Stop Caring About the Silly Signal Non-Scandal

posted by Kurt Schlichter at Townhall 

So, what’s the right answer for Republicans regarding this whole Signal thing? The right answer is not to care.

Not at all. The fake Democrats don’t get a trophy. They don’t get a head. They get nothing.

Understand that no one outside of Washington, DC, or Twitter cares about some journalist getting mistakenly admitted into a Signal thread. At all. The Democrats think they have finally found something they can sink their teeth into after two months of unbroken failure and humiliation, but it’s a pretty pathetic morsel. Real people don’t care about it.

Unfortunately, some conservatives do. To care about this is a huge mistake. We don’t know what this even is. What we have are the weasel words of Jeffrey Goldberg, a guy with so little credibility that if he told me the sun was coming up in the east I would arise before dawn to confirm it, saying that these guys were discussing war plans. I’ve seen war plans. I held a Top Secret clearance once upon a time. These were not war plans. I can safely say that there was no operations order cut and pasted into some Signal text. 

The stuff we’ve seen is the stuff we already knew, like that our senior leaders think the Europeans are a bunch of freeloaders. In fact, the Europeans are a bunch of freeloaders, and our senior leaders have been quite clear about that in public. 

Another colonel turned civilian lawyer, the great @CynicalPublius, even speculated that this stuff might have been leaked on purpose. Perhaps. I don’t know about that. I also don’t care about that.

And you shouldn’t care about that either.

The issue here is not about operational security. Our enemies want to pretend it is because they think they can use that to hurt the Trump administration and strip out one or more of his close advisors. They want a trophy to mount on their wall, and they are demanding firings and resignations. I demand they pound sand. You should, too.

We’re done playing the two-tier system of accountability game where Democrats do whatever they want, while Republicans eagerly submit when our enemies demand their heads. Nope. Not doing that anymore. The two-tier system of accountability is done. The way you make sure that it’s done for good is you don’t play along with it. That means that the side that has abused it doesn’t get anything as a reward for its abuse. It gets nothing. This is basic game theory. Screw with us and you get screwed with back. They are bad actors, and they don’t get to win.

Now, several conservatives are in full, “Oh well, I never!” mode over this. They should stop being soft. Some of them are never truly happy unless they are policing other Republicans for alleged breaches of the sacred norms, norms which, of course, no longer exist. The nonstop victories of the Trump administration make them nervous. They get anxious when we’re not losing like gentlemen. They are comfortable only in failure mode. 

They also like to virtue signal. They think it demonstrates integrity when they try to hold Republicans responsible when Democrats are never held accountable. What it demonstrates is weakness. Let’s review some Democrat senior leader accountability fails. Hillary’s server with 30,000 emails, destroyed when it was under subpoena. Joe Biden’s garage SCIF. Diane Feinstein‘s red Chinese agent driver, and Eric Swalwell‘s gal pal Fang Fang. Mark Milley calling up the Chinese to chat with them about American plans and to offer assistance to thwart his commander-in-chief. None of them were held accountable. And speaking of accountability what’s the name of the guy who got fired over the Afghanistan disaster?

The new rule is no accountability when it comes to senior leaders, and that’s what we need to apply. Maybe the old rule was better, but it got changed. Now, some people have pointed out that if low-level guys like you or me did these things, we might go to jail. Maybe. But the rule is now that senior leaders don’t get fired or prosecuted for stuff like this, and that’s the rule we’re going to play by. 

Hey, if they want to change the rules back to what they used to be, where senior officials are held accountable when the other party catches them doing something allegedly questionable, we’re first going to need an unequivocal acknowledgment by our enemies that they changed the rules, that it was a mistake, and that they want to enforce the old rules in the future, including against themselves. But even if they did this, which they never will do because they want two sets of rules, one for them and one they can use against us, they still don’t get their prize this time. We can change the rules back in the future, but today they suffer the consequences of the rules they chose.

Today, the rules are what they are, but don’t take this as a concession that there was any wrongdoing. I don’t buy that. Regardless, Democrat senior leaders never, ever, ever get held accountable for actual wrongdoing, yet some conservatives are eager for red blood. They always are. It makes them feel good about themselves that they can say they’re fair, that they call balls and strikes, that they have integrity. They have nothing. They are complicit in the Democrats’ strategy. 

We are allowed to take our own side in a fight, and I have to reiterate this because some of us don’t ever seem to want to. They want to be neutral in a time when you better pick a side if you want to keep this country from descending into communist chaos. Let’s be clear. I am an advocate for the side of the Constitution and freedom against the people who literally want us enslaved or dead. And when I say “dead,” I mean dead. I watched my President almost get his head blown off. Another of the bullets killed a guy like me, and not incidentally, a guy like you – an American patriot. This is serious stuff, and this is not a time for spineless posing.

They cry, “Whataboutism!” Whataboutism is a moral necessity. There can be only one set of rules. To voluntarily accept a two-tiered system is to accept your own servitude. We’re not doing that anymore. That’s done. That was a different kind of Republican. Those guys had their shot. They gave us Iraq, the Wall Street meltdown, and Barack Obama. They failed. We’re going to do something different. We’re going to win.

And winning requires that we focus our targeting not our own people over invented outrages but the enemy. If there were problems with the Signal chat, they will be fixed. Donald Trump is not losing any of his advisors over this. We’re not going to offer any sacrifices to the great goddess of norms on an altar the Democrats long ago desecrated. The idea that we’re going take Jeffery Goldberg‘s word and throw one of our own over the cliff to please the likes of faux-fussy Tim Walz, Pete Buttigieg, a bunch of ex-generals who’ve never won a war, and the rest of these dorks is inconceivable to a based conservative. The only proper response to anybody complaining about this non-scandal is either to ignore them completely or to mock them mercilessly. 

We’re done playing their games. They don’t get to win. The Democrats get nothing, and Republicans who are going along with them need to zip it.

And we Know, On the Fringe, and more- March 26

 

The Imperial Judiciary Of The United States

"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s…"

posted by Vince Coyner at American Thinker 

When Jesus was alive, the religious leader of Rome was, in fact, both Caesar and the voice of God, for Emperor Augustus had taken the position of , the chief high priest, for himself.

A separation between church and state would occur in the late 4th century when Saint Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, would cleave the two.

In 390 AD, in Thessalonica, a Macedonian city in the Roman Empire, the citizens murdered a Roman garrison commander for arresting the most popular Macedonian charioteer just before a major race. A seething Emperor Theodosius ordered his soldiers to slaughter the entire population. When the smoke cleared, 7,000 men, women, and children died in the .

Ambrose, the most powerful man in Christianity at the time, banned the emperor from Mass. , an extremely devout man, would spend the next six months seeking Ambrose’s forgiveness and doing penance. Eventually, Ambrose decided the Emperor had shown sufficient contrition and allowed him back into the Church, but not before forcing him to make Christianity the official religion of the Empire and outlawing every other faith.

That was one of the first and most powerful checks on a monarch’s power in the history of Western civilization. Another would come in 1215 when English King John was forced by a group of rebellious barons to sign the Magna Carta, which provided protections for the church and guaranteed the barons a variety of liberties and rights.

Fast forward 562 years and another step towards a truly limited government would occur in Philadelphia in 1787. In an unprecedented advance for Western civilization and, frankly, humanity, the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution of the United States. With a keen understanding of man’s nature, this document was sufficiently robust and prescient that it would last for centuries.

In a direct reaction to the English system, they wrote a constitution in which, while the primary power lay in the legislature, the power of all three branches was checked by the other two and ultimately by the citizens and the Bill of Rights.

To give some perspective on where the locus of power lay in the new constitution, compare the articles that define the powers of the three branches: Article I, the Legislature, has 2,268 words. Article II, the Executive, has 1,025 words, while Article III, the Judiciary, has a mere 377.

The Founding Fathers went to great lengths to divide the powers and put in place checks and balances so that mob rule and demagogues would not take hold of the government and bring about tyranny.

One of those checks was the Judicial Branch:

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

Alexander Hamilton assured all and sundry that the judiciary would be the weakest branch, writing in Federalist 81:

It may in the last place be observed that the supposed danger of judiciary encroachments on the legislative authority, which has been upon many occasions reiterated, is in reality a phantom.

He stated that a judicial usurpation of the legislature could not happen:

This may be inferred with certainty, from the general nature of the judicial power, from the objects to which it relates, from the manner in which it is exercised, from its comparative weakness, and from its total incapacity to support its usurpations by force.

This, combined with Congress’s ability to impeach judges for judiciary encroachments, said Hamilton, would be sufficient to keep judicial usurpation from occurring. Hamilton was responding to the writings of Judge Robert Yates, who warned of a rapacious judiciary in Anti-Federalist No. 78.

Hamilton was wrong, and Yates was right. 

Within a very short time, Hamilton’s error and Yates’ prescience became clear. Marbury v. Madison established Judicial Review in 1803, taking for the Court the ability to invalidate a law it deemed in conflict with the Constitution. Although the court would use that power only twice over America’s first 70 years, it would do so 50 times over the subsequent 75 years and over 125 times in the last 90 years. That trajectory not only reflects the extraordinary growth in the areas of American life into which the leviathan of government has inserted itself, but it also reflects a far more activist judiciary.

And how can we tell? Look at nationwide injunctions. Judges issued six nationwide injunctions against George Bush over eight years—one per every sixteen months he was in office. Barack Obama was the subject of 12 or one every eight months. In Trump’s first term, judges issued 64 nationwide injunctions, or one every 22 days. After he left office, the courts retreated, with Joe Biden getting 14 or one every three months. Now, in his second term, Trump has received 12 in only six weeks; that is, one every four days. Meanwhile, in the single four-year period of his first term, he faced more of these injunctions than every president in the previous 60 years combined!

But the thing is, injunctions are found nowhere in the Constitution. Nonetheless, with almost 700 federal judges, activists can easily find fellow travelers who are more than willing to do their bidding. It’s no coincidence that the judges who have issued many of the injunctions against Trump’s executive actions have ties to hardcore leftists:

• The son of the judge who blocked deporting Khalil Mahmoud interned for Chuck Schumer.
• The daughter of the judge who blocked deporting Tren de Aragua gang members works for an NGO that provides legal advice to criminal illegal aliens.
• The wife of the Judge blocking the USAID shutdown worked for Joe Biden.
• The judge who blocked DOGE from cutting NGO funding was the Solicitor General of the District of Columbia, the office that filed a civil lawsuit against the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

Using injunctions, a radical leftist cabal is attempting to thwart President Trump from doing the job he was elected to do, which is to enforce and execute the laws of the United States. He should not allow them to do so. Unfortunately, impeachment is not the answer because there is zero chance of getting a conviction, with half the Senate applauding the judge’s actions.

The first thing Trump should do is ignore the order. This will force SCOTUS and/or Congress to act.

The second thing he should do is strongly encourage Congress to act, regardless of what SCOTUS does. (Or doesn’t do given the Manchurians Roberts and ACB.) Congress has the ultimate constitutional power to define the courts’ jurisdiction, whether granting or restricting it. They should eliminate or restrict federal judges’ ability to issue injunctions in general or, at a minimum, prohibit nationwide injunctions.

The Founders created a system of checks and balances that has served America well for most of her history. But that system only works when the three branches remain true to their nature.

You can argue that Congress has given too much of its power to the regulatory state, but that’s a case of one branch willingly, if foolishly, ceding power to another. In the case of the Judicial Branch, we’re seeing something different. Activist judges across the country are asserting that they basically have the power to micromanage how the Executive Branch carries out its constitutional duties. They don’t, but that doesn’t matter if the Executive Branch allows it to become reality. And the reality is, they’re using Chief Justice Roberts’ treacherous “normal appellate review process” framework to run out the clock on President Trump’s term.  And Trump knows it.

In 1832, in reaction to Worcester v. Georgia, President Jackson is said to have announced: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” Donald Trump should state unequivocally that he will not allow activists masquerading as jurists to hijack the proper functions of the Executive Branch. Americans, like Jesus, Ambrose, and Jackson did, understand there are separate realms of governing, and for good or bad elected presidents execute the laws, not judges.

The Activist Judges Who Think They Outrank the President

posted by Amil Imani at American Thinker 

The American system was founded on a simple idea: three branches of government, each with its distinct role. The president executes the law, Congress creates it, and the judiciary interprets it. However, at some point, activist judges became more than just referees; they began seeing themselves as emperors, wielding gavels like scepters and rewriting the rules to fit their desires. These black-robed radicals believe they possess more power than the president, and it’s time for conservatives to confront them as the tyrants they have become.

Consider the immigration saga under Donald Trump. In 2017, Trump issued an executive order—a travel ban targeting countries plagued by terrorism. It was bold, unapologetic, and squarely within his constitutional authority to protect national security.

Then came the activist judges. Federal courts in Hawaii and Washington state blocked the order, with unelected judges like James Robart and Derrick Watson acting as armchair commander-in-chief. Their rationale? Trump’s campaign rhetoric caused hurt feelings, so the policy must be discriminatory. Forget the Constitution or the will of the voters who placed Trump in office—these judges concluded that their moral superiority outweighs executive power. The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the ban, but not before years of chaos demonstrated the reality: activist judges do not interpret the law; they create it.

Then there’s the abortion racket. For decades, Roe v. Wade stood as a symbol of judicial overreach, a 1973 decision concocted from thin air by justices who discovered a “right” to abortion lurking in the shadows of the Constitution. Fast forward to 2022, when Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health finally overturned it, returning the issue to the states.

You’d think that would settle things, but activist judges aren’t finished. In states like Ohio and Michigan, lower courts have rushed to block pro-life laws, twisting state constitutions into pretzels to keep the abortion mills operational. These judges don’t care that Dobbs stripped their federal protection; they’ll concoct new rights faster than you can say “living document.” They’re not answering to voters or executives; they’re answering to Planned Parenthood and the progressive elite.

What about guns? After Trump’s ATF tried to crack down on bump stocks—those nasty little devices that turn rifles into machine guns—activist judges swooped in again. 2023, the Fifth Circuit struck down the ban, with judges like Jennifer Walker Elrod arguing that the agency had overstepped.

Fair enough, except the pattern repeats: courts don’t just check the executive—they supplant it, deciding policy from the bench. Meanwhile, in blue states, judges uphold every gun control scheme the Left dreams up, ignoring Bruen(2022), in which the Supreme Court demanded strict historical scrutiny. These aren’t rulings; they’re power grabs, with judges picking winners and losers based on their politics, not the Second Amendment.

The arrogance is staggering. Millions elect presidents, and these presidents are accountable to the people every four years. Judges, however, are appointed for life, so they’re insulated from consequences, yet they behave as if they run the show.

When Trump attempted to end DACA—Obama’s illegal amnesty-by-fiat—courts blocked him, with judges like Nicholas Garaufis in New York asserting that the move was “arbitrary.” But when Biden pushes climate edicts or vaccine mandates, activist judges support him, and rubber-stamping executives overreach as long as it’s their guy. The double standard is evident, but the message is clear: these judges believe they’re above the Oval Office, holding veto power that no election can challenge.

This isn’t what the founders intended. Article III of the Constitution assigns courts a limited role: to resolve “cases” and “controversies,” not to dictate national policy. Alexander Hamilton referred to the judiciary as the “least dangerous” branch, lacking the purse of Congress or the sword of the executive. But tell that to the modern judiciary, where lifetime appointees like Ruth Bader Ginsburg (before her passing) and Sonia Sotomayor treat the bench as a progressive throne, issuing decrees that undermine tradition and sovereignty. They don’t just see themselves as ranking above the president—they consider themselves above us all.

Conservatives must act. Demand that Senate Republicans thoroughly question judicial nominees—no more stealth activists slipping through. Advocate for term limits for federal judges; life tenure was never intended to create demigods. And when rogue judges act, eventually, they will force a situation in which governors and presidents find themselves channeling Andrew Jackson: “The court has made its decision; now let them enforce it.” The judiciary has no army—its power depends on compliance, and we don’t have to go along with it.

Activist judges aren’t the guardians of justice; they are usurpers in robes, intoxicated by their authority. They have transformed courts into super-legislatures, bypassing both presidents and voters. The Right cannot remain passive while these petty tyrants dismantle our republic. It’s time to strip the emperor’s clothes and remind them: in America, the people rule—not the gavel.

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"In Just 8 Minutes, Victor Davis Hanson Says What the Media Won’t Touch..."

For years, Democrats have insisted they have no real agenda beyond opposing Trump. But Victor Davis Hanson has exposed the truth—they do have a plan, and it’s more radical than anyone imagined. Their strategy? Demonize Trump and Elon Musk at all costs. Defend open borders. Block ICE from deporting criminals. Funnel endless money into Ukraine. Push DEI even when it compromises national security. And most importantly—create chaos. With Trump and JD Vance’s historic victory, the American people have spoken loud and clear. But the Left has one last weapon—delay. Liberal organizations, funded by oligarchs, are flooding the courts with lawsuits, stalling Trump’s agenda to run out the clock. Will they succeed? Or will Trump outmaneuver them once again?

OF COURSE! 'MEMBER THIS WOMAN?! WE WERE RIGHT AGAIN!

Puts a Noose on her own desk and files  police report about racism !

More Democrat craziness... y'all !

So, You Say You Want a Revolution

posted by Ward Clark at RedState 

Anyone who hasn't been at the bottom of the Mariana Trench or in a capsule orbiting the Crab Nebula for the last 50 years or so knows that the United States is experiencing some, shall we say, interesting times. In just the last few years, we've seen an unprecedented presidential victory by a populist billionaire businessman, then seen him unseated by the oldest man to ever sit in the Oval Office, a creature of the entrenched political machine, corrupt and, we are seeing now, throughout his presidency was arguably non compos mentis. And now, in the last few months, we saw one of the most remarkable political resuscitations in the history of the republic when that populist billionaire, after everything the establishment could throw at him, after two assassination attempts, became only the second president to win two non-consecutive terms.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, in a recent column in the Spectator, makes a case that we are in the second American Revolution. He makes some interesting points. But I think he misses a few things, too.

First, Mr. Roberts rightly points out that the left is not shying away from violence, not only in rhetoric but in acts.

On Inauguration Day a man in Oregon threw Molotov cocktails at a Tesla and threatened the driver with a gun. Later that month, a woman in Colorado repeatedly went to a Tesla car lot to spray paint “Nazi” on the dealership’s sign. This, it turns out, was only the beginning. Since then, the American car business has been under attack across the country, as more cars get set alight.

Meanwhile a crazed Massachusetts man came to Washington with Molotov cocktails, knives and the intent to burn down the Heritage Foundation and kill Pete Hegseth, Speaker Mike Johnson and Scott Bessent.

In February, Democrat elected representatives joined in and began pushing crazy rhetoric of their own. Representative Kweisi Mfume – whose birth name is Frizzell Gerard Tate – proposed a “street fight” to push back against Elon Musk. Ilhan Omar escalated even further, arguing that Musk’s efforts “might actually see somebody get killed.” And to make the second American Revolution analogy concrete, Representative LaMonica McIver came right out and said, “We are at war!”

We may well be at war, but while we may very well compare today's left to the government of King George, this second revolution, should it come to actual fighting, won't resemble the original revolution. Any prolonged conflict of this sort will be more like the 1968-1998 "Troubles" in Northern Ireland, with random violence, political extremism, and guerilla actions, not a stand-up, set-piece, traditional war. And, like the Troubles, it may last for years, even decades. These kinds of conflicts often end not because one side seized victory but because both became too exhausted and disheartened to continue. If that were to happen to the United States, then the states would almost certainly be united no longer - and there's the end.

Mr. Roberts continues:

King George III and the British parliament unjustly taxed the colonists to pay for their incompetent management of a global empire. And if Donald Trump’s dismantling of USAID has proven anything, it is that our rulers have been unjustly taxing us to pay for their own incompetent management of a global empire.

The Second American Revolution pits this insulated elite class of managers and bureaucrats against an increasingly broad swath of the American people, whom they do not know, can make no credible claim to represent and have utterly failed. The diverse coalition that elected President Trump this November proves as much. One in four black men under 50 voted for Trump. Roughly 45 percent of Latinos voted for Trump. Voters without a college degree supported President Trump by 13 points.

But, unlike the first American revolution, the class of managers and bureaucrats are largely invisible, anonymous, and unknown. The colonial political system of 1776 was much smaller, and the operatives were known to their fellows; communities were much smaller, and even cities like Boston had more in common with small- to mid-size towns of today than of our massive cities or our gargantuan labyrinth of a federal colossus. It's a much bigger task now to uproot these managers and bureaucrats. It's not that we can't do it, but we should harbor no illusions that this may be done quickly or easily.

Granted, we are taking steps to return to some semblance of sanity in government:

The good news is that we are well on our way. Right now, President Trump’s executive orders and decisive actions are systematically dismantling the deep state’s hard power. On his first day in office, he terminated all remote work arrangements for federal employees. Then, he introduced an unprecedented, deferred resignation program which convinced more than 75,000 unelected bureaucrats to resign their posts. And last month he signed a new executive order requiring all federal agencies to fire at least four people for every one person they hire. Meanwhile, the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DoGE) incredible work has undermined the regime’s soft power by exposing its waste and corruption unlike ever before.

Here's the problem: It is the nature of government to grow ever bigger, ever more intrusive, and ever more jealous of its own interests. 'Twas ever thus, from the Roman Republic to our republic. And the forces of that growth are still, by and large, embedded in our federal government, as well as many state and local governments.

Make no mistake, these have only been the opening skirmishes in what will be a long fight. Though President Trump’s has already delivered a major blow, the deep state remains powerful. Slowly but surely, it is forming its counteroffensive. Corrupt federal judges are blocking the President’s executive orders. Colleges and universities are disguising their DEI programs to prevent losing federal funding. Countless bureaucrats are laying low in federal agencies, waiting for the opportunity to upend the people’s agenda. Even as fewer and fewer people are tuning in, the mainstream media is still doing everything it can to disparage Trump.

There's the nub of the issue. It has taken two centuries for the federal government to get to this point. Is there any one person who truly understands the depth and scope to which the army of the unelected is entrenched in Washington? The federal colossus has grown like kudzu, spreading through the roots, branching out, strangling off competing plants, and taking over entire ecosystems. Like kudzu, these entrenched interests will not be uprooted easily, and even when we think we have the job done, there may well be remaining roots and runners that will spring suddenly to life and resume the plague.

It may well take not only legislative action but constitutional action to keep the bureaucratic kudzu within bounds.

---

Violence, Arson, Vandalism, Hate: Where Is the Left Going With All This?

The Left Is Calling for Violence. What's Happening Now? What Happens Next? Where Will It End?

---

Every story has an ending. The American republic will not last forever; no nation, no people do. But we're still America, and I think we have some fight left in us, but that doesn't mean we should discount the task before us. Nations rarely return to a former state of glory; Athens did not, Rome did not, and Britain will not. If America does, it will be after decades, maybe a century of effort.

Kevin Roberts concludes his excellent piece:

Despite the left’s fearmongering, none of this requires violence. But it does require us to remember the promise of Patrick Henry that “millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.”

Here, he makes an excellent point; after all, it takes both sides in any conflict to keep the peace, but only one to start a fight. Right now, the left seems determined to be the one to start the fight; we on the right must be prepared to finish it.

China's Trying to Put the Screws to Walmart Over Tariffs. Will It Work?

Ward Clark reporting for RedState 

President Trump recently slapped some tariffs on various goods from China, and now Walmart, America's largest retailer as well as America's largest employer, is starting to grow concerned about the added cost. The chain relies on inexpensive goods from China, and those goods are about to get more expensive, and China is balking at absorbing the cost.

Who has the advantage here?

 Walmart thought it could use its immense power as America’s biggest retailer to make Chinese suppliers eat the cost of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. But Walmart got a response it’s not accustomed to hearing: No.

Trump has slapped 20% tariffs — or taxes on imported goods — on all products coming from China. That’s put the squeeze on retailers like Walmart, which imports a lot of merchandise from China and sells those goods at the lowest price possible to American consumers. Walmart, in turn, has tried to pressure its Chinese suppliers to lower prices. But the Chinese government is having none of it.

The strong reaction from the Chinese government reveals how American companies are caught in the middle of an escalating trade war between the United States and China. While customers in the United States want low prices, that could be hard for Walmart to achieve if the Chinese government is stepping in, trade experts say. And if a company even as strong as Walmart struggles to hold down prices, it means that much smaller companies are going to be hurting, too.

On the national scale, China needs American consumers more than Americans need Chinese goods - but our industrial base is diminished, it won't be rebuilt tomorrow, and Americans have been perhaps too accustomed to cheap towels, clothes baskets, flatware and the like from China, via Walmart and similar chains.

It's an interesting problem for Walmart. Can China make this stick? Will Walmart eat the cost?

Walmart can either raise prices, risking a rebuke from US consumers that would impact its own bottom line, or press suppliers — risking the ire of the Chinese government. The Chinese backlash also contradicts US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s prediction this month that Chinese manufacturers will “eat the tariffs” and prices for US consumers “won’t go up,” trade experts say.

“What this is signaling is that the Chinese government is saying, ‘We’re not going to pay for this tariff. US consumers are going to pay for it,” said Thomas Hoenig, a fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

There are longer-term solutions to this that are good for Walmart and America, but they'll take time.

President Trump has already suggested heavy tax incentives for companies that onshore manufacturing. But while that's a desirable thing and a decent long-term solution, it won't help in the short term. In the short term, unless American retail giants like Walmart and Amazon can convince their suppliers to absorb at least some of the cost of the tariffs, then the American people are going to see some prices increase on Chinese-made consumer goods.

Every new policy has its ups and downs, and this is no exception. President Trump's tariffs will very likely raise some prices. We have, though, already seen that the president has a tendency to use tariffs as much as negotiating tools as revenue-generators, so some of the reciprocal tariffs may fall off as deals are made. Some won't, and there may well be some political cost - but if President Trump is going to do this, the time is now, early in his term, while he has the political capital to spend.

Meanwhile, talks between Walmart and its (Chinese) suppliers continue.

Maxine Waters Pushes for Melania Trump's Deportation Despite Her Legal U.S. Citizenship

Sarah Arnold reporting for Townhall 

In yet another attack on President Donald Trump, some Democrats have targeted his immigration policies by calling for the deportation of his wife, Melania Trump. This outrageous and politically driven statement not only defies common sense but also reveals the left’s obsession with politicizing every aspect of Trump’s life, no matter how absurd. Although Melania Trump is a naturalized American citizen who followed the legal immigration process, left-wing critics are now exploiting her status to advance their anti-Trump, anti-immigrant agenda. These calls for her deportation serve no real purpose other than to further the left’s desperate attempts to undermine Trump’s presidency, a blatant effort to attack the president even if it means abandoning basic logic in the process. 

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) suggested that Melania Trump should be deported in a rant opposing Trump’s legal battle to eliminate birthright citizenship. During a rally protesting the DOGE cuts, Waters claimed that the Slovenia-born First Lady should be sent back to her home country despite legally getting her U.S. citizenship. 

“When he [Trump] talks about birthright, and he's going to undo the fact that the Constitution allows those who are born here, even if the parents are undocumented, they have a right to stay in America. If he wants to start looking so closely to find those who were born here and their parents were undocumented, maybe he ought to first look at Mealnia,” the Democrat said. 

“We don't know whether or not her parents were documented. And maybe we better just take a look,” she continued. 

Melania Trump became a U.S. citizen in 2006 after moving to the U.S. in the 1990s to pursue a modeling career. Upon arriving in the U.S. on a visitor's visa, she obtained an H-1B work visa. After marrying Trump in 2005, she applied for a green card and legally became a permanent resident. Melania Trump is the second foreign-born first lady in U.S. history, following the wife of 6th POTUS John Quincy Adams, Louisa Adams, who was born in England and raised in France. 

JD Vance Gets the Last Laugh As He Announces He'll Join Wife Usha on Visit to Greenland

Teri Christoph reporting for RedState 

"Usha Vance surely knows what she’s doing by going to Greenland right now." That's a headline currently blaring from the front page of MSNBC after news broke of Mrs. Vance's upcoming trip to Greenland. We'll leave out the link because dreck like that shouldn't be rewarded with views.

The second lady announced her visit on Instagram, noting she'd be heading to Greenland this weekend and was particularly excited to experience Avannaata Qimussersua, the island's national dog sled race that is sponsored by the United States, an event she was reading about with her three young children. Mrs. Vance also expressed her eagerness to bring goodwill from the U.S. to the island state that her husband's boss has expressed interest in acquiring.

For the unforgivable crime of watching a dogsled race and bringing the good wishes of the American people to the residents of Greenland, the left unleashed a torrent of hate onto Usha Vance. They called her a freeloader, a pawn in Trump's political chess game and, of course, the inevitable "colonialist!" insult.

They're doing this, of course, because they think Usha Vance is a soft target. They mistake her class and poise for weakness, all while ignoring her very impressive accomplishments. Not only did she study at Yale University, Cambridge University and Yale Law School—accomplishments that, if she were married to a Democrat, would be lauded by the left—she also clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts. And she's a loving mother and wife, which pretty much makes her the whole package.

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Greenland Gripes: Prime Minister Unhappy About Upcoming Usha Vance Visit

House Bill Introduced Authorizing Trump to Negotiate Greenland Purchase

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Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede piled on by calling the visit "a big mess" and stating emphatically that he would not be meeting with the second lady.

Vice President JD Vance doesn't like to let a good leftist meltdown go to waste, so he announced Tuesday that he would be joining the entourage traveling to Greenland in a few days.

Here's a little of what the Veep had to say about the manufactured outrage over the trip:

There was clearly so much excitement around Usha's visit to Greenland this Friday that I decided I didn't want her to have all that fun by herself. And, so, I'm going to join her. I'm going to visit some of our Guardians in the Space Force on the northwest coast of Greenland, and also just check out what's going on there with the security of Greenland. 

He's clearly having fun with the whole thing, but there is a more serious purpose for his joining the visit.

Speaking for President Trump, we want to invigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it's important to protecting the security of the entire world.

The addition of Vice President Vance is sure to ruffle feathers and possibly cause some diplomatic headaches for Greenland, which is partly the goal since they've all behaved so badly. What's more, there are going to be pictures galore of the couple having a great time, causing even more heads to explode.

Usha Vance has acted with nothing but graciousness since being thrust onto the national stage when her husband was selected as Donald Trump's running mate. These qualities are anathema to Democrats, of course, who apparently prefer the vile and decidedly unladylike behavior of the likes of Jasmine Crockett and AOC. 

President Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright will also be making the trek to Greenland, per the White House.

Trump suggests US could join British Commonwealth as “associate” member

As rhetoric ramps up about Canada becoming the 51st U.S. state, President Donald Trump appears to be open about America joining the British Commonwealth. Trump shared an article on his Truth Social platform which reported that King Charles may secretly offer an “associate membership” to the U.S. to join the Commonwealth. But as U.K. Constitutional law expert Craig Prescott explains, “essentially, you’re either a member of the Commonwealth or you’re not. There’s no precedent for associate membership or observer status or anything like that." Prescott breaks down what the U.S. joining the Commonwealth would look like.

New Jersey Parents Can Select Gender and Sexual Identity at Birth

 I never looked back after leaving New Jersey. The entire state has succumbed to far-left progressive policies that led to some of the highest tax rates in the nation. These progressive woke ideas have infiltrated every aspect of the state, down to healthcare. Inspira Health Network is now permitting parents to choose their newborn’s gender and sexual identities at birth.

Gone are the days when newborns were swaddled in blue or pink blankets. “Do you identify your baby as: female, male, transgender female/trans woman/male to female, transgender male/trans man/female to male, gender queer, neither exclusively male nor female, additional gender category/self-described.”

That’s right—hospitals are permitting parents to DECIDE the gender of their infants. If you always wanted a boy but gave birth to a girl, you can simply decide that your baby identifies as a boy. This is “the science” they expect the public to blindly trust. XX or XY simply does not suffice.

Since they always take matters ten steps further, the questionnaire also permits parents to DECIDE their newborn’s sexuality. “Which of the following best describes your baby: lesbian or gay, straight or heterosexual, bisexual, questioning or unsure, self-describe.”

Truly disgusting and disturbing state-permitted child abuse.

Yet, these same progressives believe that unborn babies do not have rights and want “birthing people” to have the ability to terminate pregnancy at any point. But as soon as the baby enters this cruel world, they should know their sexuality and pick a trendy gender. It is atrocious that this practice is legal.

“Per recent guidance from the New Jersey Department of Health stating that health systems can collect that data in a clinically appropriate and culturally competent manner, Inspira Health will request this information from adults. This update in protocol remains compliant with the law, and we respect patients’ right to decline to respond,” Inspira Health said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

New Jersey implemented a law in June 2022 that requires healthcare networks to collect gender and sexual orientation data “in a culturally competent and sensitive manner.” “The bill was modeled after an Indiana statute and is designed to provide public health officials with the data they need to develop public health measures that effectively serve all New Jerseyans,” Democrat Herbert Conaway, one of the creators of this bill, stated.

However, he insists that the bill was not intended to provide troubled parents with the power to select their baby’s sexual and gender identity. “Parents who are welcoming newborns into the world should be focused on their baby, not answering a questionnaire about sex or identity. This bill should never have been applied this way.”

Republican New Jersey State Sen. Holly Schepisi is fighting to remove minors from this obscene data collection requirement. “Apparently, as drafted, as guidance was being provided, the interpretation by a lot of people, was that this data must be collected from all demographics without regard to age,” Schepisi stated.

These babies did not ask to be born to mentally disturbed, woke parents who can manipulate their identity at will. They reach adolescence and are bombarded with gender and sexual identity confusion at school. The Trump Administration would like to ban gender reassignment surgeries for minors because it is CHILD ABUSE—life-altering, irreversible, horrendous child abuse that the far-left is encouraging. We look at other cultures in terror as they castrate females or marry off their 8-year-olds but turn a blind eye to the blatant new form of child abuse occurring in the United States.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/woke/new-jersey-parents-can-select-gender-and-sexual-identity-at-birth/

LEAVE THE CHILDREN ALONE!