D printer. It’s a club he built himself.”There’s this nature that I have about myself where innovation is a habit of mine, and I really find and take pride in that ability to learn — even through failure, even through making a bad decision or a good decision — what I can get from that,” he told ESPN.”We’ll see where it goes. We’ll see where it takes me. All I could say now is, if I don’t put them in the bag, it’s my fault now.”DeChambeau had manufacturing deals with LA Golf and Cobra. According to ESPN, his deal with Cobra ended in February.Tinkering with his clubs isn’t a new strategy for DeChambeau. He said he had been tinkering with the idea of building his own clubs for a few years and tried a new wedge as he won in South Africa.BRYSON DECHAMBEAU TALKS RYDER CUP, SQUASHING RIVALRIES WITH PGA PLAYERS AND LACK OF RESOLUTION WITH LIVDeChambeau has had progressively better finishes at Augusta National since he made his first appearance in 2019. Since missing the cut in 2023, he finished tied for sixth in 2024 and tied for fifth in 2025. He missed the cut in 2022 and 2023.”I feel like my game’s in the best place of its career, outside of maybe Greenbrier (in 2023) when I shot 58,” he said. “I’m excited to get the week going and see where I can put myself.”He said his recent performances at the Masters were attributed to a more measured approach.”More patience, like not as aggressive all the time. Knowing where to be aggressive and when not to be aggressive,” he said. “Making better decisions, having a caddie that reins me in sometimes.”The Associated Press contributed to this report.Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back said Thursday that his ministry plans to reduce the number of troops deployed to border units “gradually” by 2040, dismissing concerns about a sharp cut in such personnel.

President Donald Trump blasted former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Wednesday after Republican Clay Fuller won the special election runoff on Tuesday to fill Greene’s old seat in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District.”Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown’s (GREEN TURNS TO BROWN UNDER STRESS!) seat in Congress has been taken over by a wonderful and talented man, Clay Fuller, who won convincingly, and right from the beginning, despite many people running for that ‘TRUMP’ +37 seat, and despite the stench left by Greene,” Trump declared in a Wednesday Truth Social post.”Congratulations to Clay Fuller, a very large improvement over his deranged predecessor!” the president added.MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE SAYS TRUMP, GOP ‘GOVERNED AMERICA LAST,’ PREDICTS MIDTERM LOSSESWhile Greene won re-election to the district by more than 28% in 2024, unofficial results for the April 7 contest indicate that Fuller won by more than 11%.It also appears that far fewer people voted in the recent contest compared to the 2024 race, which occurred during a presidential election cycle.Greene declared in a post on X that the district “was never in danger of flipping blue, but the results speak for themselves. Trump flipping MAGA from America First to America Last, covering up for the Epstein files, and betraying key campaign promises of no more foreign wars has been the best help for the Democrats. Sad!”Greene, who was previously an ardent Trump supporter, had a falling out with the president last year and left office early this year in the middle of her two-year term.EX-TRUMP ALLY MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE JOINS LEFT-WING CALLS FOR THE 25TH AMENDMENT AS IRAN DEADLINE NEARSOn Easter Sunday after Trump’s controversial Truth Social post threatening Iranian power plants and bridges, Greene blasted the president in a post on X, saying he had “gone insane.””Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F[—]in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” Trump said in the post on Sunday.In part of a lengthy post on X, Greene asserted, “Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness. I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit.”Then on Tuesday, after Trump threatened that an entire “civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Greene called for removing the president from office via the 25th Amendment.REPUBLICANS WIN BUT DEMOCRATS ALSO CLAIM VICTORY WITH BALLOT BOX SURGE IN TRUMP TERRITORY”25TH AMENDMENT!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness,” she wrote in a post on X.

As prices soar across stadiums and arenas nationwide, Augusta National — home of the Masters golf tournament — is once again standing out for its low prices.The famed golf club in Augusta, Georgia, went viral on social media after journalist Claire Rogers shared a photo of its concession menu during the Augusta National Women’s Amateur (ANWA).Rogers’ post, shared March 31, highlighted food prices that remain low in 2026.LEFTOVER HACKS EXPLODE ON SOCIAL MEDIA AS AMERICANS FIGHT HIGH PRICES WITH SCRAP FOOD FEASTSThe stand offered sandwiches ranging from $1.50 to $3, including egg salad and pimento cheese at the low end, and club and ham-and-cheese options at $3.Muffins were priced at $2.50, while cookies and chips were sold for $1.50. A Georgia peach ice cream sandwich was listed at $3.TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZPopcorn and candy were each priced at $2 — while over-the-counter pain relievers like Advil or Aleve cost 75 cents.The low prices drew widespread praise on social media.”One of the best parts of Augusta,” an X user said. “The food prices still feel unreal compared to everything else in sports.””@McDonalds, this used to be what your value menu used to look like,” another wrote.CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTERThe women’s tournament serves as a lead-in event ahead of the Masters, which begins Thursday with the opening round.While Augusta National has not released official concession prices for the Masters, the ANWA menu suggests prices are expected to remain low.That pricing stands in sharp contrast to the overall cost of attending the Masters, one of the most in-demand sporting events in the world, where tickets are notoriously difficult to obtain.The concession prices are low because Augusta National is “making so much money on everything else,” said Cody Moore, a wealth management advisor in Alpharetta, Georgia.CLICK HERE FOR MORE LIFESTYLE STORIESA self-described Masters fan, Moore told Fox News Digital the tournaments bring in as much as $250 million a year, which offsets the cost of food.”They’re likely not turning a profit at all on their concession prices — but when you’re buying food, you’re very likely to buy apparel, memorabilia and other items at a significant margin,” he said. Moore expected similar prices at the Masters, as it’s become “one of the trademarks” of the tournament.”Augusta has kept them that way intentionally for years, and it’s become a big part of what makes the experience unique, in my opinion,” he said. It’s “less about profits and more about respect and admiration for the immense tradition of the tournament and course.”Fox News Digital reached out to Augusta National for comment.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reportedly caused “unforgivable” stress for Queen Elizabeth II during the final years of her life.The claim was made by royal biographer Hugo Vickers, who has written a new book, “Queen Elizabeth II: A Personal History.” It explores the late monarch’s triumphs and personal challenges based on sources close to the palace.Fox News Digital reached out to Archewell, which handles the offices for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and Buckingham Palace for comment. A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace previously told Fox News Digital, “We don’t comment on such books.”PRINCE HARRY’S FEUD WITH PRINCE WILLIAM LEAVES KING CHARLES CAUGHT IN ROYAL CROSSFIRE: EXPERTS”What I find unforgivable is the stress that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle put on the queen in the last years of her life,” Vickers told Fox News Digital.”[Harry] was doing a really good job over in England and indeed in the Commonwealth. And [Meghan] also seemed to be very committed to the Commonwealth. Even as an actress, before she met and married Prince Harry, she was going to African countries and undertaking humanitarian work. And obviously, she addressed the United Nations. It all looked very positive, but it wasn’t to be.”Vickers shared a similar sentiment in his book, writing, “The distress the Sussexes caused the Queen in the last years of her life cannot be overestimated.”WATCH: PRINCE HARRY, MEGHAN MARKLE CAUSED QUEEN STRESS IN FINAL YEARS: AUTHORMeghan, an American actress and divorcee, married the British prince in 2018. The couple stepped back in 2020, citing unbearable intrusions by the British press and a lack of support from the palace.After settling in California, the couple gave an explosive televised interview to Oprah Winfrey in which they aired their grievances. The sit-down, which aired several allegations about the royal family, was viewed by nearly 50 million people worldwide.After the bombshell tell-all, the queen refused to take Harry’s phone calls without another person in the room, Vickers claimed.”I think that the queen was obviously feeling rather cautious whenever he got in touch,” said Vickers. “I think that’s how I would put it.”In the book, Vickers wrote, “Whenever Prince Harry called his grandmother, she asked her lady-in-waiting to stay with her.”Harry, 41, relocated to his wife’s home state after Queen Elizabeth II rejected his proposal to be “half-in, half-out” as a working royal, according to Vickers.CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER”She did give Harry and Meghan a year to think about whether it was going to work out, this exile,” he explained. “She made it quite clear on advice, obviously from her private secretary and his private secretary, and others, that you couldn’t be half in and half out. You couldn’t do what they wanted to do, which was to make their own money and still be contributing to royal duties. This wasn’t going to work. You either did your duties, or you didn’t.””And so, they decided that they were going to go off first to Canada, and then later on, to California,” he shared. “And then after the year went by, the question arose: ‘How was it working out?’ They decided that they were going to stay. And at that point, he stepped down from his various positions in England.”Vickers claims the queen told a friend that Harry, once in “a very useful role” as a popular working royal in the U.K., had “turned into a kind of childminder.” The comment implies his life had largely shifted to caring for his children at his mansion in the wealthy, coastal city of Montecito.”The way I interpreted that, perhaps rather more harshly, was you cannot be Captain General of the Royal Marines, a very distinguished position which had been held by Prince Philip for many years, and lie barefoot under a tree in California,” said Vickers.Meghan and Harry’s whirlwind romance began in July 2016 after they were introduced by a mutual friend, quickly escalating from a low-profile courtship to a royal engagement by November 2017. Less than a year later, they were married.While numerous reports over the years have said Prince William cautioned his brother about moving too quickly, Vickers said he was far from the only one who shared those concerns.LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS”I think that whenever somebody rushes into a marriage, there are always likely to be people who are going to say, ‘Steady on, have you thought this through? How’s it going to go? Give it a bit of time,’” said Vickers.”It’s a very sensible bit of advice to give somebody. Of course, it’s not very popular with the couple in question. And I think that was one of the problems, one of the issues, that people close to Prince Harry — his father, his brother and so forth — did say, ‘Steady on, what’s going on? Are you really sure you are taking the right course?’ And if he were to have repeated that to his bride, she wouldn’t have been very pleased. So, I think that’s part of the tension, frankly.”Vickers wrote that while some palace staff referred to Meghan, 44, as “Sparkle,” Philip, Harry’s grandfather, dismissed her as “the American.” Charles reportedly urged his son to “have fun with her, but don’t marry her.” The queen even suggested that Harry should wait a year before marriage.Harry didn’t wait.”Many were alarmed that the bride had no family members to support her other than her mother,” Vickers wrote. “It was said that the queen did not like the dress — too white and with ungainly shoulders. Someone close to the queen said her attitude to the actual wedding was: ‘You get on with it. It’s nothing to do with me.’”Vickers said that Harry and Meghan proposed a half-in, half-out arrangement, allowing them to carry out official engagements while pursuing financial independence. Senior royals reacted negatively to the idea, pointing out that part of being a working royal is dedicating your life completely to the role. Vickers wrote that Harry was “reluctantly out.”In 2022, the queen, England’s longest-reigning monarch, died at age 96. In 2023, Harry’s memoir, “Spare,” was published. In it, he laid bare his struggles with royal life and shared personal details about his family. It became the fastest-selling nonfiction book ever, and it went on to become one of the bestselling memoirs of all time.The Duke and Duchess are raising their two young children in California.”How did the queen’s view of Meghan Markle change?” said Vickers. “Well, I should imagine it changed quite a lot. She … [would have seen Harry go] off into a different world and not undertake his duties in the way she has done. I’m sure that was very distressing for her.””I think that their departure and the subsequent activities, particularly the Oprah Winfrey interview, obviously were very upsetting,” he said. “And she came up with that wonderful remark, ‘Recollections may vary,’ which was a very polite way of putting it. So I think it inevitably caused her distress.””What I feel sad about the queen is that she had a lot of problems going on in the last years of her reign,” Vickers reflected. “She had Brexit, she had [former Prime Minister] Boris Johnson, she had issues with the [former] Prince Andrew, she had issues with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, whereas she should have been sailing into sort of sunlit uplands, enjoying her Platinum Jubilee.””… A lot was going on. But then, of course, there always had been all through the reign. There were always problems that had to be dealt with.”

Colorado’s loss in the Supreme Court’s Kaley Chiles case last week marked the third time in recent years the justices have rebuked the state in a major culture-war dispute, adding to a growing pattern of high-profile reversals in cases over speech, religion and anti-discrimination law.The high court’s decision was the latest in a trio of lawsuits that backfired for Colorado, after the Colorado Civil Rights Commission lost in court to a cake baker in a key religious liberty case and after a website designer won a similar battle against the state’s civil rights division. Conservative legal experts said the legal setbacks for the state were not a coincidence.”Colorado seems hell-bent on enforcing its own new orthodoxy of thought, and the Supreme Court has had to come back time and time again to correct them and to remind them that the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, even when the state may disagree with a person’s opinions,” Carrie Severino, president of the legal watchdog JCN, told Fox News Digital.The Supreme Court last week found that Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, signed into law in 2019 by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, violated the First Amendment because it only restricted talk therapy when the therapy aimed to prevent minors from embracing being transgender or gay.SUPREME COURT BLOCKS COLORADO’S SO-CALLED ‘CONVERSION THERAPY’ BAN ON FIRST AMENDMENT GROUNDSIn response to a question from Fox News Digital about the apparent theme, Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Jim Campbell said the state “has proven itself to be no respecter of the First Amendment.””I don’t think at this point that it’s coincidental,” said Campbell, who represented Chiles before the Supreme Court during oral arguments. “The State of Colorado has shown an utter disregard for the First Amendment rights of people like Kaley Chiles.”JONATHAN TURLEY: THIS BLUE STATE’S LATEST ATTACK ON FREE SPEECH IS AWFUL AND SNEAKY, TOOIn Chiles v. Salazar, the high court found 8-1 that the state law discriminated based on viewpoint. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority opinion that such laws suppressing speech on that basis amounted to an “‘egregious’ assault” on the Constitution. “The First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country,” Gorsuch wrote.The case centered on Chiles, a licensed faith-based counselor in Colorado Springs, who argued that she helped youths reach their own stated goals, which she said could include minors seeking counseling on their sexuality and gender identity.COLORADO HOUSE ADVANCES CONVERSION THERAPY LAWSUIT BILLColorado argued it was allowed to regulate Chiles’ therapy because it amounted to professional conduct and the state wanted to protect minors from Chiles’ perceived harmful counseling.The decision followed a landmark ruling in 2023, when the Supreme Court found 6-3 in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis that the First Amendment barred Colorado from using the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act to force a website designer to create wedding websites for same-sex couples. The high court said in the ruling that the state could not force a person to create content conveying a message that he or she disagreed with.That ruling was viewed at the time as a broad free speech win that followed the Supreme Court’s narrower 2018 decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.In that case, the justices sided with baker Jack Phillips, finding that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had shown unconstitutional hostility toward his religious beliefs that the commission did not show toward other bakers.”The Supreme Court found, at least at the time of Masterpiece Cakeshop, that Colorado’s state agency was acting in a way biased against a certain set of beliefs, and from what we can see that hasn’t changed in the intervening years,” Severino said. “Unfortunately, each time the Supreme Court has corrected them, they’ve only doubled down.”KAGAN TURNS ON LIBERAL ALLY JACKSON WITH FOOTNOTE JAB OVER FREE SPEECHTerry Schilling, president of the conservative American Principles, observed the trend in Colorado, saying in a statement provided to Fox News Digital that Democrats there “will stomp on the rights of anyone who stands in the way of the well-heeled gay and transgender lobby whether it is bakers, doctors, or desperate families.””It should not take the lengthy legal battles or the Supreme Court to rein in the liberal war against reality,” Schilling said. “That is why fed-up Colorado families are appealing straight to voters to protect children from extremist Democrats,” Schilling added, citing his organization’s efforts to pass conservative ballot initiatives in the state.Outside the First Amendment cases, Colorado has also been a testing ground for other highly polarizing legal fights that made it to the Supreme Court.The justices in Trump v. Anderson unanimously reversed the state Supreme Court’s decision to remove President Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential primary ballot over allegations that he had incited an insurrection, finding the state lacked the authority to remove him.