Where Do We Go from Here?

Took the words right out of my mouth

Posted on August 6, 2025August 7, 2025 by Mike

It’s about damned time SOMEbody said it.

It’s Time For Israel, For Once And For All, To Put An End To This “Palestinian State” Nonsense
No other nation on the face of the Earth has allowed itself to be bullied into aiding its sworn enemies, especially during a protracted state of war against it…

The history goes all the way back to 1916, when Amin al-Hussein launched a series of wars against Jewish migrants who had bought barren and unproductive lands in the British Mandate, and turned them into productive agricultural lands, something that al-Hussein’s Wahhabist “Palestinians” were never able to do – and since 1948, despite massive aid from the UNRWA, have not been able or willing to do.

Israel has been supplying water and electricity to Gaza since 2005. If those were cut off, Gaza would be finished, because with all of those billions of UNRWA aid, they’ve never managed to build any electrical generation facilities, or water wells – or a desalinization plant. And, of course, they don’t grow their own food or have a fishing fleet, so they’re dependent on UNRWA or Israel for food. Same case for the West Bank, I think, if I’m not mistaken. All of the money went to Hamas, to either enrich its now billionaire founders who now live far outside of “Palestine”, or to buy weapons. And Hamas didn’t get in by free elections, they seized power in a coup in 2006.

“Palestine” is an utterly dependent population. If Israel were to go away “from the river to the sea”, they would end up like Zimbabwe, which is desperately seeking to bring back the English farmers they ran off of their lands, because the natives know only subsistence farming, and are utterly ignorant of how to make productive farms or to maintain agricultural machinery more complicated than a pointed stick. That point could be – and is being – driven home by Israel, because if “Palestine” were anything other than a dependent state, they wouldn’t be having problems with starvation.

It is plainly apparent that Hamas intends to wipe Israel off the map – and that has been their historical intent, first with the Jewish settlers, and then with the State of Israel, since 1920 – over 100 years. And they have periodically declared their intent to do so, the last such statement of intent 8 years ago, in 2017.

To Hamas and its supporters, there is no “two state solution” as plainly and unequivocally demonstrated above, and this is the case for their supporters in Gaza and the West Bank. For Israel to have peace and sovereignty in its own lands, there is no other solution but to drive these avowed enemies out of the lands which they presently occupy – and they have no duty to provide any assistance to, or cooperation with, these people.

Palestinian Arabs – most notably the Bedouins – have peacefully co-existed with Jewish settlers in the British Mandate from the 1890s until 1948, until they were incorporated into the State of Israel, and they have peacefully co-existed ever since. It is the Wahhabist Islamic religious extremists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and like organizations, who refuse this peaceful co-existence and insist on genocidal jihadi warfare – and to have peace, they must be driven out – just as the Muslim Brotherhood was driven out of Egypt and other Arab countries.

Egg-ZACKLY, right down the line. It’s as the now-classic meme says of shitlibs and conservatives in the US: If the Paleosimians wanted peace, there would be peace; if Israel wanted war, there would be no Paleosimians.

So much for the ***((((Joo))))*** -hatin’ Right’s “our ‘natural allies’ the Mooselimbs” stupid-ass horseshit, also. The time has at long last come for the dream to become reality: from the mountains to the sea, Israel shall be free…of murderin’ Muzzrat savages of whatever national origin—be they fake “Palestinians” or, y’know, what have you.

Solid as a rock

Posted on June 17, 2025June 17, 2025 by Mike

Just in case anybody had forgotten just how long, consistently, and unequivocally Trump has insisted that the Mad Mullahs must NEVER be allowed to join the ranks of the world’s so-called Nuclear Powers.

The White House is bringing receipts about President Donald Trump’s unwavering stance that Iran can not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon, shutting down criticism from those who claim otherwise.

“President Donald J. Trump has never wavered in his stance that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon — a pledge he has made repeatedly, both in office and on the campaign trail,” a lengthy thread on X shared by the Official Rapid Response account of the Trump 47 White House read.

The thread contained numerous clips of comments Trump has made on the issue, proving that he’s not the peace-loving hippie that some had pretended he would be when he returned to the White House.

Follows, Tweet after Tweet after Tweet by way of documentary evidence for the above “numerous clips” statement.

Now, I was quite pleased by Trump’s oft-repeated campaign pledge that, as President, he intended to extricate the US from as many as practicable of the futile, open-ended brushfire wars in which we’re currently mired to well above the axles around the globe—wars in which no US national interest of any kind is to be found; wars in which many thousands of good American soldiers will be maimed and/or killed for no good reason; wars in which victory is neither defined nor necessarily even pursued as the end goal; wars whose underlying rationale is not the defense of the nation’s interior land mass, population, wealth, or national sovereignty against an aggressor-nation.

Nor is the underlying rationale the suppression of a hostile rival, nor expansion of its territory, nor securing its national borders. Important considerations all, to be sure, affording ample justification for making war in the Aulden Thymes of Yore. Not so much nowadays, though; wars of conquest, wars for gold, natural resources, or merely because our King and y’all’s King just can’t stand the sight of one another are all pretty much historical relics now. In the modern era, the bottom-line truth of what virtually every war is/was really all about is fattening the bank accounts of certain powerful, top-tier players of the World’s Great Game. Funny how things do change, innit?

Twinned with his most laudable goal of pulling us out of wasteful, costly wars of choice we never should’ve blundered our way into in the first place, Trump also vowed that he would likewise be HIGHLY resistant to jumping into any new Forever Wars as well.

On the other hand, though, it must also be noted that simply shrugging off the cold, hard reality that war, awful as we all know it to be, can sometimes be necessary, just, even beneficial isn’t very helpful either. Attempting to implement a foreign policy founded entirely on the blanket, puerile rejection of any and all war, forever and ever amen, is no more practical-minded, workable, or sustainable than Amerika v2.0’s current “Invade the world, invite the world” strategery is.

At least pacifists have a philosophy, if only a half-baked one, to fall back on for an explanation of and/or excuse for how muttonheaded and wrong they are.

Elsewhere, Ace ain’t having any of the “Trump promised no more wars” twipe historical revisionists are currently pitching hissy fits all over the Innarnuts over. A taste:

Apparently when Trump said this over and over and over again, the hyper-isolationists all heard him saying, “I promise I will pursue Barack Obama’s Iran policy and help Iran get a nuclear bomb. And also, again like Barack Obama, when Iran’s regime is fatally threatened, I will step in to save it.”

He never said these things. You made them up. You wanted him to say them, but he never, ever did.

The hyper-isolationists are threatening that Trump doing the things Trump has repeatedly promised to do would “fracture the base.” This is their threat that they’ll abandon and oppose Trump.

Yet they don’t consider that Trump doing what they demand and using our military and economic power to harm Israel to aid Iran would also fracture the base.

I didn’t vote for your fucking queerbait RoN pAuL!!!-cum-Medea-Benjamin gaywad peacenik foreign policy. Trump, as I already wrote, has always said that he thinks the Deep State’s ambition to be at war at all times in all countries is insane and that he would stop that, and that he wants to be known for ending wars rather than starting them.

But he’s also made it clear, as he did when he used missile attacks to all but wipe out ISIS and also assassinate Iran’s top terror commander, that enemy countries which do not accept his open hand will feel his closed fist.

He also has repeatedly stated that he completely supports Israel. I know the Tucker Carlson circle thinks that Israel is The Real Terrorist Enemy and now is literally calling for the US to attack Tel Aviv — Darryl Cooper, the man Tucker Carlson praised and glazed as “the most important popular historian [i.e., ‘Twitter crank’] writing today” expressly called for the US Air Force to bomb Tel Aviv.*

That’s not Trump’s policy. He promised to support Israel, and to stop Iran from getting the bomb.

That is what he said, that is what he promised, and that is what we voted for.

A-yup, that covers it pretty well, I believe. Like it or lump it, ya sniveling losers.

Ruh-roohhh

Posted on June 16, 2025June 17, 2025 by Mike

The earlier Iran war post was getting long in the tooth enough that I thought it high time to start a brand new, fresh one on the topic.

BREAKING: Trump Departs G7 Early. Is Something Big About to Go Down?
On Monday evening, President Donald Trump issued an ominous warning to Iran.

“Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign,” he said in a post on Truth Social. “What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

Moments ago, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt indicated that he’s leaving the G7 Summit in Canada:

He is reportedly leaving the summit early to go back to Washington, D.C.

Unconfirmed reports on X suggest that strikes on Tehran began right after Trump’s post on Truth Social.

Trump followed up his original post with another saying, “AMERICA FIRST means many GREAT things, including the fact that, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

President Trump clearly isn’t playing games. According to Fox News, he’s ordered the National Security Council to be ready in the White House Situation Room—an unmistakable sign that something big is going on. Military, intelligence, and diplomatic channels are all on high alert. Missiles are being prepped on both sides.

Yikes! As stated earlier, not a whole lot we can do now but just wait and see. Meanwhile, the psychos in charge of Iran are ramping up the Doomsday rhetoric higher and hotter than ever before.

Meanwhile, the Iranian regime just turned up the heat. In a chilling escalation, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has publicly warned that a strike on Israel is imminent, and they’re not mincing words. “All cities, facilities, and centers will be considered legitimate military targets,” the IRGC declared, urging evacuations across the so-called “occupied territories.”

Aerospace forces are reportedly preparing to launch within hours, as Tehran moves from vague threats to explicit ultimatums. This isn’t posturing—it’s a direct challenge, framed to strike both military and psychological blows.

There’s never been any reason to assume the wild-eyed fanatics in Tehran lack the will, the desire, to make good on their ever-more-hair-raising threats of revenge, destruction, and death against Satans both Great and Lesser. Quite the opposite, in fact. The only question is, do the Mad Mullahs have the means which would enable them to make good on their fiery bluster? The materiél, the reach, the faith and trust of the lower-ranking military personnel who will be the ones charged with actually carrying out the “Go!” order once it’s been issued?

A related question which looms ever larger: after years of Western governments deliberately importing hordes of unassimilable, unvetted Moslem savages into the US and Europe, scattering them willy-nilly across their soft, inattentive nations as “refugees,” nearly all of them military-service-age males—a resettlement program which, incredibly, didn’t even bother to track these men or keep records on where they wound up—how confident can we really be that they aren’t even now quietly watching and waiting for a “Go!” order of their own?

Update! Well. WellwellwellwellwellwellwellwellwellWELL.

New: Iran Folds Like a Wash-and-Wear Suit, Starts Begging for a Ceasefire
Things aren’t going well for Iran. While the Islamist nation has managed to kill some civilians by indiscriminately lobbing ballistic missiles at Israel, when it comes to the actual business of winning the war, the scoreboard isn’t even close. The latest evidence of that? Iran is now begging for a ceasefire.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Mullahs are looking for an off-ramp, burning up the backchannels to try to get the United States to bail them out.

Iran has been urgently signaling that it seeks an end to hostilities and resumption of talks over its nuclear programs, sending messages to Israel and the U.S. via Arab intermediaries, Middle Eastern and European officials said.

In the midst of a ferocious Israeli air campaign, Tehran has told Arab officials it would be open to returning to the negotiating table as long as the U.S. doesn’t join the attack, the officials said. Iran also passed messages to Israel saying it is in the interest of both sides to keep the violence contained.

I’m not sure if what’s left of the Iranian leadership doesn’t understand how negotiations work, but they probably should have taken them seriously before Israel began its military operation to destroy their nuclear program. It took only three days for the IDF to establish air superiority over Tehran, and they are now bombing regime targets with impunity. That includes the launchers being used to shoot missiles at Israel. Once that threat is minimized, the Mullahs will have nothing left to respond with.

In other words, Iran is on the ropes, and that’s why they are desperately hoping President Donald Trump’s instinct to negotiate gives them a face-saving off-ramp that preserves the regime. Will that happen? I don’t know, but I know what I think should happen.

He lays out what he thinks in the very next ‘graph, an opinion with which I must say I concur without reservation. That stipulated, I probably should also note that the timestamp indicates that this piece went live shortly after the lunch hour this afternoon, so may well have been overtaken by events since then.

Updated update! A later post, this one from a little after 7 PM this evening, portrays Trump as playing hardball, talking tough, and showing no interest whatsoever in backing off or “moderating” his stance one single bit. None of which should come as any big surprise to anybody, being perfectly typical of the man.

Breaking: Trump Declares Iran Cannot Have a Nuclear Weapon, Warns People to Evacuate Tehran ‘Immediately’
President Donald Trump made waves at the G7 on Monday by refusing to sign a joint statement calling for “restraint” between Israel and Iran. The statement would have also affirmed the latter’s ability to have a nuclear program under the guise of “supervision.”

In other words, Trump has no interest in preserving the status quo that led us to this point in the first place.

Joe Biden would have rushed to sign that statement, but the days of America taking a backseat to the clowns at the G7, including France, Canada, the UK, and Germany, are over. This is not the time for “restraint.” It’s the time to let Israel finish the job, considering how much of the hard work has already been done. Iran’s air defenses have been neutralized, and the IDF has total air superiority. The Mullahs have no leverage and nothing to offer at this point. Giving them an off-ramp to save their nuclear program would be moronic. So, of course, that’s what the Canadians and Europeans are calling for. They are nothing if not perpetually weak and useless.

And if we know anything at all about our sitting President by now, it’s that he don’t play none of that “weak and useless” shit. “Weak and useless” is not who he is, not what he does, and is for sure and certain no part of what got him elected by a landslide. Thank goodness.

Update to the updated update! The peerless Robert Spencer lays down some of the backstory for us.

As far back as Nov. 2012, a huge billboard on Tehran’s Niayesh highway depicted a missile with the legend, “Destination Tel Aviv.” It attracted little attention from the Iranians who drove by it. Over the previous three decades of living in the Islamic Republic, they had become accustomed to a steady barrage of bellicose anti-Israel rhetoric. From the moment the Iranian mullahs took power, they had been outspoken about their hostility to Israel. The Ayatollah Khomeini dubbed Israel “the Little Satan” and once declared, “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.”

The Islamic Republic has been determined from its inception to make sure that happened. It set out to make good on its aggressive rhetoric in the early 1980s by creating Hizballah as a permanent force set against the Jewish state. During the 2006 Israeli-Hizballah conflict, Iranian forces directly aided Hizballah, and two members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps were killed fighting alongside Hizballah in Lebanon. Hundreds of Iranian soldiers aided Hizballah in firing missiles into Israel.

Iran’s proxy war against Israel didn’t begin after Oct. 7. As far back as March 2009, Iran was shipping weapons to Gaza through Sudan—until Israeli forces carried out airstrikes against the shipments. Two years later, Israeli commandos boarded a cargo ship flying the Liberian flag. On it they found, in containers that were labeled as carrying cotton and lentils, mortar shells and Chinese-made anti-ship missiles bound for Hamas. Instruction manuals were written in Farsi. The cargo had been loaded in the Syrian port of Latakia; then the ship had made its way to Turkey before attempting to pass by Israeli defenses and get its cargo to Hamas.

On July 18, 2012, a caller to Bulgaria’s tourist office warned that a group of Israeli tourists who were just arriving would be “welcomed by two bombs.” When the tourists duly arrived at Bulgaria’s Burgas International Airport, they boarded a bus to their hotel—and seven people were killed and over thirty more wounded when a bomb tore through that bus.

Benjamin Netanyahu immediately pointed to the mullahs and accused them of carrying out terror attacks against Israelis all over the globe: “All signs point towards Iran. Over the last few months we have seen Iran’s attempts to attack Israelis in Thailand, India, Georgia, Kenya, Cyprus and other countries. Exactly 18 years to the day after the horrendous attack on the Jewish Community Center in Argentina, deadly Iranian terrorism continues to strike at innocent people. This is a global Iranian terror onslaught and Israel will react firmly to it.”

Nearly thirteen years later, that Iranian terror onslaught continues, and Israel is finally taking decisive action to end it once and for all. The Jewish state deserves the gratitude of the free world.

Indeed it does, good sir. The tunnel-visioned ((((!!!JooJooJooJOOOOO!!!))))-H8RRR single-issue obsessives and their Cyclopean doctrine which insists on dumping our parasitic false friends of the “Zionist entity” as our go-to partner in the ME—diplomatically, militarily, economically, philosophically, to name but a few of the bonds which connect us—in preference for embracing “our natural allies” the Muzzrats are looking mighty doggone silly right about now whether they realize it or not, even moreso in light of the above (only partial, remember) damning indictment of the Iranian regime.

The great contradiction

Posted on June 16, 2025June 16, 2025 by Mike

Well, one of ‘em, at any rate. These days, one of a great, great many, seems like.

Trump Fires Back at Tucker Carlson Over Israel-Iran Strikes
Trump is firing back at those who say that supporting Israel doesn’t necessarily serve American interests and is thus not “America First.” He explained it all to The Atlantic’s Michael Scherer, who asked the president a question about the views of people like (TuckerCarlson.

“Well, considering that I’m the one that developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along, I think I’m the one that decides that,” Trump told Scherer. “For those people who say they want peace — you can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. So for all of those wonderful people who don’t want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon—that’s not peace.”

Bold mine, just to highlight exactly what I’m talking about here. Far as I can determine, these are the horns of our geat contemporary dilemna: assuming we DO have any sort of obligation to end the threat presented to Western democracies by terror-sponsorong rogue states of which Iran is the undisputed ring-leader—insofar as it really lies within our power to do so—then how far do we let the West’s kinda-sorta Reverse Prime Directive requiring that we mind our own friggin’ beeswax go to hold us back?

Just spitballing here, folks, that’s all. Seems to me it’s a pretty interesting thought experiment; not saying I buy into any of it, on either side.

Update! What if…?

If the Iranian Regime Falls, What Will Follow?
A sudden collapse of the Iranian regime looks like a real possibility.

As far as I know, the Israelis have no plans to take out Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, but they are systematically dismantling the pillars of state power underneath him. The Ayatollahs are on the run, and the generation that put them into power doesn’t have a ton of support from average Iranians.

Persia in the 1960s and 1970s was a rapidly developing and Westernizing country. It was the regional power, balancing the less Western-friendly Arab states. The women were treated with dignity and enjoyed the same freedoms as Western women–videos of Iranians living their daily life were not very dissimilar to those from a European Mediterranean city.

But the regime was toppled by Islamists who were very unhappy with the trend toward Westernization. An unholy alliance between communists and Islamists systematically undermined the regime, and when Jimmy Carter withdrew US support for the Shah due to his repression of the opposition, the regime fell.

The Shah was right and Carter was wrong. We have been in a low-medium level conflict with Iran for over four decades, and millions died in the Iran-Iraq war because of Carter’s foolishness. The Middle East was destabilized, and progress was set back decades.

From what we should damned well have learned about it by now, nation-building in places inhabited by hyper-aggressive 13th-century primordials whose pseudo-religion has inculcated in them an obsessive drive for world conquest is a mug’s game. At this point, all the optimism in the world isn’t going to suffice to make Iran an exception to the rule. Despite having been moving steadily and rapidly along for years and years in a much more felicitous direction, those halcyon days under the Shah are long gone now. The Mad Mullahs having beavered away in quite the opposite direction throughout their tenure, it ain’t likely they can ever be brought back.

As I have long maintained, Jimmeh Peanuthead has more to answer for than just about any other US President I can think of right offhand. By sitting back and more or less passively allowing the Shah to be deposed, he hung a burden around the neck of Western Civ that has weighed it down mightily ever since. Thus is it demonstrated yet again just where exactly the road paved with good intentions leads.

Updated update! Aesop helpfully points out a few interesting bits of operational arcana and backstage legerdemain I hadn’t thought of.

Iran has been the bleeding ass sore of the Middle East since 1979.

We should have been flying Arc Light rounders to their cities from Diego Garcia hourly for the last 50 years, but we’ve been too chickenshit to man up and do what’s both deserved, and long past necessary.

Israel lacked the ability to do what they did yesterday as anything but one-way suicide missions, until they were sold US KC-135 tanker aircraft during Obozo’s administration.

Israel can’t wait until after there’s a mushroom cloud overhead to act. It’s an existential luxury, and asinine to expect it of them. So Wikileaks should either STFU, or quit the charade by just putting on a pointed white hood, and get their true feelings out in the open.

They could be that stupid once, but to stay this stupid perpetually is the calculated and deliberate act of someone maliciously hoping they could see all of Israel smoked under a rain of nuclear destruction, partly as wishcasting, and secondarily as a shout out of affirmation to their fellow mouth-breathers worldwide.

Like the internet was short of that at any point since it started existing.

20-Dimensional chess move: while Trump’s hands are clean in Israel’s strike, one consequence of it now has Iran cutting off drone sales to Russia, because they need them to attack Israel. So in one move Israel has cut the Houthi terror pipeline, yet again severely crimped Iran’s nuclear ambitions (as if exploding nuclear scientists and Stuxnet viruses weren’t enough), and taken some heat off Ukraine – supposedly by accident.

That’s what diplomats and the E-ring at the Pentagon call a hat trick.

I repeat: interesting, veddy interesting, wouldn’t you say?

Update to the updated update! Okay, via Stephen, this is beginning to look seriouser and seriouser. In a manner of speaking.

President Donald Trump continues to state that the American military will not be joining the conflict, despite Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s requests to do so.

That said, Teddy Roosevelt famously advised “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” and, right now, Uncle Sam seems to be crafting a mighty big stick within striking distance of Iran:

Item: There are now three aircraft carriers (two American, one British) taking positions within striking distance of Iran…

Item: “A major military airlift appears to now be underway, as an unprecedented number of U.S. Air Force KC-135 and KC-46 Aerial-Refueling Tankers have departed from airbases across the United States and appear to be preparing to cross the Atlantic towards Europe.”

Item: Multiple B-2s are already believe to be stationed at Diego Garcia, well within strike distance of Iran for the B-2 (though it might need refueling on the return trip).

Maybe all that movement is indeed just to give President Trump “options” should the Iranians try something crazy. But if I had to guess, it seems like the groundwork for some sort of planned operation is being laid.

It may be that President Trump thinks that the mullah’s current prostrate and distracted status may be the perfect time to settle the Houthi’s hash. Having already attacked American navy ships (absolute casus belli under international law), the time may be ripe to finally dismantle the Houthi threat.

Having for many years advocated loud and long for a once-and-for-all settling of jihadi hash, then turning on a dime to cheer Trump’s “no more endless foreign wars” campaign plank, I can’t honestly say I’m entirely comfortable objecting to these moves now. I’d make a piss-poor pacifist, I suppose.

Updates, forsooth! Francis’s take on the matter.

Israel is doing what it must, and here are the reasons.

A nation that possesses weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems that can wield them at long range acquires responsibilities along with those things. One of those responsibilities pertains to its rhetoric. Its rulers’ statements must be taken with full seriousness, especially their threats. Nation X must regard a threat from nation Y as equivalent to an actual attack. This was a component of American strategic doctrine for many decades.

The theocrats who rule Iran have said many times that, were Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon and an appropriate delivery system, it would thereby acquire an obligation to use it against Israel as soon as possible. Israel’s government must assume that that statement is sincere. Though the phrase existential threat is used too loosely these days, it applies here.

Israel’s intelligence service is one of the best in the world. If Aman’s and Mossad’s analysts are convinced that Iran is on the brink of acquiring a nuclear weapon, the odds are overwhelming that it is so. In that case, Israel is compelled to act, as indeed it has.

Note that the actual identity of the threat-making nation is of little consequence. If any other nuclear power were to make such a threat, the gravity of it would be the same, though Israel’s response would surely vary according to the threat-maker’s location and capabilities. Threats to use weapons of mass destruction must always be treated as sincere.

As for the possible involvement of the United States, the matter is similar though not existential. Iran has threatened to strike American military assets in “retaliation” for Israel’s strikes against Iran. Ignore the lunacy of it. If it happens, America will be compelled to act, but until then, staying out of the conflict is the expected posture, and probably the best.

For all else, we must wait and see.

That’s about the size of it, yeah. Seems to me we’re pretty fortunate to have, in Binyamin Netanyahu’s government, an Israeli leadership intelligent enough, competent enough, awake enough to the threat Iran is to Western Civ entire that we can confidently back Bibi’s play here without suffering a lot of undue angst and/or agita over it.

Anybody old enough to remember this moldie oldie, from back in the bad old Hostage Crisis days?

Yeah, yeah, I know, not one of my all-time great embeds. But still.

Side note

Posted on June 12, 2025June 12, 2025 by Mike

One thing about the absolutely jaw-dropping influx of donations I’ve been thoroughly floored by this week: there’s just been so damned many of you fine folks hitting Ye Aulde CF Tippe Jarre that just ain’t no way on God’s green Earth I’m gonna be able to send out email thank-yous to y’uns. This kinda makes me sad, honestly, since kiting a personal, private thanks whenever I receive a particulary generous donation out of the clear blue sky is something I’ve always enjoyed doing, and has long been standard practice around this here websty.

Subscribers, not so much; never could see any justification for spamming peoples’ inboxes once a month, so I never have done it. Moreover, most of my little coterie of “subscribers” are longtime readers I’ve become friendly with over the years, with whom I correspond on the regular outside the confines of the bloggiverse. I’ve even swapped pictures with what you might call the “CF Inner Circle” on occasion: photos of family; spouses; pets; favorite vacation spots; cars, boats, motorcycles, even the (VERY!) occasional airplane, and other such-like things as and when the urge hath struck.

So yeah, with all that goin’ on I figger my subscribers know already how much I truly do love them; no real need to keep rubbing their noses in how awesome they are, I shouldn’t think.

As for you folks who kicked in on this past week’s impromptu, kinda-sorta, not-quite-official fundraiser, please accept this brief missive, impersonal as it may seem, as a sincere expression of my gratitude. Your generosity humbles and awes me; your kind attention restores and renews my determination to keep on keepin’ on with this blog-writing nonsense, to the very limits of my ability, skill, and strength. The CF Pledge remains in full effect: long as y’all keep on reading, I promise I’ll keep on writing for ya. Hopefully, at least some of it will be half-decent, anyway.

Thank you all so very, very much.

Let’s get this party STARTED, people!

Posted on June 12, 2025June 12, 2025 by Mike

Bet none of y’all had “kicks off for reals in formerly mellow, laid-back El Lay, duuuude, sparked by illegal-alien cuddling shitlibs violently turning on certain FederalGovCo departments and/or agencies for simply doing their jobs and nothing more” on your Civil War v2.0 bingo card, now didja?

Many Americans express bewilderment to me as to why even the soi-disant Euro-pussies would surrender their homelands to barbarians without a shot being fired. Fair point – except that the pilot programme for this unprecedented civilisational suicide was an American jurisdiction, and once one of the most glittering in the Union. Among forty-nine other states, it was the Golden State; it fired the imaginations not just of Americans but of much of the planet: California, here I come! Won’t you get hip to this timely tip? I left my heart in San Francisco…

Really? If you did, it’ll be sitting in a pile of fecal matter. Even as it happened, the loss of California was not much analysed: The Democrats preferred to take their victory sotto voce, while Republicans were still bleating about “Ronald Reagan’s California”, as if it had not joined the Lost City of Atlantis on the bottom of the seabed. Orange County, said Mr Reagan, is where “all good Republicans go to die”.

Almost right. It’s where the Republican Party went to die. In 1990 the OC was still two-thirds white; now it’s a third, or the same as the Hispanic population. And yet the GOP remains mystified why one of the most Republican strongholds in the country is now just another Democrat county. California has more electoral votes than any other state. Across the country, in another vote-rich state, New York City is now forty per cent immigrant.

In the end, it’s all demography. Yesterday, I quoted from an old column of mine from the immediate aftermath of the 2012 election. But I thought the whole thing could use a replay – because demography killed California, and demographic transformation is not a natural phenomenon.

Did someone mention NYC just now? Why yes, I believe someone did at that.

NYPD vehicles torched in suspected arson attack as cops find undetonated explosive devices nearby
Arsonists torched at least 11 NYPD vehicles in a targeted attack in a Brooklyn parking lot early Thursday — with undetonated explosive devices also found after two masked suspects were seen running away, police and sources said.

Police and FDNY responded to a report of multiple vehicles ablaze at a lot in Bushwick at the intersection of Central and DeKalb avenues — just a block from the 83rd Precinct station house — around 1:30 a.m. Thursday.

Mayor Eric Adams said at an unrelated press conference that 11 vehicles were damaged and 14 were impacted. No injuries were reported.

The NYPD did not immediately give a suspected motive for the attack, however a flyer taped to a wall directly across from the police station accuses officers of the 83rd precinct of breaking up Puerto Rican Day festivities on Sunday night, injuring revelers.

The fliers called for resistance against the police, and tied in the anti-ICE and protests have spread from Los Angeles to New York City and global anti-Israel protests.

“Now is the time for unified, disciplined action — from Palestine to Puerto Rico to Los Angeles, the struggle for freedom continues,” the flier read.

The above-cited reports of outbreaks of organized, coordinated shitlib violence from sea to shining sea are purely coincidental and entirely unrelated, I’m sure.

This land is THEIR land update! So what’s really going on here, you might well ask? Oh, lots. Lots, and lots, and lots, and LOTS.

President of the Mexican Senate (TODAY):

“We’ll build the wall and pay for it. But we’ll do it according to the 1830 map of Mexico… Mexicans were settled in these territories before the U.S. The Mexicans living there are in what has always been their homeland.” pic.twitter.com/dvN6efNiSr

— COMBATE |🇵🇷 (@upholdreality)

June 9, 2025

1830, is it, muchacho? Having to reach kinda far back to make your point, seems to me. Which usually indicates that the point you’re trying to make is not a very good one. To wit:

How US got California, other states from Mexico for $15 million in 1848
The flag of Mexico has become ubiquitous on the streets of America as a protest symbol against Donald Trump and his government’s immigration policies. Which makes sense given that many people in Texas and California have Mexican ancestry. Let’s take a look at when the US purchased California and half of Mexico’s territory in 1848 got California, other states from Mexico for $15 million in 1848

The protests in Los Angeles, a response to the immigration policies of the Trump administration, continue to rage.

Though US President Donald Trump has sent thousands of National Guard troops as well as hundreds of marines, the demonstrators seem to be undeterred.

But how did it all come about? Let us take a closer look.

It all kicked off way back in the 1840s.

Tensions between the two countries had been growing for years.

On the one side you had the US evangelists of the concept of “manifest destiny” – which preached the superiority and the seemingly divine right of Americans to colonise whatever lands they saw fit on the continent – and on the other you had a wary Mexico.

In the meantime hostilities had nearly broken out between the two countries after the US Navy in 1942 – wrongly believing that war had broken out – seized Monterey in California.

While Monterey was immediately returned, it was a harbinger of things to come.

In 1845, outgoing President John Tyler annexed Texas as his final act in the US’ highest office.

By then, Mexico had severed diplomatic relations with the United States.

Polk began with diplomacy – he initially attempted to buy California, New Mexico and land near Texas for $30 million.

In November 1845, he even sent US diplomat John Slidell to open negotiations with Mexico.

However, Slidell was soundly rebuffed – the Mexican government refused to even see him.

But Polk was prepared– he had already sent US Army commander Zachary Taylor to occupy disputed land.

When Mexican troops fired on Taylor and his forces, Polk had the pretext he needed.

Polk immediately moved Congress for a declaration of war against America’s neighbour.

The Mexican-American War would end (with) the US comprehensively defeating its neighbour.

American armies led by General Zachary Taylor and General Winfield Scott, often outnumbered, would defeat Mexican troops again and again in a series of pitched battles.

The US lost more soldiers to infection and disease than actual battle.

Ulysses S Grant and Robert E Lee, the men who would respectively lead the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War, received their first taste of real combat in Mexico.

And the rest, as they say, is history…like it or lump it, beaners.

The glancing mention of Grant and Marse Robert above is notable, apt, and historically insructive. By and large, Civil War v1.0 would be fought by two national armies whose officer corps had won their respective spurs in the Mex-Ami rhubarb. With the Federal army, the majority of its field-grade officers would be offered their commissions based almost entirely on their Mexican War reputations, which sometimes had been fairly won and other times…eh, not so much.

In the long run, the relative cakewalk South of the US border ended up serving the US and CSA both quite well as a sort of hands-on, non-classroom OCS/practical training course/advanced tactical studies program for the shattering, murderous conflagration soon to get underway North of the border.

Not again update! Another day, another dumpster-dive for those poor Jarheads.

Marines Deployed To Another Third-World Country Full Of Hostile Foreigners
LOS ANGELES, CA — As has become the standard operating procedure for the military branch over the last half-century, 700 members of the United States Marines found themselves being deployed to yet another third-world country that is full of hostile foreigners.

In this latest deployment to a non-English-speaking wasteland, the Marines were supremely confident that they would be able to handle the marauding hordes of foreign nationals, despite the inhospitable conditions presented by the rubble and destruction of the surroundings.

“Same thing, different day,” said Sergeant Heath Parsons. “We know the drill. We train and prepare until the day when our number is called and we have to report to save the world by traveling to some third-world hell-hole to confront foreign hostiles. We’re used to it at this point.”

Though there had already been some skirmishes in which Marines clashed with the angry natives in the area, the presence of the U.S. Military had already had an impact on the war-torn region. “You can catch little glimpses of what this place used to be like,” said another Marine. “It’s part of our job as Marines, in addition to being prepared to fight, to bring a little bit of hope with us from the United States to show places like this what life can be like under better circumstances.”

Some of the foreigners cautiously welcomed the Marines, while others remained combative when faced with English-speaking Americans.

Well, it’s just that, out in the “press 2 for English” sectors of the FUSA, they run across so vanishingly few of the darn things, see. Puts them right out of their reckoning. “Exotic” doesn’t even begin to cover the idea of an American in LA who actually speaks the King’s English.

At publishing time, rumors persisted that the Pentagon was committed to eventually establishing a democracy in the area.

Shhhhyeeeaah, THAT’LL be the day. You’d have a tough time coming up with much more than, oh, eight or ten people—irrespective of ethnicity, nationality, income (if any) and/or educational level, citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, etc etc who’d be willing to admit harboring even a passing interest in that ”democracy/liberty/prosperity” horsepuckey at this late date, I‘d guess. Well, except for the areas within, say, five-ten minutes’ walk of Ft Irwin, Camp Pendleton, Coronado, Miramar, Seal Beach, and El Centro, perhaps—haven’t been out to any of those places in a long while, but I can’t imagine that the old-time religion of abiding love of country, strong sense of duty and honor, the legacy of traditions and beliefs faithfully passed down from our Forefathers from generation to generation have all just quietly passed not just from existence but even from the memories of our young soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. No way.

Then again, though, throw San Fransicko, San Berdoo, Compton, and Oakland into the mix with LA and it would probably be more than enough to tip the scales well back into Team Stalin territory and away from any more of that “democracy” nonsense for good.

Let’s not even go into the impact on this “democracy” discussion Cullyfornia’s military airfields; training bases; rifle, AGM, aerial bombing, and artillery ranges, as well as not-quite-as-venerable but every bit as proud, honorable installations such as Fort St George of Fentanyl, Camp Jordan Neely, and NAS “Bathhouse” Barry Soetero are likely to bring to bear when all’s said and done, ‘kay?

Cherchez le (neurotic) femme

Posted on May 16, 2025May 16, 2025 by Mike

Ace has a look into a phenomenon we’ve all been familiar with for a goodish while now.

Shock Poll: The People Most Eager to “Disconnect” from Friends and Family Members Over Politics Are… Left-Wing Colleged “Educated” Women
—Ace

Educated…? Let’s say “college-attending.”

Better yet, let’s just say “credentialed” and be done with it.

A poll finds that college-educated left-wing women, or AWFLs, are the group most eager to sever connections with friends or families due to their cultic “political” beliefs.

You don’t say.

You. Don’t. Say.

He goes on to cite Jordan Peterson—an exercise in futility if ever there was one, since the type of females under discussion here dismissed Peterson as a misogynistic, homophobic, Reich-wing Nazifascist crank a long time ago anyway. More and more, it begins to look as if the 19th Amendment has been every bit as disastrous for Constitutionally-correct governance in Amerika v2.0 as the 17th was. Not that it’s at all likely that anything will ever be done about correcting either of those monumental errors, natch.

Shocker: DOG BITES MAN!!!

Posted on April 16, 2025April 16, 2025 by Mike

FBI proclaims itself “baffled” as to motive, says “we’ll probably never know for sure.”

Speak for yourselves, asstards.

New Details Emerge About the Arsonist Who Attacked Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro
So when Pennsylvania’s governor’s mansion was torched on the first night of Passover, only an ostrich spelunking in sand would discount antisemitism. The connection was just too freaking obvious!

Reality, alas, has a sneaky way of upsetting false narratives.

Earlier this morning, the story broke: “Pa. Gov. Shapiro was targeted for ‘what he wants to do to Palestinian people’”:

The suspect in the arson attack at the Governor’s Residence targeted Josh Shapiro due to his perceived stance on Palestine, according to a search warrant obtained by PennLive.

The suspect, Cody Balmer, called 911 following the attack early Sunday, identified himself by name and told operators Shapiro needs to know he “…will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people,” the search warrant written by police said.

Balmer continued, saying he needed to “stop having my friends killed” and that “…our people have been put through too much by that monster,” according to the warrant, which says Balmer’s intonation and cadence sounded like he was possibly reading from a script.

And who is the man who attacked the governor? Here’s another headline: “Accused Shapiro Attacker Is Self-Described “Socialist,” Fits Pattern of Political Violence”:

Balmer has a troubled past, and his social media history suggests he considers himself both an anarchist and a registered Socialist. His criminal record includes past charges of simple assault and forgery. In one bizarre post, he depicts himself wearing goggles, breathing fire and claiming that former President Joe Biden owes him $2,000.

According to his mother, Balmer suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and had stopped taking his medications prior to his attack on the Shapiro residence.

So that’s the real story: An unstable wackaloon was radicalized by the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas propaganda that the left proudly promotes, went off his meds, and tried to murder a prominent Jewish politician.

A rabid, violence-drunk, “Palestine” obsessed, Leftard Jew-hater—gee, didn’t see THAT coming.

Look, you can hate on (((***DemJooJooJooJOOOOZ!!!***))) all you like for all me; I’ve made my own position clear, it’s no skin off my nose one way or the other. But when you start heaving homemade Molotovs at people’s homes, trashing people’s expensive autos, threatening students/taking over college campuses, and vandalizing/burning legitimate businesses which have nothing whatever to do with said obsession, then you put yourself on the fightin’ side of me, bub.

Intolerable, immoral, unacceptable

Posted on April 11, 2025April 11, 2025 by Mike

But will Coloradan patriots (if any) accept it anyway?

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis Signs Insanely Unconstitutional Gun Control Law With Huge National Implications
If you care about preserving the Second Amendment, what just happened in Colorado needs to be on your radar.

On Thursday, Gov. Jared Polis signed a law that bans the production and most sales of semi-automatic firearms with detachable magazines. That means the gun control measure not only covers semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 (which would be bad enough on its own) but also makes essentially all modern-day handguns illegal as well.

To say this is blatantly unconstitutional is an understatement. The Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia vs. Heller that firearms in common use are protected under the Second Amendment for “traditionally lawful purposes.” That includes self-defense. Semi-automatic handguns and rifles with detachable magazines are the most commonly used guns in the United States. It’s not even a question that this gun control law runs afoul of Supreme Court precedent. That means that Polis signed something that he has to know is illegal, making this move all the more insidious.

The stakes here could not be higher. If Colorado gets away with this, you can kiss the Second Amendment goodbye. If a state gets away with largely banning semi-automatic handguns, it can get away with banning any type of firearm. This is the most radical gun control legislation to ever be signed, and it must be fiercely opposed.

Up to and including by violence, if needs must. And sooner or later, they will.

I understand there’s a lot going on in the political world right now, but this is that important. Gun advocate groups need to be filing challenges immediately, and this must get to the Supreme Court if the lower courts do not strike this law down. If that doesn’t happen, every single Democrat-led state in the union will pass similar laws, and with a lack of reciprocity, half the country will essentially be a no-go zone for modern guns. It won’t stop there, either. Gun control activists will not be happy until all firearms are banned.

Yeh, yeh, yeh—lawsuits, courts, peaceful protest, handwringing op-eds, blah blah blah. Worth a try, of course; as every decent, well-meaning sort concedes, all peaceable expedients must be exhausted before turning to that final desperate resort: the Cartridge Box. At the end of the day, though, it’s yet another shovelful of the same old shite, nothing more.

Normals should think of this as the Left’s warning shot across the Constitutional bow, because that is precisely what it amounts to. The tyrant Polis knows this perfectly well, of course—count on it. Look for a flood of deceitfully-misnomered gun “buyback” programs (how can they “buy back” something they never bought in the first damned place?) to immediately ensue.

Look for the overwhelming majority of city and state po-lice to eagerly enforce the Gov Jared Polis Unlawful Edict™, with the possible exception of a handful of county Sheriiffs, or constables, or whatever they call ‘em out in the Boulder State. Look for the Colorado National Guard to be stood up to provide “emergency” backup for their Brothers In Blue. Look for the majority of said CO Guardsmen to forsake their freely-sworn oath to “protect, defend and uphold” and obey their unlawful orders, too.

The thing to keep (and bear—heh) foremost in mind here is that the last above-excerpted sentence is wholly true and accurate, which Real Americans have understood full well for several decades now in spite of the hoplophobic Left’s disingenuous “I’m a hunter myself” refrain. The one remaining question confronting us grows more pressing, more urgent, with every passing day: What, if anything, are we going to do about it?

As Ben Grimm always says before getting down to serious bidness as The Thing, IT’S CLOBBERIN’ TIME!

Forget, hell!

Posted on April 10, 2025April 10, 2025 by Mike

Unreconstructed Southron Baron Bodissey reports—with pitchers—on the ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the Appomattox tragedy/disaster.

Appomattox: Lest We Forget
This afternoon I attended a ceremony marking the 160th anniversary of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia (which I often sardonically refer to as “the Confederate Nakba”). It was organized by the Appomattox chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and took place at the Confederate Cemetery in the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park. The cemetery itself is on a plot of land that isn’t part of the historical park, and is owned by the UDC rather than the federal government. As a result, at that location we unreconstructed Confederates can engage in our customary activities without being busted for hate speech or otherwise interfered with.

The occasion began with a prayer. We then pledged allegiance to all three flags: the US flag, the Virginia flag, and the Confederate battle flag. Yes, I know some of those pledges are mutually exclusive, but nobody seems to care.

Speak for yourself on that one, young feller. Anyhoo. Onwards.

Following that there were a few brief speeches, several songs, and some reading of poetry. UDC members in widow’s weeds placed a rose by each grave, and two little girls set up battle flags next to each headstone. There are nineteen soldiers buried in the cemetery, all but seven of them unknown, including a solitary Union soldier (who got the Stars and Stripes next to his headstone).

Fuckin’ bluebellied Yankee sumbitch. Anyhoo. Onwards.

Then a number of wreaths were presented and placed next to the memorial stone by representatives of the groups that donated them, mostly chapters of the UDC or camps of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV). Not all of the groups were local: one of the SCV camps that presented a wreath was based in Honolulu, Hawaii.

All in all, it was an excellent occasion. It was a reminder — at least for me — that the Confederate battle flag is not about slavery or tariffs or even states’ rights, but rather a symbol of resistance to tyranny, and a reminder that Virginia was invaded and devastated by an alien army.

Deo Vindice!

That penultimate paragraph pretty much says it all, far as I’m concerned.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it eleventy bajillion times

Posted on April 3, 2025 by Mike

This. This, right here.

“We don’t need more turnout, we need real results. We need integrity in the system. We need no mail-in ballots. We need to get rid of the voting machines. We need to limit the early voting period, and especially limit the late counting period – no counting after election day.” https://t.co/raXmUstgGe

— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll)

April 3, 2025

Very simple, very easy, no? And yet somehow, all too damned many of us just can’t seem to get their cinderblock-heads around the concept. Guess certain Very Important Personages got too much to lose by jettisoning the present-day corrupt, fraudulent American “election” system in favor of something far more transparent, trustworthy, and commonsensical, which had served us so well for oh, a couple hundred years or thereabouts.

(Via Insty)

A brief history of American protectionism, tariffs, “free trade,” et al

Posted on April 3, 2025April 3, 2025 by Mike

PRO TIP: It was nothing like what you probably think it was.

Protectionism in the United States is protectionist economic policy that erects tariffs and other barriers on imported goods. This policy was most prevalent in the 19th century. At that time, it was mainly used to protect Northern industries and was opposed by Southern states that wanted free trade to expand cotton and other agricultural exports. Protectionist measures included tariffs and quotas on imported goods, along with subsidies and other means, to restrain the free movement of imported goods, thus encouraging local industry.

There was a general lessening of protectionist measures from the 1930s onwards, culminating in the free trade period that followed the Second World War. After the war, the United States promoted the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), to liberalize trade among all capitalist countries. In 1995, GATT became the World Trade Organization (WTO), and with the collapse of Communism its open markets/low tariff ideology became dominant worldwide. Protectionism has increased in popularity since the election of Donald Trump in 2016.

Britain was the first country to successfully use a large-scale infant industry promotion strategy. However, its most ardent user was the U.S. Economic historian Paul Bairoch once called it “the homeland and bastion of modern protectionism” (Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes, Bairoch).

Britain initially did not want to industrialize the American colonies, and implemented policies to that effect. For example, banning high value-added manufacturing activities. Thus, the American Revolution was, to some extent, a war against this policy, in which the commercial elite of the colonies rebelled against being forced to play a lesser role in the emerging Atlantic economy. This explains why, after independence, the Tariff Act of 1789 was the second bill of the Republic signed by President Washington allowing Congress to impose a fixed tariff of 5% on all imports, with a few exceptions.

Most American intellectuals and politicians during the country’s catching-up period felt that the free trade theory advocated by British classical economists was not suited to their country. The US went against the advice of economists like Adam Smith, Ricardo and Jean Baptiste Say and tried to protect its industries. Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (1789–1795) and economist Daniel Raymond were the first theorists to present the argument of the emerging industry, not the German economist Friedrich List. List started out as a free trade advocate and only converted to the infant industry argument following his exile in the U.S (1825–1830).

Hamilton feared that Britain’s policy towards the colonies would condemn the United States to be only producers of agricultural products and raw materials. Washington and Hamilton believed that political independence was predicated upon economic independence. Increasing the domestic supply of manufactured goods, particularly war materials, was seen as an issue of national security. In his Reports, Hamilton argued that the competition from abroad and the “forces of habit” would mean that new industries that could soon become internationally competitive (“infant industries”) would not be started in the United States, unless the initial losses were guaranteed by government aid.

According to him, this aid could take the form of import duties or, in rare cases, prohibition of imports. He called for customs barriers to allow American industrial development and to help protect infant industries, including bounties (subsidies) derived in part from those tariffs. He also believed that duties on raw materials should be generally low. Hamilton explained that despite an initial “increase of price” caused by regulations that control foreign competition, once a “domestic manufacture has attained to perfection … it invariably becomes cheaper”.

In 1789, Congress passed a tariff act , imposing a 5% flat rate tariff on all imports. Between 1792 and the war with Britain in 1812, the average tariff level remained around 12.5%. In 1812, all tariffs were doubled to an average of 25%, in order to cope with the increase in public expenditure due to the war.

In 1816, a new law was introduced to keep the tariff level close to the wartime level—especially protected were cotton, woolen, and iron goods. The American industrial interests that had blossomed because of the tariff lobbied to keep it, and had it raised to 35 percent in 1816. The public approved, and by 1820, America’s average tariff was up to 40 percent.

According to Michael Lind, protectionism was America’s de facto policy from the passage of the Tariff of 1816 to World War II, “switching to free trade only in 1945”.

Somewhat surprising, no? What first got me to thinking about these weighty matters was Bayou Peter’s post on them, expounding Jeff Childers’s post on same. To wit:

It would be easy to dismiss yesterday’s announcement as dry, economic arcana — tariffs, trade deficits, bilateral agreements, country-by-country charts, and economic reports. But don’t be fooled by all the paperwork. What Trump did wasn’t just a historic across-the-board trade action.

It was a once-in-a-century power shift.

To understand how truly historic it was, look back to Bretton Woods, 1944 — the postwar deal where America agreed to carry the world’s economic burdens in exchange for geopolitical dominance.

After the devastation of WWII, the United States promised to help rebuild Europe and Japan, by opening our previously protected markets to foreign goods, keeping our tariffs low to nonexistent, providing the world’s reserve currency, and underwriting global security with American military power.

In return, other countries were supposed to gradually liberalize their economies, buy American goods, and play by the rules. But they never did.

Instead, they took our postwar deal —designed to help them— and ran with it. They piled up tariffs, non-tariff barriers, VAT taxes, and trade cheats while the U.S. kept its markets wide open.

For decades, the American working class footed the bill while foreign economies fattened themselves, and American elites made billions facilitating and perpetuating the grift. That was globalism. It’s not an ideology— it is a business model. And Trump just crushed the model.

I’ve always insisted that Trump is a helluva lot smarter than most people want to give him credit for. The obvious fact that he fully understands what his tariff moves are at bottom all about ought to establish his intelligence to all but the most reflexively stubborn Trump hater’s satisfaction.

Lots more yet to the above-linked posts, natch; dry and deadly dull as the subject matter may seem at first blush, you really, really want to read all three in their entirety.

Update! You gotta love it, you truly, truly do.

Tariff Liberation Day Has Arrived
Cue the mass hysteria. Donald Trump’s Liberation Day has arrived, as the decades of foreign nations tariffing our goods without reciprocal tariffs ends.

The tariff war between the United States and dozens of other nations just took a major escalation, as the president imposed reciprocal tariffs on a number of goods from a lengthy list of countries. (The tariffs are reciprocal in that if a nation tariffs 10% on U.S. goods, so will we on that nation’s products.) The president aims to bring manufacturing back to America and to cow hostile nations. While many economists and media figures are prophesying economic disaster, it is worth noting that tariffs during both Ronald Reagan’s presidency and Donald Trump’s first term boosted economic growth and wage increases here in America.

Trump declared in an executive order that he finds “underlying conditions, including a lack of reciprocity in our bilateral trade relationships, disparate tariff rates and non-tariff barriers, and U.S. trading partners’ economic policies that suppress domestic wages and consumption, as indicated by large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits, constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States.“

While other countries have been allowed to impose extortionate tariffs on American goods for decades, America has often not imposed reciprocal tariffs, leading to a very unbalanced and unfair system that often drives manufacturing and jobs out of the U.S. It remains to be seen if Trump’s new tariffs can successfully bring home jobs and boost our economy.

Let the shitlibs whinge and complain as loud and as long as they like, Mr President, sir. They’re going to anyway, no matter what you do or don’t do, which we all know full well by now. So let the sound of their rage, frustration, and bitter despair be as music to every ReichWingNaziDeathBeast© ear, sayeth I. Just more for decent, right-thinking Americans to point and laugh at, and that’s a thing of goodness.

You say you want a revolution, well…

Posted on April 1, 2025April 1, 2025 by Mike

The D卐M☭CRAT criminal terrorist organization masquerading as a political party is escalating their campaign to overthrow the duly and legitimately-elected President of the US and his increasingly-beleaugered administration. Again, I mean.

Jayapal: We’re Training Americans to Take Down Potential Trump Dictatorship
Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said Monday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” that she was training Americans to help take down a potential “dictatorship” of President Donald Trump.

At her resistance lab training, Jayapal said, “It appears that the Trump administration is willing to ignore judicial decisions and so that brings us to you in this room. It brings us to the people that is really, the bulwark, the wall against the crumbling of democracy.”

Maddow said, “Help me understand this idea of the resistance lab and what you’re talking about in practical terms at these events.”

Jayapal said, “Yeah I mean, what we decided is that we really need to help Americans understand what happens when democracies fall when dictators take over. We’ve been pretty complacent in America. We haven’t had to really deal with this in any real way. And now I think people need to understand what are the lessons from other countries and working with experts who have studied democratic backsliding in countries around the world and the resistance movements that emerged to take on that democratic backsliding.”

Kill them. Kill them all, behead the corpses, salt the earth on which they stood, then nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure. Via Sefton, who adds:

The gall of these filthy degenerates to dare utter the word “democracy” makes me retch. I’d like to know what’s cooking in these labs of hers. I will assume Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs.

Y’all know my own personal belief: fight fire with more, bigger, hotter fire. We sit back and flap our yaps about how we have all the guns, while The Enemy prepares for actual, all-out war against us. As Matt Bracken always says, if you think it’s time to start burying your guns, it’s probably time to start digging them up instead.

How to win a war

Posted on March 28, 2025March 28, 2025 by Mike

Something the US has liong since forgotten how to do. Or just gave up caring about doing, more like.

You Want to Win a War? This Is How You Win a War
There’s more good news out of the Middle East, I’m happy to report. On the heels of yesterday’s news that the Israeli Defense Force was doing an admirable and rapid job of eliminating Hamas leadership in an explosive game of Whack-a-Mole, today we learn that the Gazans themselves finally show signs of turning against their terrorist government.

We saw tiny signs of this in the awful weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror invasion that kicked off the Israel-Hamas War, such as the old Gazan woman who accused Hamas of stealing humanitarian aid meant for the people. “Everything goes to [Hamas] houses,” she complained. “They take it; let them take me, shoot me, or do whatever they want with me.”

Which, note ye well, is more of an expression of the hag’s disgruntlement over Hamas’ lack of concern for her own personal well-being than it is of horror at the brutal atrocities committed against guiltless civilians during the vicious Oct 7 rampage. Just in case any of you thought Gazans suddenly developing a functioning conscience had anything to do with their newfound dislike for Hamas, terrorism, or genocide of the Jews.

But Tuesday saw a rare mass protest against Hamas.

Even the mayor of Beit Lahia, Gaza, got in on the action.

If Hamas finds him, I suspect he won’t die well.

Why the mainstream media chooses not to air clips like these is anyone’s guess, but anyone’s most cynical and accusatory guess is probably the correct one.

None of this is perfect, of course. “Why aren’t they chanting to release the hostages then?” one critic wondered. Then there’s Iran, the official sponsor of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Until Iran is put back in the box President Donald Trump had them in during his first term, the terrorist kudzu will grow back.

But turning the population against the people who started the war is how you end a war, and Israel’s renewed offensive — the IDF’s WWII-style rubble-ization of the Gaza Strip — might be doing just that.

Most wars fail to accomplish that vital goal.

A tad too much Vietnam-era “hearts and minds” bushwa here for my taste, I’m afraid. Another Vietnam-era counterslogan is more my speed: When you’ve got ‘em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. The Gaza job will never truly be over and done with until the very thought of death, destruction, and strife makes Gazans puke all down their pant legs reflexively. As such, Bibi, this is no time to be going wobbly or weak in the knees just because a handful of Gazans have decided they aren’t happy with life under Hamas rule all of a sudden.

Our old chum Stephen knows all this too, of course, which the remainder of the piece confirms quite nicely, thanks. To wit:

That’s why I’ve often found the phrase “forever wars” so frustrating. In context, complaining about “forever wars” is often more of a way to shut down debate than a historically accurate assessment. What makes our poor military performance in places like Afghanistan sting so much isn’t that we were mired in so-called “forever wars,” but that they were wars of choice, not of national survival, that we chose to conduct inconclusively. All that spilled blood, and for what?

But sometimes a World War II comparison is spot-on, which brings us back to the Middle East and the Hamas terror invasion of Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas’s aims were explicitly genocidal and their means — including uploading videos of murdered civilians to the victims’ social media accounts for their families to see — were so horrifying that Hamas and Gaza must be smashed as badly as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

If the Israel-Hamas War is to end, it ends in the ruined streets of Gaza.

Indeed so—and not a moment before then, either. Sad as that may be, it also happens to be the plain, simple, and unadorned truth.

“VERY bad people”

Posted on March 19, 2025 by Mike

If the shoe fits…and indeed it does.

Elon constantly attacks the left, calling them “bad people” and “the party of violence and hate” when he’s not labeling them “traitors” and saying federal judges are executing “coups.”

He’s a firehose of extreme rhetoric and then whines he doesn’t understand why people hate him. pic.twitter.com/Up8xjQiRAM

— Carl (@HistoryBoomer)

March 19, 2025

Re that “federal judges…executing coups” business, [Richard Dawson voice] survey says: TRUE! [/Richard Dawson voice]

Judge Temporarily Halts Trump EPA From Ending Climate Grant Fund
Last month, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) discovered a $20 billion windfall that the EPA gave to radical green groups in the waning days of the Biden administration. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund was a catch-all program designed as a federal money spigot for radical NGOs and green groups.

The $20 billion in cash was doled out to just eight groups, including $2 billion to Power Forward Communities, an organization that, at the time it received the EPA grant in April 2024, had $100 in the bank.

Power Forward Communities lists dozens of “partners” on its website, among them are several organizations created by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. She’s listed as general counsel for another group, Rewiring America.

When DOGE tried to pull the plug on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, Power Forward Communities and two other recipients of Biden’s green slush fund, they sued. A judge has temporarily blocked the EPA’s actions in ending the program saying that the EPA has not presented “evidence of fraud.”

The judge is familiar to readers since she handled the Trump election interference case. U.S. District Court Judge Tonya Chutkan wrote that the federal government’s “vague and unsubstantiated assertions of fraud are insufficient.”

“At this juncture, EPA Defendants have not sufficiently explained why “unilaterally terminating Plaintiffs’ grant awards was a rational precursor to reviewing” the Green Bank program, Chutkan wrote. The “Green Bank” was Citibank, which has frozen the accounts of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction grant recipients.

As I’m sure you’re all well aware by now, this is but one of all too many recent examples of judicial usurpation of Executive powers. To which the correct response is Andrew Jackson’s: “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!” Or, perhaps more to the point, Stalin’s: “How many divisions does the Pope have?” Or, more to the point yet, Republic of Texas Congressman Brandon Gill’s.

Rep. Brandon Gill Issues Articles of Impeachment Against Federal Judge Who Stopped Trump’s Deportations
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) has filed Articles of Impeachment against Judge James E. Boasberg, appointed by former President Barack Obama, after he issued a temporary restraining order blocking President Donald Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport illegal alien gang members.

As Breitbart News reported, over the weekend Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to begin deporting hundreds of illegal alien gang members with Tren de Aragua and the MS-13 gangs — both of which are now designated as terrorist organizations.

The left-wing American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Soros-linked Democracy Forward sued the Trump administration on behalf of five illegal aliens accused of being gang members to stop the deportations — though planes of nearly 300 gang members had already taken off for El Salvador.

Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order blocking Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport illegal alien gang members. Trump officials said they got the order from Boasberg when the gang members had already landed in El Salvador.

Gill, in a statement on X, claimed Boasberg’s order is “illegal and unconstitutional” and announced Articles of Impeachment against the federal judge whose family has deep ties to Democrats.

“The purpose of Judge Boasberg’s unconstitutional ruling is to tie up President Trump’s time and resources in litigation, stopping him from executing on the democratic mandate voters gave him,” Gill wrote. “The ruling is a fundamental attack on our democratic system.”

“Judge Boasberg directing deportation flights to turn around midair and return to the United States is tantamount to a Circuit Court Judge directing troop movements abroad or directing the Executive how to conduct foreign policy. It’s illegal and unconstitutional. Time to impeach,” Gill wrote, posting the Articles of Impeachment.

True dat, and good on ya for not merely noticing but for saying so right out loud, and then trying to do something about it, Rep Gill, sir. Here’s hoping your eminently appropriate reaction to contra-Constitutional juridical tyranny is just the first of many, many more to come.

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