And There It Is

A full embrace of socialism in response to the conservative movement.  It’s remarkable. Do the democrats suspect that they have finally reached the tipping point where enough academicians, government workers, spoon-fed students, virtue signalers, immigrants, and those on the dole account for a large enough percentage of the electorate to make a move and show their true colors? Surely Rhode Island is there already, Massachusetts not far behind, and heavily populated urban enclaves like New York, LA, and Chicago dominate state races, skewing the results to the left. Not enough for national politics, mind you, but the socialists are surely making inroads in cities, the left coast, and the northeast. Hopefully, they will fail in those leftist strongholds so miserably that this socialist bloom will die on the vine. But look at the miserable crime and urban blight the voters are willing to tolerate in exchange for empty promises, as they continue to vote the same democrats back into office. Not a very encouraging prospect.

I Am Bemused

With a great deal of hilarity and equal parts disgust, I watch the clamor arising over Trump attempting to restore law and order in Washington, DC.  Seriously?  We now have evidence that senior police officials have been cooking the books to alter statistics to make it appear that crime rates are falling. Independent statistics show that DC has a crime rate up to 5 times higher than places like Islamabad and nearly 10 times higher than Western cities in decline like London and Paris. Our cities are a national disgrace. Sure, the tourist traps are well scrubbed, Boston’s Quincy Market, Baltimore’s waterfront, and New York’s South Street Seaport, for example, but to get there, you have to drive through urban blight: graffiti, crumbling infrastructure, trash-strewn thoroughfares, and homeless encampments. That teenager in the lawn chair on the street corner with a cellphone, a paid lookout for the gang selling drugs, junkies in a stupor in city parks, itinerant youth congregating to harass shopkeepers and citizens going about their day. And not a cop in sight. We are devolving into a dystopian urban scene from Blade Runner. And then we hear the district attorney from DC claim that we “can’t arrest our way out of crime.” His solution?  More resources for our youth. Translation: more cash. Of course. The democrat solution for everything. The DC police actually issued a laundry list of dos and don’ts to prevent carjacking, in addition to distributing Apple Air Tags to track your stolen vehicle. Among them, keep your windows closed, keep your car locked, drive in the center lane, never drive alone, and always leave a car length between you and the car in front when stopped to provide an escape route. You have to be kidding me. A former surgery resident who served his training in Newark, NJ, told me those instructions, minus the air tags, were part of his job briefing 30 years ago, along with keeping your sunroof closed and never put valuables on the passenger seat in view and after a sham fender bender, never, ever get out if your vehicle. Nice to know that 30 years of Democrat rule in our cities has yielded no improvement. But taking a look at recidivism tells us a different story. As reported by Mike Slater on Breitbart, 40 percent of Crime in Atlanta is perpetrated by 1000 repeat offenders. Eighty percent of incarcerated criminals are repeat offenders. So in response to the DA: yes, we can arrest our way out of crime, you idiot. And we all know what the problem is, you just can’t say it in polite society. Urban youth and a deteriorating public education system, coupled with single-parent households and an ever-increasing disregard for law enforcement, with government rewards for sloth and underachievers, have given us a generation of inner city youth intent on lawlessness. And apparently, the left looks at these folks as their voting base and intends to tolerate the disorder and throw more money at it. Enough. We tried it your way, and it doesn’t work. Witness the vacant mall space that everyone attributes to Walmart and the internet. Is the decline in foot traffic really the result of internet shopping or safety concerns? Livingston Mall in New Jersey was once a thriving shopping center until the geniuses decided providing bus service from inner city Newark to the mall was a good idea. Access for all, including a segment of the population without the socioeconomic means to support the mall’s tenants. Brilliant. Unsavory individuals began using the mall as a social center without intending to buy anything. Assaults became commonplace, and carjacking soared as inner city youth simply took the bus to the mall and drove home in the vehicle of their choice, found stripped and on blocks days later in Newark’s less affluent neighborhoods. The mall suffered a premature demise. Providence, RI, installed an upscale mall downtown with big-name flagship stores. A dispute arose over a fancy hotel, whose lobby provided access to the mall from the city side, when they policed their lobby, not allowing inner city youth to congregate, use the access to the mall, and scare off hotel guests. The city won the argument to allow unfettered access, the hotel saw booking decline, then sold out to a lesser quality chain, and the mall, whose crime rate soared when invaded by inner city thugs, saw its foot traffic crater, the flagship stores left, and the mall deteriorated in quality and return on investment. Well done, Providence. In Syracuse, NY, the expanding Destiny Mall has, for years, hidden an increasing crime problem. Once again, inner city miscreants used the mall as a hangout, and violence was on the rise. Carjackings increased, theft was accepted as the cost of doing business, assaults in the parking garage and bathrooms became commonplace, and shootings in the food court and fights on the mall concourse made local news as the bored inner city youth resolved their petty disputes with violence. Store employees recounted horrific tales of being told not to confront shoplifters, and to tolerate returns for cash on merchandise that had been stolen with damage from removing anti-theft tags and, in some cases, urine stains from the common practice of peeing on the sensors to disable them. Yuck. And you, the law-abiding consumer, pay for that theft with increased prices to compensate for the loss. Flagship stores left, and mall traffic decreased as it became well known that it was not a place to be after dark. Only when the wife of Syracuse University basketball coach Jim Boeheim was robbed at gunpoint by a teenager did the mall’s problems make the nightly news. 

Why must we tolerate this mayhem in democrat controlled cities?  Do we really want our cities to resemble third-world hellholes, degenerating into breeding grounds for crime and sinkholes for an ever-expanding welfare state?  Of course not. And we should not. Punish the small minority of offenders with jail time. Restore our inner city parks and schools to safe zones for learning and community gatherings, and let’s take pride in our cities once again as centers for culture, entertainment, and the arts. And to do that we have to rethink the path that Democrat rule has put us on and that’s going to require those that live in the inner city to reprogram and help themselves take their cities back. And that may require Trump’s help. Enough already, we don’t have to live like this. 

The Constitution Must Prevail

WSJ: “This week [Trump] called for the Commerce Department to start working on a census that excludes immigrants who are in the country illegally, a move that would face court challenges.” What an obvious and patently biased statement by reporter Aaron Zitner, suggesting that it is somehow illegal. Tell me something I don’t know already. Of course, it will face court challenges because everything Trump does provokes a response by some socialist district judge in some blue-state enclave. I’m sure Judge Boasberg is drawing up the papers now. And it’s somewhat disingenuous to say illegal immigrants would be “excluded.”  They will be counted because we want to know how many are here. The census is not a checklist for deportation proceedings, and the information is not passed on to ICE so they can round them up. But we should know how many people are in the country, regardless of their citizenship status, don’t you think?  And remember the whole rationale behind a recount: the last one was flawed. Period. Congressional seats and federal money are doled out based on the population of citizens.  It has been estimated that at least 14 states have miscounted due to the inclusion of illegal immigrants in that tally. These are not US citizens and therefore do not have the right to vote. Thus, they are not eligible to be represented by a congressional seat, nor should they receive federal handouts of taxpayer money. It's not an opinion; it’s that pesky constitution again.

And regarding all the noise that Trump is not allowed to conduct a census because the entirely trustworthy and transparent Biden Administration already did. Well, c’mon, man.  The constitution states that a census should be performed WITHIN ten years. Not every ten years, not after ten years, but within. Look it up. I’m sure those 14 states, 13 blue incidentally, are perfectly content with the. Census results as they wallow in federal cash and revel in sending more democrats to Congress. But they are gaming the system again. And how do we know that the census was miscounted?  They admitted to it!

Diabolical Supterfuge

Unfortunately, we in the northeast are barraged with Democrat subterfuge. And, Massachusetts is an absolute disgrace. Nearly 40 percent voted for Trump, with precisely ZERO Republican congressional districts being represented. Ironic Massachusetts, the birthplace of the revolution, is now the poster child for taxation without representation. What’s really disturbing is the current census and gerrymandering hoopla. The left has been gerrymandering for decades to their advantage, and now it appears that they have also skewed the census results by overcounting population by adding illegal immigrants into the count, giving them more seats in Congress and more federal payouts. It’s diabolical. Now that they’ve been exposed in the Texas Republican redistricting debate, they’re squealing about democracy being threatened. They have no shame. 

Refute of Secretary Bessent

Interesting exchange between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Gene Robinson on MSNBC, who was playing “gotcha” journalism, that the left is claiming to be a vindication that tariffs are bad for the American consumer and, by the transitive property of equality, Trump is therefore bad for America. There was wild celebration and gloating on the left. Headlines announced that Bessent was “trapped, “cornered”, and “brutally dismantled” by lightweight media sources such as rawstory.com, the New Republic, Yahoo Finance, and the most imbecilic of news sources: Facebook. What, nothing from The View? Please. Alas, the progressives are again showing a profound ignorance of exactly how capitalism works. But what do you expect from an entire class of partisans who have either never run a business or never worked in the private sector? Bessent attempted to explain the complexity of raising tariffs on Brazil, in this case, but was cut off when Robinson repeatedly asked who actually pays for those tariffs. Bessent’s answer was finally whittled down to conclude that the receiver of the goods ultimately pays the tariff, which may then be passed on to the consumer, AHA, screamed the left as Robinson spiked the football. So, are American businesses and consumers paying more for Brazilian goods? Not so fast, simpletons. 

Ribibson should have allowed Mr. Bessent, who, along with Messrs. Trump and Lutnick, knows much more about economics and markets than… virtually anyone on the left. If Americans are ultimately footing the bill for tariffs, then why is the world clamoring to cut deals with the Trump administration to balance trade? Hmmm, says the intelligent American, likely not a person with blue hair and a septum piercing. Or an associate editor of the Washington Post. Shall we begin? 

Let’s use coffee as an example. Scenario number one: If the price of Brazilian coffee increases significantly because the American business is forced to pass the tariff cost on to the consumer, the consumer may choose to buy Colombian coffee instead. The American business selling the coffee sees this trend as a reduction in sales and stops purchasing Brazilian coffee, thus avoiding paying the tariff altogether. The Brazilian coffee grower and, in turn, the Brazilian economy suffer as a result. The only downside is that the American consumer has to forego their Brazilian coffee fix. 

Scenario number two: The American business may decide unilaterally that Brazilian coffee is too expensive with the added tariffs and will seek alternative suppliers in countries with lesser tariffs or those offering their coffee at reduced prices. The Brazilian economy and the Brazilian coffee grower suffer as a result. The American consumer only suffers from being unable to procure Brazilian coffee from that particular American business. 

Scenario number three: The Brazilian coffee grower is faced with a choice: He can significantly reduce the price of his coffee to offset the tariff, essentially paying the tariff. This results in a reduction in Brazil's GDP and lost revenues for the Brazilian coffee grower. American businesses and American consumers are unaffected by this scenario. 

Scenario number four: Brazil cuts a deal with the Trump Administration to reduce tariffs on Brazilian products, including coffee, and American goods exported to Brazil. Everyone wins. 

So, in short, there may be pain in the short term if Americans can no longer afford certain products, such as Brazilian coffee, German cars, French wine, or Swiss chocolate. Of course, if spoiled Americans absolutely have to have those items, then yes, in scenarios one and two, they will have to pay more. However, as the largest economy in the world, market pressure will ultimately come to bear. Thus far, we have seen countries lining up to make trade deals with this administration, which represents the largest consumer market in the world. Yes, Gene you are apparently unaware, that would be us.

Hochul Hypocrisy

I still can’t understand the Democrats' outrage over Republicans' gerrymandering when they are avid students of the craft. And to have beaver-toothed and largely ineffective New York governor Kathy Hochul labelling it as “legal insurrection” and claiming “we are at war” while puffing out her chest, telling republicans to “bring it on” in a fit of bravado is just ridiculous. New York is the poster child for political gerrymandering, and even Politico, far from a conservative publication, ran the headline that she is “embracing” gerrymandering. So they just noticed? This is all political theater brought to you by the disingenuous actors on the left. Recall that Trump won 40% of the vote in California, Massachusetts, Illinois, and New York, yet the combined congressional seats slant 90 democrats to 27 republicans. For those on the left who are traditionally mathematically impaired, only 23% of the seats are Republican. How exactly do you think that happened?  Blue states have been up to these shenanigans for decades, and it is only now that Republicans are catching on, making the Democrats' outrage less about the actual practice and more about the annoyance that their tactics have been discovered and co-opted by the right. 

Hamas Rewarded

So Canada, France and the UK have decided to reward Hamas for their barbaric behavior by recognizing Palestinian statehood. Whats wrong with you prople?Hamas is winning the public relations war despite starving their own people, using civilians as shields, and starting the war in the first place by slaughtering Israeli civilians in an unprovoked, and particularly heinous attack on October 7, 2023. On that day Hamas took 251 hostages, some of whom are still suffering in captivity. Since then Israeli has suffered through a propaganda war with western media, universities and the left allied against them in a brazen display of anti-semitism. The New York Times and Politico were recently exposed for using images of Palestinian children with unrelated genetic diseases to support the claim that Israel is starving them. All this despite Israel airlifting one of the children with CF to Italy for medical treatment. Recall that as Gaza burns and the populace suffers, the impotent UN is allowing food to rot in the sun because they prefer Hamas protection to either the IDF or American supported security forces. Food warehouses for Hamas fighters remain well stocked while the civilians scramble for supplies and Hamas leadership lives in luxury in Qatar having used Gaza as their piggy bank for decades. And meanwhile the Arab world refuses to take in Palestinian refugees and, most recently,  Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have called on Hamas to disarm, release the remaining hostages and not to be involved in a post-war government. Perhaps they know something that Canada, France and the UK don’t. But alas stupidity  isn’t the likely cause. It’s more cowardice. Canada’s Muslim population is 5%, the second largest religious group behind Christianity. The UK is at 6% and France a whopping 13% of their population. With no intention of assimilation. The west has opened their doors to unfettered immigration, particularly from Muslim countries, and as their numbers grow, the governments fear unrest will follow unless they cave to public opinion of a growing segment of the populace. We are being invaded, and as our democracies are used against us, with Muslim politicians rising in major cities, we will be responsible for our own demise.

Beyond Ridiculous

This Sydney Sweeney controversy over her American Eagle genes/jeans advertising campaign is ridiculous. Claims that the ads are promoting eugenics and Nazi ideology, largely based on the fact that the spokesperson is an attractive, buxom, white, blue-eyed female is made even more preposterous when the source of the attacks is coming from not only extraordinarily unattractive progressive women, but the same lefties we have seen marching in support of abortion and Planned Parenthood. Recall that it is an organization actually created by Margaret Sanger, a renowned racist and practitioner of eugenics. Democrats, thy name is hypocrisy. Although, stupidity seems to be more appropriate in this case. 

The Unfunny Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert’s Late Show getting canceled is among the best news I’ve heard recently in a string of wins for conservative Americans. How he has survived along with his $15 million salary and a steadily declining viewership is beyond me. Pompous? Yes. Arrogant? Yes. Elitist? Yes. Funny?  Absolutely not. Next on the docket should be the equally abrasive and even less amusing Jimmy Kimmel. They should all follow James Corden into obscurity after the otherwise entertaining Brit discovered that yanks don’t want to listen to a pudgy little foreign troll bash our government night after night on late-night television. Whoever the network executive was who decided late night comedy should devolve into partisan political commentary by failed comedians that pander to the Hollywood elite and a detached, privileged segment of the viewing public should be fired along with rest of these late night hacks. Make Late Night Funny Again.

Skewing Reality

Whenever we get a win, be it the BBB, praise from NATO, or a negotiated peace or trade deal, my enthusiasm is always tempered by the vitriol spewed on the internet by the radical left. HuffPo and Instagram are havens for the disgruntled progressives who wallow in amplifying misinformation and downright lies. For example, he presented the trophy to the winners of the Club World Cup in New York at MetLife Stadium. Instagram and HuffPo reported with glee that the crowd loudly booed him. Hmm. Now I’m sure a soccer match had in attendance a fair number of foreigners with a less than favorable view of Trump’s immigration policies. And being in the greater New York-New Jersey metropolitan area, drawing from the local population, the crowd was likely skewed to the left. But multiple sources claimed that although there were indeed some boos, the majority of the crowd stood and applauded. And why not? This country is divided close to evenly, so wouldn’t you expect half the crowd to support Trump while the other half looks upon him with disdain?  But not based on the headlines from the radical left. The comments were similarly scathing, heckling Trump for his appearance, his reception, and for just being there. Unpleasant, mean-spirited, and childish. The occasional comment by a Trump supporter reporting that they witnessed quite the opposite was met with insults ranging from MAGA name-calling to the tired old “Trump is a convicted felon” destroying our democracy nonsense. TDS on full display. You can imagine their spittle all over their computer monitors.  The radical left has become completely unhinged, so much so that even the repulsively arrogant Mark Cuban suggested that a platform of “Trump sucks” all the time is not a winning strategy.

Even the leftist deity Obama suggested that democrats need to reassess their tactics to win over independent voters and especially young men. Incessant attacks and fear mongering with misleading and sometimes outright lies such as rural hospitals will close and Medicaid will be cut for our most vulnerable citizens, children crying in the California farmer’s fields as their hard working parents are rounded up by ICE, to the old standby attacks that Trump is not respected on the world stage and is a threat to our democracy are all counterproductive click candy for the low information voter. And if there is a success by this administration, simply stop talking about it. Border security, anyone? Feed them what they want to hear and keep them polarized. We remain a divided nation with a staunchly leftist mainstream media fueling the fires of misinformation. What will it take to unify a nation where the coastal elites are skewing socialist, a Ugandan-born communist is leading our largest city’s race for mayor, and Minneapolis, already having produced the radical leftist congresswoman Omar, is seeking to compete with New York by installing a Somali-born socialist to run their city. 

Indeed. We have lost our collective minds. 

Confused

Are you having the same problem as I am? I watch FOX and listen to Breitbart, then check out Huffington Post and or NPR and get not just the opposite analysis, but one that is exponentially contrarian… bordering on lunacy.  Just listen to some of these academics on the left pontificating about the tearing down of American institutions, eliminating capitalism, and installing a Marxist utopia. It is enough to make you wonder if you actually heard it. The left has gone completely off the rails. And, the thought of Mamdani, an over-the-top Marxist and antisemite as mayor of NYC, the United States’ largest city and the world’s centre for trading in public equity and debt capital markets, the home of NYSE and NASDAQ, the two largest stock exchanges in the world, underlines the craziness.

The Misinformation Abounds

I made the mistake of listening to the “HuffPo” today only to get barraged with absurd misinformation. An article reported Trump as having the lowest approval ratings of any president at this point in his term since Kennedy. This was followed by all the misinformation in the readers comments that included everything from being responsible for defunding the national weather service and preventing early warning about the Texas flood to crashing the economy and defunding Medicaid. It’s obvious that anyone of these useful Talking Heads is getting their news spoon fed to them by the mainstream media and their multipliers like HuffPo, Slate,  Daily Beast, or any of the other bird cage liners. Truly frightening level of being oblivious to reality. Cult like in their mindlessness.

New York Adrift

The state of New York is really starting to concern me. Although national democrat leaders have been reluctant to support Mamdani, Albany appears to be embracing his socialist policies, including the vacuous Kathy Hochul, who, with each passing day, appears more likely to say anything that will get her elected. Watch her bristle and puff out her pigeon chest in striking a supposedly defiant pose at the suggestion that Trump would target a mayor, Mamdani.  Hilarious. The Journal reports that the Lt Governor Delgado, who is significantly farther left than Hochul, is taking Mamdani’s rise as a sign for him to mount a challenge for the governor’s seat. What all of them have in common is socialism’s signature intent to spend other people’s money. And to do that, more tax increases are in the offing. That huge sucking sound you hear is from the wealthy, and Wall Street soon to follow, decamping for sunny, business-friendly Florida. 

Swift Rants On

We hear from our readership concern that Mr Swift has been uncharacteristically silent as of late. Fear not. Repeatedly winning can be a tiring undertaking, and a celebration is in order. Besides, he has been shopping, considering trading in his MAGA hat for Elon’s version that deservesly states that “Trump was right about everything.” Further, it is often the mainstream media contrarians that annoy me to no end, spurring me to rebuttal. But their recent attacks have been without teeth, not grounded in reality. If anyone considers the ravings of AOC and Jasmine Crockett, not to mention New York’s democrats veering hard left to vote for a vacuous communist Ugandan-Indian internet poser as candidate for mayor, as anything to take seriously, let alone consider an actual remaking of the party… well, that’s just comically absurd. Isn’t it?  Alas, never underestimate the stupidity of Americans, especially our youth, educated as they are by a system ruled by the left that has lost sight of how to prepare them for reality, let alone a job and an existence with purpose. Supported by the democrat party, en bloc as usual, they go so far as to defend the right of able bodied, childless single adult males to maintain their Medicaid coverage when in fact research shows they’re doing exactly what we suspected them doing all along: Lounging on the couch, sleeping, watching television and playing video games, according to the American Enterprise Institute and reported on the Wall Street Journal. Despite the left’s hand-wringing over the CBO report that 7.8 million Americans will lose their health coverage, it turns out that 4.8 million of those cannot even satisfy the part-time work requirement. Please. You can’t kvetch about insufficient coverage for those who need it and simultaneously support this blatant behavior that games the system. Please put on your big boy britches and admit that Elon and DOGE got it right. Our government is insidiously rife with wasteful fraud and abuse, and those of us who pay exorbitant taxes are tired of hearing that such waste is acceptable to those who don’t.  Or politicians who suspect that tax dollar handouts are to be used as an incentive to get a certain group of recipients to firm their base and vote them back into office. That form of bribery, expanding the scope of government programs into the middle class, be it Medicaid, SNAP, or such preposterous benefit proposals such as reparations, universal healthcare, or guaranteed income, is self-defeating, encouraging sloth, poor self-esteem, a lower incentive to work, and ultimately encouraging generational poverty. None of these government programs has a record of fulfilling their original promise to provide a helping hand to lift beneficiaries out of poverty, instead perpetuating the cycle for generations. But they keep doing it, incentified by the recipients, or the virtue signaling left, who keep returning them to office. Witness “the Squad,” who, by virtue of their incessant socialist rants, while having accomplished nothing more than disruption, have been rewarded by being consistently returned to office. And before I forget, having referenced “big boy” britches, kudos to Pete Hegseth for digressing from his topic of military intervention in the Middle-East to address some childish question by a reporter chastising him on using the phrase “bomber boys” in reference to the pilots that flew the mission to drop bunker busters on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Apparently, one of the pilots was female, spurring the reporter to take offense with Hegseth’s terminology in using a nickname dating back to WWII. Suddenly, the left conveniently applies traditional gender definitions when playing gotcha journalism. It’s an expression, lighten up. And suppose this female pilot ascended the ranks to attain a level of expertise that enabled her to get selected to fly a mission of this importance, when only 4% of combat pilots are women. In that case, I suspect she was more than proud to be one of the bomber boys. 

And about that mission: Our B-2 pilots flew some 37 hours to drop 30000-pound bunker buster bombs on Iran’s nuclear development sites, effectively slotting these substantial weapons into ventilation shafts the size of a washing machine from an altitude of 20000 feet. Remarkable. But since when does America fail to rally around our troops and our president in celebrating such an accomplishment to protect the world from a rogue regime that is the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism? Since now, apparently. Immediately, the left, particularly CNN, began questioning the effectiveness of the attack, leaked a classified government document assessing the damage, and began calling for Trump's impeachment yet again for not consulting with the omniscient Congressional progressives to seek permission to launch the attack. Now there’s a recipe for mission success: allow Congress to dither over minutiae and risk further leaks to tip off the mullahs regarding our intentions. Where exactly do you think most of these leaks come from? And the mere fact that some on the left, and even some rare isolationists on the right, are quibbling over whether Iran was actively pursuing a nuclear weapon is preposterous to anyone with a functioning cortex. The facts are that they were enriching uranium to 60%, a mere stone's throw away from the 90% required to create a nuclear weapon, while claiming it was for peaceful purposes. And yet, only somewhere in the vicinity of 4% is required for a nuclear reactor to generate electricity, and they were already obtaining that material from Russia. So why 60%? And why hide your facility under 300 feet of concrete inside a mountain and not allow international inspection by the IAEA of those facilities? And to endure such childish antics as suddenly cleansing these sites of duct work and hardware prior to inspection with the claim that they were painting the ceiling, in essence, remodeling, is just absurd and reeks of arrogance. When exactly were we supposed to figure it out after the mushroom cloud appeared over Tel-Aviv?  Or when Iran supplies nuclear weapons to their proxies and holds the world hostage? Didn’t we learn our lesson with North Korea? And the DPRK wasn’t chanting death to America daily while they were producing both weapons-grade uranium and developing intercontinental ballistic missiles to reach our shores. Iran was doing all three.  But it’s not over. Iran remains defiant, claiming victory over Israel and announcing their intention to continue their nuclear development program. Tough talk from a regime with virtually no air defenses and allies that have been uncharacteristically silent. In typical Trump fashion, he kept the mullahs guessing by suggesting that further military action has not been ruled out, only to have the left squawk and leap to the defense of the regime by trying to limit Trump’s power to do so. Talk about aiding and abetting. The thirst for power from congressional dimwits elected by politically slanted jurisdictions has no greater poster child than Maxine Watters who made news when she was spurned by a security guard who denied her entry into a federal building and more recently was kicked out of an LA detention facility trying to flex her muscle as a member of Congress to no avail. Entertaining political theater at its best. But the “do you know who I am” privileged attitude is appalling from someone who has made a fortune taking advantage of her position to engage in insider trading to live lavishly on her $175K government salary. Voters should take note and cleanse the halls of Congress of these partisan, self-aggrandizing opportunists who serve no purpose but to disrupt, delay, and feather their nests without considering serving their constituents. But we will have to be satisfied with revenge in the short term. Turns out observers on the ground as well as signs from inside the regime suggest that the damage is extensive, closer to Trump’s description as obliteration as opposed to CNN’s assessment as superficial, based apparently on Khameini’s defiant rhetoric from his bunker. Haven’t we discovered that Arab propaganda is an art form and is to be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism?  How often have we found that reports of Palestinian children massacred and hospitals bombed have been exaggerations and fiction supplied by Palestinian authorities controlled by Hamas? Know your source lest you be influenced by your partisan ideology. 

Yet despite the incessant attacks from the left, Trump continues to grind out results. This has been an unprecedented week of successes. Successes supported by a vast majority of Americans despite a loud and vocal 20% dominating the left’s news cycle. Take note:  the border is virtually closed. The SCOTUS has struck down the ability of some rogue district judge in a liberal enclave to limit presidential authority. And here we must mention the formerly Trump-averse Amy Coney Barrett for stepping up and applying constitutional law in an unusual public beatdown of Ketanji Jackson’s dissent. Wow. Take that, Harvard Law. And next on the docket is birthright citizenship that has been misappropriated for eons when originally intended for the children of enslaved people, whose parents had no “foreign allegiance.”  Why we allow foreigners with no intention of assimilating into our culture to immigrate illegally, then drop a child on US soil to act as an anchor to import more foreigners intent on doing us harm is unfathomable. It is an end-around to skirt the legal immigration process and is not what was intended. Peace in Rwanda with mineral rights. Another win, largely unreported by the media. A tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Iran, with Gaza in the works. A successful NATO summit with European leaders vowing to step up militarily by imposing expenditures proposed by Trump. Europe is embracing Trump's policy. Cats are indeed sleeping with dogs. And a leading, distinctly anti-Trump economist, Torsten Slok, stated that Trump “may have outsmarted all of us” when he reversed his opinion on Trump’s tariff-laden economic policy. The stock market endorsed that opinion through action and reached record highs, a benchmark considered impossible only months ago and a rare occurrence during a Republican administration. Congress appears to be nearing consensus on the big, beautiful bill with tax cuts that should energize the economy and further drive the market to unprecedented heights. And all of this success with a President who is visible, seemingly inexhaustible, and is conducting the most transparent, accessible administration in recent memory, if not ever. It’s a good time to be a Republican. And it’s about time more on the left embraced success and made American prosperity not partisan bickering our primary concern.

Hope Springs Eternal

Ok, so the dust has somewhat settled from the histrionics of the first six months of the Trump Administration, its Musk intervention, the leveling of tariffs controversy, the Twelve Day War, and the Democrat Party coming completely off the rails. However, although Los Angeles still burns, antisemitism runs rampant, the Ukrainian-Russian war persists, rioting over the deportation of Illegal aliens by ICE prevails, it would seem the conservative Republican Party has made some progress in righting our ship of state. Inflation has subsided, law and order rebounding, the stock market has recovered, our industrial base appears revitalized, involvement in international  affairs has been constructive, and has warranted merit from both friend and foe. So the light at the end of the tunnel appears to be sunlight, not an oncoming locomotive of disaster. I for one, after a long period of deep concern over the preservation of our Representative Democratic Republic, am optimistic.

Oh No

Uh-oh. Mark this date down as the turning point when democrat wishes finally came true. It turns out that our Minnesota assassin is indeed the right wing poster child they were hoping for.  With a list of democrats and abortion clinics on his hit list, the media has labeled him the “ardent Trump supporter” and pro-life conservative that they have dreamt about. As previous left wing radicals were spurred to action by Trump’s policies, they have it both ways with this case, having been radicalized by Trump’s rhetoric. It’s never the media that has whipped these folks on both sides of the political spectrum into a frenzy. And now Joe Rogan is parroting the left’s spin on deportation with the tired old narrative that children are being started from their mothers. Why the uncouth, foul mouthed Mr. Rogan has such a media presence is beyond me but like Taylor Swift, he is popular and influential, particularly with the younger demographic who follow him like lemmings. If Trump loses his gains with younger voters, and if this sudden rationalization and support for illegal inmigration continues, we will lose the midterms, lose control of the narrative and will never win an election again. This will be the day when the incessant democrat attacks on the president and his policies finally took hold, the tide turned and America will return to progressive policy that will be the end of the great experiment. 

Progressive Deformation

Politico wasted no time this morning in attempting to redirect the conversation on political violence and shift the blame onto Trump and what they label as far right extremism. Of course they did. Ironic that as the Conservative Party in power celebrates our military with a patriotic parade and fireworks display in our capital, the democrat base takes to the streets in our cities with yet another destructive wave of anti-American protests in support of radical progressive immigration policies. But don’t believe your eyes says Politico, it’s Trump’s fault. Violent protests organized by extreme left organizations and fanned by partisan media bias, erupted across the country this weekend but were pushed onto page two by the assassination of Minnesota democrat representatives who dared to cross the aisle in support of Republican legislation to deny illegal immigrants access to benefits reserved for American citizens. That’s right. It appears that the hit man, disguised as a police officer had “No Kings” flyers in his vehicle with a political hit list and a manifesto that, if we follow recent history, will never see the light of day because he is a radical leftist. Had he been a conservative, that manifesto would have been published immediately to fuel the narrative that radical right wing extremists are at work. Rep Jared Huffman (D-CA) issued the following statement: “You go online and you just see all of the vile and hate and vitriol that is pulsing through mostly right-wing politics and platforms, but there’s some of it on the left too.”  Really, Jared? Shall we launch into another diatribe on the evils of right-wing talk radio, perhaps? Tired old talking points. If you want to find misinformation and vitriol, you needn’t dive any deeper than late-night talk shows or the comments after a Huffington Post article. We are barraged with mainstream media sources that are blatantly partisan in support of far-right extremism. You can’t get any more extreme than racking up a Pulitzer Prize for propaganda that contributed to a taxpayer-funded $32M Mueller investigation to impeach a sitting president for “Russian collusion” based on a fabricated dossier funded by his political opponents. That brought to you by that beacon of truth and independent journalism: none other than the New York Times. But the misinformation campaign continues unabated. Harvard political science professor Steve Levitsky, possessing a title that immediately qualifies him as a progressive, quoted the same Politico article as saying: “You condone the January 6 insurrection. You pardon them all, or virtually all of them, including those that physically assaulted police officers, and you treat them as heroes. You’ve created an atmosphere that’s not just permissive of political violence, it encourages political violence.” So it’s Trump's fault that LA protesters this past week were assaulting police officers on a scale that makes January 6 look like a love fest?  Steve, not only are you a hypocrite, but you are a progressive imbecile. This incessant January 6 narrative is getting old. I actually heard a talking head reference the five people that were killed in the violence. What?  One person was killed on January 6 and it was protester Ashley Babbit who was shot by a capital police officer for climbing through a window. She did not, for example, chisel a chunk of curb stone from a public thoroughfare and hurl it off an overpass onto a police car, just for comparative purposes.  And just where did those tools, those bricks, the masks and body armor, the pre-printed signs come from? Curious how they organically appeared out of nowhere, but I digress. We are being fed a constant stream of propaganda with the intended result playing out on the streets of our cities. 

The fact remains that despite Politico’s assertion that the far right and their inflammatory rhetoric is to blame, and constantly spinning events like January 6 or the mysteriously inept kidnapping attempt of Governor Whitmer, the vast majority of the political violence…..and violence in this country in general….is brought to you by none other than your democrat base. Just to set the record straight, it appears that the recent assassinations of Democratic representatives are the result of a progressive extremist and a former Tampon Tim appointee, disgruntled over their casting a vote for Republican immigration policy. Policy, incidentally, that is supported by the vast majority of Americans, even in progressive Minnesota. The current wave of protests that, despite the media dredging up the summer of love narrative that they are “mostly peaceful”, a campaign slogan rebranded from the BLM protests, has been brought to you by radical leftists, spurred into action by organizations supporting unchecked immigration and socialism.  Some actually funded by government grants. Republican Steve Scalise was nearly killed in a shooting at a congressional baseball practice by a radical leftist sniper. Trump nearly lost his life when he was grazed in the ear by a radicalized leftist shooter in Butler, Pennsylvania only to have second attempt thwarted when yet another progressive nutbag was caught setting up a snipers nest on a Florida golf course with Trump a couple hundred yards away. This time, a leftist was incensed over Ukraine policy.  Remind me again about the democrat narrative that Republicans have too many guns, yet it appears that it’s the democrats who are using them. Anti-Semitic protests roiling our college campuses in support of a terrorist organization? You guessed it, the radical left. And returning to the BLM protests: they, too, were brought to you by this same cadre of Antifa anarchists and socialists intent on the destruction of Western democracy by any means necessary. Dress them up in kaffiyehs, Antifa riot gear, or drape them in Mexican flags; it’s the same group of disgruntled leftist agitators with a toxic mix of illegal immigrants,  infuriated that their party has lost control of the narrative and their policies are not supported by the vast majority of Americans. So spin it all you want, Politico, but part of the blame lies with the mainstream media whipping the radical left into a frenzy with disinformation and blatant political bias against the duly elected conservative Republican administration. Political violence is abhorrent, but there’s a distinct difference between speech you may label as vitriol and outright violence perpetrated in the majority of cases by the left.

California Horror Show

This California unrest is mind-boggling. The left is seeding the media with false reports of ICE raids at high school graduations and rounding up families at Little League practice. It’s absurd. And the narrative that California was once part of Mexico and that “the ties run deep” is equally insane. If Mexico is that grand and glorious…..go back. As Breitbart said this morning, California may be the world’s 4th largest economy, as Newsom opines, but when you factor in taxes and cost of living, it ranks 11th. It recently surpassed Japan, which arguably has a significantly better quality of life when you take into account crime, drug abuse, gangs, homelessness, taxes, and illegal immigration. Find me a place in Japan that has used needles, tent cities, and excrement in the streets. Still, California is a very wealthy state, but all their wealth is sucked up by the homeless, the unemployed, illegal aliens and government Union pensions. The exodus continues. California burning!

A Dire Prophecy

I appreciate Elon Musk’s frustration. The government has been so heavily infiltrated by entrenched leftist ideologues that we don’t stand a chance until this unsustainable trajectory we are on reaches its zenith and we fail. How we fail is the question. Fail like Venezuela? Become a shell of former glory and a pitiful welfare state like Britain? Be overcome by the hoards from the south and morph into a corrupt narco-state? Perhaps invaded and conquered by China? The opposition to removing criminal illegal aliens, cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, and reforming government entitlement programs is just astounding. 

The Poison Apple

Every morning I check Apple News and it’s the same old depository of all things Trump bashing. And it appears that they are purposely trolling for news outlets solely with the intent to find anti-Trump articles, regardless of the credibility of the source. Likely AI is at work again, employed for nefarious purposes. Recall the days when AI was in its infancy and critics were concerned not with obvious doomsday scenarios like Terminator cyborgs but the devious manipulation of public opinion through strategically censored and artificially created news stories designed to skew public opinion towards actually consenting to control. An even more frightening prospect is being coerced without even knowing you are being coerced. But really, Apple, you are sourcing Esquire, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, NJ.com, the Georgia Recorder, the Guardian, Axos, GQ, The New Yorker, Vox, and the Atlantic as respectable unbiased political analysis?

Preposterous.! And with the iPhone comprising upwards of 57% of the cellular market share, that’s a lot of eyeballs skewed towards a progressive political viewpoint. Whenever engaged in a political discussion, the first question to ask is, “Where do you get your news?” If the answer is the Apple newsfeed, then the discussion is essentially over. Of course, the retort is often, “Well, you listen to FOX News.”  Yes, indeed, I do. 

While being bombarded with NPR, Facebook, Instagram, mainstream media in print and the airwaves, local liberal newspapers, and the incessant subliminal messages sent to me through advertising as they attempt to normalize fringe societal standards and what is considered appropriate family-friendly content. If I chose to eliminate all progressive influences, I wouldn’t have any entertainment sources at all. How about going to see a Springsteen or Neil Young concert? It’s bad enough hearing those two old dinosaurs croak out some semblance of their glory years long past but being subjected to their political rants?  Pass. And who can escape the ubiquitous iPhone?  What are your options, the Android platform developed by Google? Not exactly an unbiased source either. It requires effort to be a conservative in this day and age. But with the advent of the internet and now AI, can we really believe what we see and hear anymore? And can we discern whether or not we are being subliminally manipulated?

Harold Ford, Jr

A perfect example of a Democrat mindset was displayed by Harold Ford, Jr. on The Five last evening. As the token Democrat, former congressman Ford is affable, states his positions concisely, logically, and explanatory, and is open to debate as opposed to progressive ideologues like the highly unlikable Jessica Tarlov. However, in this instance, while discussing HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy’s nutrition goals, he suggested that money was the only obstacle preventing people with low incomes from eating properly. Once again, the Democrat solution to everything is to throw more taxpayer money at it. Be it better performance in public schools, healthcare, or nutrition, it has been proven repeatedly that more money does not equate to a sudden change in behavior. Supplementing the income of people with low incomes does not miraculously educate them in healthy eating habits and avoidance of high-risk behaviors like smoking, alcohol, and drug abuse, nor does it turn them into a nutritionist. More money allows doubling down on learned behavior, often exacerbating the result. Democrats are so fond of addressing the “root cause” of everything, but until they recognize that behavior and poor choices  are the foundations on which poor health outcomes are built, rather than an abundance of disposable income, then nothing will change. Despite decades sponsoring a myriad of social programs, nothing has. 

Bashing America

Social media is belching a diatribe of disinformation and uninformed opinions coming from the manic left. Posts have abounded bashing the US by promoting European-style government controls over their citizens. Praising their “outstanding” public-funded healthcare, lack of gun violence, generous social safety nets, government-mandated vacations, and early retirement. While strongly criticizing the US for spending too much on defense, using funds that should go to support social programs, chastising Americans for the size of the vehicles they drive, that our trucks are inefficient, harming the environment, All the while, claiming that Europeans have more freedom than Americans. One cradle-to-grave socialist claimed we don’t know the difference between socialism, a good thing in their view, and communism, which they supposedly abhor, splitting hairs while spreading deceit. We are getting pummeled by these inconsequential layabouts and intellectually flawed thought-to-be influencers.

Depressing News

Aside from Biden’s prostate cancer announcement. And exactly how did that go undetected in a president who is afforded the best healthcare in the world? Who had been under constant scrutiny over his health? And now, we hear from Scarlett Johansson no less, complaining about being “objectified”, years into a career where she’s made millions flaunting her curves and taking roles where she volunteered to be objectified. Even more preposterous is her incessant liberal ranting, most recently in Vanity Fair Magazine, against all things Trump. Nobody asked you, Scarlett. And nobody cares. Your celebrity has been based on your aforementioned peddling of your wares,. Let’s keep that in perspective instead of you possessing some real-world knowledge of geopolitics. And adding to the outrage is Bruce Springsteen, committing the ultimate sin of trash talking the Trump administration while on foreign shores. Not cool, Bruce, but neither are you, despite your carefully cultivated, yet bogus working man image, replete with headband, denim ensemble, and work boots all brought to you from his tony enclave in uber-exclusive Colt’s Neck, New Jersey. All funded by croaking out such anti-American anthems as the inappropriately thought-to-be-patriotic “Born in the USA.". So Bruce, Scarlett, and all the rest of you Hollywood elitists: Just. Shut. Up. Read the room. Nobody really cares what you think because you don’t live in the same world as the rest of us.  You have the time, the money, and the fawning media on your side, providing you the resources to buy a platform to run your mouth and promote an agenda that does not resonate with the majority of Americans. Enjoy your time in the sun, you are becoming irrelevant, and are about to be replaced by AI. Da Da!

WSJ Again Disappoints

The Wall Street Journal, our last bastion of conservative journalism, has not exactly been kind to the Trump Administration. Friday's lead editorial led with the headline “Trump Stages a Trade-War Retreat.”  Was that really necessary?  Surely the world-class writers on the Journal staff recognize by now Trump’s “Art of the Deal” negotiating tactics, where he asks for the moon, when his goal is to settle for something in the middle, but still an improvement over the status quo. And, to call an agreement with the UK that is to our advantage a “retreat” is disingenuous, and had it appeared in the New York Times, it would have qualified as partisan rhetoric. Granted, Trump’s weaponization of tariffs to reorder international trade is risky, but so is maintaining the current trade deficit. The Administration claims that countries are lining up to cut a deal, and this week’s forum in Switzerland will give us a better indication of whether or not that is true. But market gyrations do not please the Journal’s desire to appease Wall Street’s voracious appetite for easy money and aversion to volatility. Patience has never been an investor virtue, preferring knee-jerk reactions to subtle trends and a herd mentality. Recall, we are only a month after “liberation day”, the market has regained nearly all of its losses despite rampant pessimism, and even the most conservative investment firms are pulling back from their doomsday recession predictions. Patience, my friends. Reassess after Lutnick and Bessent return from the economic forum. And remember, with Trump-style negotiations, everything is in play.

Doll Spin

I never was particularly impressed with Matthew Hennessey’s editorials in the WSJ, but Tuesday’s “Donald Trump’s Two-Doll Problem” was simply absurd. He should consider either engaging the rest of his neurons or otherwise register as a democrat where this sort of spin and idiocy is expected. To take the comment “maybe children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls” out of context is journalistic malpractice. He suggests that Trump is pushing austerity measures to cover for his own disastrous policy decisions. He further indicates that accusing Americans of materialism and having a lot of stuff is the opinion of “snooty Europeans envious of our sustained prosperity.” Wrong analysis, Matty. We are materialistic over-consumers. So what. We drive the world economy. But if you ask me to cut back on some stuff, especially cheap frivolous stuff from China, we can reset international trade and level the playing field…..I’m all in. This isn’t austerity for the long term. This isn’t austerity that requires cutting back on food or necessities. Trump is asking us to reduce the consumption of Chinese goods in favor of American products to balance the enormous trade deficit. Face facts, every dollar sent to China is a dollar working against us. So, for now, buy two dolls instead of 30, but make sure they’re American dolls. And I mean Made in America, because the “American Doll” brand is made in China. There’s no better example of the need for a reset.

With An Economy Of Words

There is nothing more demoralizing than watching our Republic show signs of resurgence only to be opposed by a bunch of intellectually deficient and morally corrupt politically-serving, appointed District Judges. 

Stay In Your Lane WSJ

The WSJ is getting progressively more anti-Trump by the day. I can understand them taking an adversarial view of anything Trump does that affects market returns, but they seem to be attacking on all fronts. To run a front-page headline: “US, El Salvador Won’t Budge on Mistakenly Deported Man” is bowing to the left-wing narrative that this guy is somehow living the American dream, mowing his lawn and coaching youth soccer while raising a family in the suburbs. Baloney! Only recently has it come to light that he impregnated his girlfriend and only married her on the advice of his attorneys when he was picked up on charges of being an MS-13 gang member. Charges that appear to be true, incidentally, including human trafficking. The fear of “rival gangs retaliating against him” narrative is also full of holes, with fantastical reports of his grandmother’s taco stand getting muscled by a gang that exists on US soil, not in El Salvador.

Further, as Marco Rubio points out, he is a citizen of El Salvador and has been rightly returned to his home soil after illegally entering the US. Full stop. He is not a “Maryland Dad,” as the grandstanding Senator Van Hollen would have you believe, and he is, therefore, not your constituent, making his pending PR stunt to Central America particularly annoying to those who are. The judge never said he couldn’t be deported; he said he would not go to El Salvador, making Gaza and Ukraine favored destinations. So, let’s waste more tax dollars on this miscreant and send a jet to pick him up. We can allow him to get off at any Central American country he likes, preferably at 30,000 feet, because this administration is not going to import another illegal immigrant with ties to a terrorist organization into our country. Been there, done that. Those days are over. And the Wall Street Journal should know better. Your conservative readership will demand it.

The Empire State

Did you happen to catch the phenomenally self-important,  yet equally vapid, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pontificating on the definitions and differences between socialism and capitalism?  Completely clueless. So much for her political science degree. Boston University must be so proud. But what is truly disturbing, far beyond her inability to form coherent thoughts, is that in a head-to-head primary contest between her and incumbent Senator Chuck Schumer, she is currently ahead by 19 percentage points in the polling. This on the heels of a poll showing disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo leading Eric Adams in a race for mayor of New York City. What is wrong with New York? Can the radical democrats move any farther left and continue to alienate the rest of the country? Can New Yorkers disgrace themselves any more than they have in electing a cast of abrasive partisans that currently includes Hochul, Raskin, Nadler, AOC, Tish James, Alvin Bragg, and Schumer with a history of scandals perpetuated by Cuomo above, Elliot Spitzer, Sheldon Silver, Eric Schneiderman, and Andrew Weiner?  And recall they elected the carpetbagger Hillary Clinton to the Senate, although she may have been more effective than her replacement, the largely invisible and completely unproductive Kirstin Gillibrand. The Democratic Party needs to do some soul-searching on a national level to recover from the rudderless state of anti-Trump vitriol they are currently using as a party platform. But there is no better place to start than New York.

Shame On You Wisconsin

Wisconsin is such a disappointment. To think the democrats are demonizing Musk who, at great risk to his own business empire, is donating his time and resources to rooting out government corruption and the wasting of taxpayer dollars, yet is being portrayed as somehow taking away entitlements, Medicaid and Medicare in particular, is just a mind-bending concept. The accusations from the left that he is buying votes when democrat candidates have been Soros-funded for years is typically hypocritical.  The democrats are crowing about their political gains, but the same old entrenched tactics won the day. Milwaukee and Madison are Wisconsin’s largest population centers, and like most American cities, they are rife with welfare recipients, government employees, and liberal colleges and universities. Further, despite the DOGE team’s impressive performance on FOX with Brett Baier, the vast majority of the public is oblivious, instead barraged by the mainstream media talking points, the same hysteria that has whipped these mentally impaired leftists to vandalize Tesla dealerships. And exactly how Wisconsin voters were able to elect the decidedly progressive judge Crawford by 10 percentage points but on the same ballot supported an ID requirement for voting with a 25% margin, something that Crawford opposes incidentally, doesn’t make any sense at all. Just the concept that a judge is not impartial, bowing to progressive ideology rather than adhering to constitutional guidelines, is abhorrent. Wisconsin voters should be ashamed if that is at all possible. It increasingly appears that Americans are a product of our own education system and cannot read the handwriting on the wall. 

Democrat Dementia

The Democrats have gone from the ridiculous to the sublime in the throes of their Trump Derangement Syndrome. The Democrats are looking for any foothold to attack the Trump administration, regardless of how absurd it may be. I’m seeing the “Musk as a fascist” theme resurfacing because he proposed we hunt down whoever is supporting violent attacks on his dealerships; Hegseth and Waltz are “unqualified” for mistakenly using an encrypted app that was put in place and supposedly vetted by the previous administration (with no harm done incidentally) and widespread democrat support for rogue district judges opposed to deporting foreign criminals from our country. And somehow, a green card is a license to foment dissent and violent protest

 Somehow, rooting out corruption, waste, and fraud in the government is something to fight against. Further, did anyone on the left watch Brett Baier’s interview with the DOGE team? In a side-by-side comparison of competence, who do you want advising the president….the radical leftists that comprise the “Squad” or these accomplished entrepreneurs? I’ll take the astute businessman over the Marxists every time.  Do you want the folks who got involved in politics to get rich or the rich guys who got involved in politics to make America great again? 

So it’s about time that America realizes that the left does not have their best interests in mind; they’re nothing more than a vocal minority seeking to perpetuate the corruption that feathers their nests at the expense of we the people in the private sector. We just need bigger pumps to drain the swamp.

Rhode Island Model

Little Ole Rhody exemplifies the Democrats’ big government intentions, where the state employs 60% of its working population. Add in the state’s sizable welfare recipients, and you have a model for Democrat rule in perpetuity. This rule fostered such national legislative luminaries as Gina Raimondo and Sheldon Whitehouse. The Democrats aimed to replicate their RI success on a national scale. All was going well, but then came their worst aberration, the combination of Trump and Musk. Others talked of concerns over government loading, bloating, and inefficiencies. T&M and their merry band of ladies and gentlemen have taken an axe to it at breakneck speed. How refreshing! Yes, there will be collateral damage, hopefully to a minimum. Still, such drastic action was warranted in light of our steep trajectory toward social chaos, economic ruin, and loss of international eminence.

Medicare Backlash

I see Bernie is squawking about “Medicare for All” again. And by all, let’s be clear: all means everyone but Congress, of course, will retain whatever their very special version of Medicare. Meanwhile, DOGE has uncovered fraud and abuse in virtually every government agency, and yet Bernie wants to provide government-run healthcare to 350 million people.  Where in the world has universal healthcare provided adequate care to a population that large? Canada’s system has cracked, with a population of just 47 million, and the UK’s National Health Service is infamous for its inability to provide quality care for its 69 million inhabitants.  Imagine the scale of fraud and abuse we can expect so that we can receive a similar level of substandard care. Obamacare was just the prelude, and Covid accelerated the decline. Socialized medicine is the Marxist utopia of equality where your money is redistributed so everyone gets the same abysmal quality of care regardless of how much you paid in. Telemedicine anyone? In the end, you get what you pay for except for Bernie and the elitists. 

DOE Failed Mission

Watching the protests over Trump’s order to close the Department of Education is laughable. Especially the signs employing the typical democrat tactic of invoking “the children.”  They are now claiming that they are being unfairly scapegoated for lackluster student performance when, in fact, that’s not their responsibility. Really?  Then what exactly is their responsibility?  From where I sit, it would appear that they are nothing more than an arm of the teachers union. And as everyone knows, the department was formed during the Carter administration as a gift to the teachers union for their unwavering support of the Democrat Party. Fact. According to their website, their mission statement is “to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence.” So there you have it, in that they have failed miserably, just look at the statistics! Not to pile on, but coincidentally, what further stoked my ire, an acquaintance of mine, a ninth-grade social studies teacher, attended a “teacher wellness day” when the students were given a day off, and the teachers sat around, drank coffee and watched Saturday Night Live videos. How productive. Another friend of mine, in the same time frame, lent yet further to my agitation. He reported having recently moved to an up-scale neighborhood and wondered what his next-door neighbor did for a living. He had an expensive home and drove an expensive car but was home early every day, mowing his lawn and washing his car at 2:30-3:00 in the afternoon. He made some inquiries to find out he was superintendent of schools, with a yearly salary of $250K. Money well spent? Or top-heavy bureaucracy endorsed by the union. When Nancy Reagan proposed “no child left behind,” I don’t think this was what she had in mind. So if the Department of Education isn’t responsible for student performance and somehow reigning in the circus that has become our public school system, they actually serve no useful purpose and are the very definition of the government waste that has bloated our federal budget. Good riddance I say, and please forgive me all you dedicated school teachers and administrators out there who just got done in by association with a flawed system that disserved you in its political fervor and Progressive agenda.

Working Class Ken Casey

The leftist propaganda knows no bounds, no stone unturned …especially in Boston. Rolling Stone Magazine, which continues to refuse to stay in its lane and morphing into a mouthpiece for progressive disinformation, recently praised the frontman of the irrelevant Irish punk band “Dropkick Murphys” for calling out a fan who prominently displayed what they described as a “true Nazi edition MAGA hat” at a Fenway Park concert. You know, the black one that Elon made popular. In an expletive-laden tirade now endemic in leftist circles, Ken Casey went on at length to criticize MAGA supporters as being in a “cult.” He performed a song to honor his “grandparents and people who fought Nazis in the war and s**t,” proclaiming, “This is America; there are no kings here.”  So erudite is this, Mr. Casey. He has been known to criticize Pennsylvania for selling MAGA merchandise at his concerts, calling it a “MAGA flea market” and “another planet,” and lambasted a fan at a Florida concert for wearing a MAGA shirt, calling Trump a “grifter” and a “swindler” while claiming himself a man who history will record as “standing with the people, with the workers.”  Mr. Casey doesn’t get out much and should consider expanding his news source beyond the Boston Globe. If he read the room, he would realize that the working class he purports to represent overwhelmingly supports the President for policies that have caused their wages to rise and their streets to be safer while enforcing our borders. Yet the Boston liberal bubble continues to rail against the deportation of illegal immigrants causing crime in their streets and, especially in the supposedly devout Irish catholic community, reflexively supports the Democrat Party sponsors state-sanctioned abortion on demand, men participating in women’s sports and mutilating gender “affirming” care for minors. And historically speaking, Mr. Casey, was it, not your supposedly neutral Irish ancestors who refueled Nazi U-boats during WWII? And your brethren in South Boston who sent money and arms to support IRA terror bombings in Northern Ireland? Yeah, there’s that. So how about you and Rolling Stone both stick to your schtick, so to speak, enjoy your yearly St. Patrick’s Day in the sun, then crawl back under the rock from whence you came. And in the meantime, do some reading…..and enough with the ridiculous Nazi references. 

Pete Buttigieg

A signal that the Democrats are truly desperate:  Pete Buttigieg is being hailed as a potential senate candidate and eventually the face of the Democrat Party. And as a sign that he’s moving toward the center, he removed his pronouns from his web page. You have to be kidding me. America has spoken and chosen to move on from the left’s alphabet soup fixation and DEI initiatives that reek of bias and are patently unfair. And yet here they are, doubling down on a candidate who not only has a resume devoid of accomplishment but uses his LGBTQ status as his primary selling point. So go ahead and put all your overpriced eggs in that basket…. so that America can reject your agenda yet again. Enough already; these Progressive Democrats never cease to amaze me.

That’s All Folks

Seeing all the democrats assembled en masse for the joint assembly was truly a frightening sight to behold. The Republicans really don’t have anything to compare to that cast of remarkably abrasive cartoon characters. Sure, we have the Turtle McConnell representing the old guard, and we have MTG and Boebert to counter the “squad,” but yikes, Schumer, Pelosi, Maxine, Bernie, Liz Warren, Blumenthal, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Al Green are largely antiquities and the new guard features Hakeem “dead-eyes” Jeffries, AOC, Tlaib, Omar, Pressley, Feng-Feng Swalwell, Wasserman-Schultz, Crockett and Adam Schiff. Wow, you can’t make this stuff up. Talk about Looney Tunes. 

State Of The Union

What a disgusting display by the democrats. They find themselves on the wrong side of every issue, yet they double down and try to appeal to their tiny core constituents of left-wing progressive ideologues. Not a good look. Republicans have had their PR disasters as well… recall the “you lie” episode….and have done their share of stone-faced sitting on their hands during opposition addresses to Congress, but this was beyond the pale. The juvenile signs, the little round placards displaying FALSE, were just misplaced political theater. Sure, they didn’t choose to shout it out at a silent moment like Wilson did, instead opting for a continuous, disrespectful, distracting cacophony—same thing for children. And nobody is proposing cuts to that sacred progressive bloated cow Medicaid, just eliminating waste and abuse…..and won’t that provide more money for services for those who genuinely need it?  The “pushing granny over the cliff” narrative is just insulting the intelligence of voters. Like granny, it’s old and tired—time to retire. And Al Green’s cane-shaking diatribe was ridiculous and inappropriate, giving Mike Johnson the perfect opportunity to look composed and mature. Thank you very much, Al.  You should take your medication. Now I understand that the left is sticking with the narrative that Elon is an unelected threat to government programs, which are in place to waste trillions of taxpayer funds on DEI initiatives in Mozambique or some other third-world backwater that mercifully has never heard of RuPaul, but not even to applaud the heart-wrenching stories of the kid with brain cancer, or the families of slain police officers, or families of children murdered by immigrant gang members, or the family of the firefighter struck down by an assassins bullet meant for Trump….that is a disconnect with the emotions of the American public. And that makes you not just partisan but a bunch of mean-spirited, unpleasant people totally out of touch, not just with mainstream Americans, but with the rest of the human race. And while these touching stories unfolded, there you were: Pelosi sucking on her dentures, Bernie Sanders glowering, and AOC choosing not to attend, instead “live tweeting” her reactions…..like anyone outside of your yuppie gentrified enclave cares what you think, especially after you proved yourself a vacuous insubstantial empty pantsuit unable to answer softball questions with any gravitas in your recent NPR interview with the perennially liberal Steve Inskeep.  How embarrassing. Face it, Trump is on a roll, his policies are popular with the American electorate, and you cretins are on the wrong side of public opinion, no matter how you spin it. Your party is in desperate need of a makeover; your tactics are old and tired and appeal to an increasingly uncouth, vulgar, misaligned radical wing of your base where compromise is never an option, even on policies that are not only popular but represent American values. Eliminating waste fraud and abuse of taxpayer money, eliminating men from competing in women’s sports, seeking peace in Ukraine and the Middle East, enforcing our borders, and protecting American interests here and abroad are not Republican values or Trump policies; they are common sense American values. And the sooner the democrats realize that America First is not just a campaign slogan but should be a thought foremost in the minds of all elected officials, the sooner they can resume their place in working with republicans to make America great again and restore the public’s faith in Congress. And that’s not a bad thing.