Trump Settles the American Family’s Business

American Thinker 

Ever since Iran’s “Islamic Revolution” succeeded in erecting a theocratic regime whose leaders condemn America as the “Great Satan,” call for “death to America,” and kill American soldiers, a question has hung in the air: How many years would the United States tolerate an Islamic dictatorship that murders American citizens, threatens America’s economic interests, and annually celebrates having held fifty-two Americans hostage for four hundred and forty-four days by burning American flags?  The answer might be forty-seven.

As is his wont, President Trump appears to be grabbing the status quo by its ear and squeezing it as it squeals in pain.  The theocratic police state that has brutally run Iran for nearly a half-century has also financed, provided material support for, and carried out more acts of terrorism around the world than any other nation.  Iran’s agents have murdered civilians on every populated continent and murdered members of America’s Armed Forces on both land and sea.  Iran’s Islamic terrorists don’t build; they bury roadside bombs meant to mangle the bodies of unfortunate travelers.  Iran’s Islamic terrorists don’t support free trade; they seize private maritime vessels and mine international shipping lanes.  Iran’s Islamic terrorists don’t seek peace; they demand the nuclear destruction of Israel and the United States.

President Obama begged the Iranians for mercy by conceding to the terrorist regime’s every demand in a lopsided nuclear “deal,” handing the Islamic theocrats billions of dollars in cash, and betraying American victims of Iranian terrorism whose court judgments have never been satisfied.  The Obama and Biden administrations were so desperate to prop up Iran’s Islamic tyrants that the Democrats bent over backwards to appease terrorists who celebrate the slaughter of Americans. 

President Trump has chosen a different path.  In the forty-seventh year of a destructive Islamic terror-state, America’s forty-seventh president has decided that governments celebrating the deaths of Americans should not be allowed to exist.  Trump gave Iran’s “Supreme Leader” Ali Khamenei numerous chances to submit to American demands.  Khamenei chose “death to America,” so now Khamenei is dead.  This continues a trend in American military posture over the last several months.  After giving Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro the chance to choose exile (an opportunity he refused), President Trump snatched him up in the middle of the night and likely ended twenty-seven years of communist rule in one of the Western Hemisphere’s most important countries.  By quarantining the waters around Cuba and preventing oil shipments from reaching the island nation, President Trump’s actions may lead to the collapse of a communist regime that has been in power for sixty-seven years.  When Trump’s carrots don’t work, he pulls out big sticks.

From a position that prioritizes America’s strategic interests, these actions were long overdue.  After all, it has always been a bit incongruous for the United States to project “superpower” and “unipolar” strength, while appearing seemingly incapable of squashing Iran’s Islamic terrorists or the advance of communist regimes within America’s own backyard.

As the world changes quickly and likely becomes more dangerous for the foreseeable future, President Trump has decided that it’s time to “settle all family business.”  That famous movie line — from Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece The Godfather — seems appropriate for these circumstances.  In the film, Al Pacino’s Mafia don utters it after having successfully taken revenge against every party that had ever injured his family.  Today, America’s “Don” is patiently, methodically, and strategically doing the same thing.  Although his political enemies have abused the “justice” system to investigate him frivolously, secure improper convictions, and tarnish his reputation, President Trump is no criminal.  But he is a bit of a “gangster,” in the sense that he knows how to use America’s reputation for strength in a way that protects American lives.  When America’s enemies consider harming Americans away from home, they must now look up the street to see if President “Don” is already swinging his nail-spiked bat.  Unlike some of his invertebrate predecessors, Trump understands that effective deterrence requires the biggest, baddest dude on the block to deliver an occasional beating. 

While President Trump’s warnings to Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran have not been mere bluster, his actions against those countries’ leaders are not the products of mindless rage either.  Look around at where the world is heading.  Whether we are ready for it or not, the global technology landscape is rapidly changing.  The era of Artificial Intelligence is here, and it will likely change everything.  Not only are we already seeing how AI will replace human jobs in almost every professional field, but also we have begun to see how AI will dramatically reshape the battlefield.  Reports indicate that AI may have assisted Delta Force operatives in their mission to extract Maduro from his heavily fortified Caracas compound.  AI-operated “drone swarms” have hunted targets in Russia and Ukraine.  AI systems are already curating online information, policing social media platforms, and assisting in state-directed information warfare.  The U.S. Department of War is integrating AI across military platforms.  

As U.S. military planners quickly adapt to technological innovation in order to stay ahead of enemies and adversaries around the world, long-term strategic worries mount.  Can the advantages of AI be effectively corralled, or will AI also become an effective and deadly tool for hostile regimes?  One of the lessons learned during the War in Ukraine has been that relatively inexpensive drones can cause colossal damage to weapons systems that cost billions of dollars.  If guerrilla insurgents (or rogue regimes or terrorists) with minimal resources can inflict tremendous damage upon superior fighting forces, then the limitations of asymmetric warfare go out the window.  If AI proliferates across the globe, then presumably nuclear proliferation follows, too.  We are heading toward a future when AI, drones, and even inexpensive autonomous robots will likely minimize the disparate military lethality of poor and wealthy nations.  

With such an unpredictable future headed our way, President Trump is settling the American family’s past business before old foes have a chance to transform into something even more threatening.  He is urgently addressing American vulnerabilities around the world.  His actions reveal intent to prepare for the worst-case scenarios rapidly heading our way.  His attack on Iran should be seen through this lens.

Consider the geopolitical chess moves that President Trump has made in his first year back in office.  He has reasserted the Monroe Doctrine and is actively building “Fortress America” in the Western hemisphere.  He is strengthening economic and military alliances with regional powers such as Japan, India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Poland, and Hungary.  He is working to neutralize hostile regimes that threaten global fuel supplies and international shipments.  He is expanding American control over regions of the world with abundant supplies of hydrocarbon energies and other natural resources that have become only more critical in the emerging AI age.  He is even looking for ways to cooperate with the Russian Federation, create economic ties with long-term adversaries, end unnecessary wars, and build the foundations for some semblance of peace.  President Trump is right now preparing the United States for an uncertain future in much the same way that an industrious squirrel stores nuts to survive the harsh winter ahead.  

Attacking Iran comes with risks.  Only time will tell whether this military operation makes America safer and the world more stable.  Ask yourself this, though: What is it that the president sees down the road that has convinced him to take action against Iran right now?  As with all decisions that come from the Oval Office, there’s always much more to the story than what is plainly visible.  Threats are growing.  Uncertainties are exploding.  President Trump is battening down the hatches because the storm outside is brewing.  He seeks future peace through present strength.

Podcast thread for March 2nd

 

Busy day.

Be Armed and Ready – the Asymmetrical Battlefield Could Be Here at Home

Townhall 

Asymmetrical warfare means applying the strengths you have against an overwhelming enemy’s weaknesses. The goat sex pest mullahs have been utterly humiliated by America's and Israel’s overwhelming military superiority in conventional forces, with our airplanes, drones, and other systems traversing their airspace at will after we established total air supremacy. Our ships sail the seas, unthreatened and unchallenged, while most of the Iranian Navy morphs into submarines. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have the capacity to strike back, and that doesn’t mean that we don’t have potential weaknesses. Everybody has weaknesses. Ours is located in the United States itself, our homeland, where we’re at. It's already happening on a small scale, with open immigration poster child Ngdiaga Diagne shooting up a bar in Texas for Allah. We’re vulnerable here, and you are potentially on the front line of this war.

Time to be ready. Time to be armed. Time to get some.

What’s our vulnerability? Civilians, normal Americans, who Iranian proxy terrorists could murder in heaps. Until Donald Trump came back, we had four years of wide-open borders where every Third World indigent with shoes and a dream was able to sashay into our country, unimpeded and often subsidized by President Eggplant and his Democrat administration. We know the Iranians have agents in the United States – that’s open source, and everybody gets The FBI is on full alert, now that it protects American citizens again instead of oppressing them. This is not wolf-crying. The Iranian mullahs tried to murder Donald Trump and others and have caused lots of other mischief outside their borders. Now, the Iranian jihadis are not superstars, and they’re not super-geniuses. They are cunning and relatively competent at times in doing what they do, and what they do best is attack innocent civilians. As we can see, when they come up against soldiers, they die a lot. Well, there are lots of innocent civilians here in the United States, and it is not unreasonable to assume that the Iranian Republican Guard Corps has infiltrated sleeper cells into the United States. Once activated, they have the potential to go on a murder spree unparalleled in American history, one that would make Saturday night in Chicago look like a picnic with the Muppets.

I wrote about this in my bestselling novel, published not long after October 7, because October 7 is the asymmetrical terrorist mass assault template, called The Attack. The Iranian thugs helped plan and approve the Hamas massacre of innocent Israelis (as well as some Americans), which is more of the reason that they’re getting nothing but what they deserve right now. The idea behind an asymmetrical strike is simple. You send in minimally trained but maximally indoctrinated killers through the open border, and they wait. They wait in small groups, taking no action until activated. It’s not hard for them to get weapons into the United States, and part of the beauty is that you don’t need complex weapons. The AK-47 family of assault rifles was designed so that Siberian peasants would have an effective weapon system they could operate, even if they came from a village still baffled by devices such as the wheel. You can buy ammunition in the United States, and magazines, and recently, it was not that hard to ship fully automatic weapons across the border. Until Trump closed it, there was no shortage of cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl. The cartels would eagerly assist, for a price paid out of the pallets of cash that Barack Obama and Ben Rhodes dropped on them.

The advantages of this are obvious. Under Biden, nobody was looking for them. We didn’t do any interior enforcement. Now we famously are, and we can only hope that getting Iranian-adjacent illegal aliens out of the country is one of ICE’s top priorities. Of course, neurotic wine women and femboy libs will have a conniption over us deporting these potential terrorists, but we need to do it, no matter how hard they blow their whistles.

Just remember that the killers don’t have to be Iranian. They can be from Chechnya, Egypt, Afghanistan, Turkistan, or some other random -stan. The Iranians aren’t picky about who they work with. Iranians are Shia and Hamas are Sunni, but that didn’t stop them from getting together to murder Christians and Jews. Anybody from the Middle East who’s over here illegally, and some who are here legally, absolutely have the potential of acting for Iran if activated. We've already had jihad murders here, like the Pulse nightclub and San Bernardino shootings. We hear less about them lately because Muslim murderers have had the limelight stolen by trans deviants who've gone on killing sprees over their pronoun gripes, but that doesn't mean they are gone, as totally as real Americans as you and me, Ndiaga Diagnes demonstrated.

The beauty of this scenario for our enemy is that it is a quintessential asymmetrical attack. It takes the weaknesses of the Iranians, like the inability to coordinate forces, lack of logistical and administrative support, the absence of command and control, and paucity of concurrent communications, and turns those into strengths. When those don’t exist, the cells are hard to locate. If you have small groups of fanatics, whose sole purpose is to go to a given location at a given time, and kill everybody they see until they themselves are killed, you don’t need any kind of support. They are akin to drones – meat drones that their overlords can fire and forget. And since American forces tend to look at the enemy support systems to find weaknesses, which is one of our advantages because we do it so well, you end up neutralizing the American advantage. Americans want to beat the enemy long before there’s an actual gunfight. In this way, against an Iranian enemy, an asymmetrical attack would ensure lots of gunfights, giving Iranian proxies the ability to cause significant casualties where they wouldn’t have the ability to do that otherwise.

In The Attack, thousands of these little cells are activated and strike, murdering scores of Americans before the government is able to form a coordinated response. But, as in reality, in the book, we see what I suspect we would see if the Iranians attempt something like this in real life. What we would see is normal Americans fighting back.

You see, if the homeland becomes a battlefield, we all become soldiers. We have a great counterintelligence team, and the FBI is back to protecting the American people instead of the Democrat elite. Still, they, along with our great law enforcement first responders, can’t be everywhere all the time. We citizens, can. All of us could be face-to-face with the enemy, whether another Ndiaga Diagne at a bar or a bunch of like-minded psychos in a church, a school, a shopping mall, or at a militantly cis-gender hockey game; their goal would be to bring the war to us, and our obligation would be to fight it and win it. But how do normal citizens do that?

You buy guns and ammunition. You train with them. You carry them legally. You get into the mental mindset that bad things can happen, and you need to be ready. Except in the blue states, where they put up hurdles to stop you from defending yourself, your family, your community, and your Constitution. Gavin Hairstyle and his ilk would rather you die than upset the aforementioned neurotic wine women and femboy libs who fear guns and manhood.

This admonition that you must be a warrior too is not some hooah big talk. That’s reality. As everybody knows, except liars and fools, armed citizens have long been able to intervene to stop crimes with their lawfully carried weapons. What we’re talking about here is something even more sinister than some gender goblin with a grudge over his unwanted penis shooting up a preschool; it’s terrorists shooting up everything as part of a plan to commit mass murder as terrorist retaliation against the United States for taking out their pals in Tehran. You’ve got to be ready. If you can legally carry a weapon on you, you should, and a long weapon in the truck provides you with critical combat options if this goes down. But you should also practice with your guns. And don’t forget the other component of this – medical training and gear to stop the bleeding should you find yourself in the middle of a terrorist attack.

You didn’t ask to be a hero, but you are an American citizen, and that makes you hero-capable. It is your duty as an American citizen to do your best to protect your fellow citizens. If you can fight, you’ve got to be ready within the guardrails of your abilities and the law.

Our great troops are fighting this battle overseas as we speak. There is a non-zero chance we will have to fight this battle in America. Some people will dismiss this warning as silly. Some people will dismiss this as paranoid. They will run when it happens. You need to decide in advance that you won’t.

If it doesn’t come to fruition, that’s more than fine with us. We don’t want a fight, but, dammit, if those b******s start a fight in our home, we need to be ready to finish it.

The Democrats’ Epic Fury Over Iran Strikes Democrats invoke the Constitution against Trump — even as history and their own record tell a different story.

The Democrats’ Epic Fury Over Iran Strikes Democrats invoke the Constitution against Trump — even as history and their own record tell a different story.

David Catron for American Spectator 

Democrats invoke the Constitution against Trump — even as history and their own record tell a different story.

It was hardly necessary to consult Nostradamus to predict that the Democrats, who profess to abhor oppressive authoritarian theocracies, would denounce President Trump’s decision to topple the government of Iran — the very definition of such a regime. Nor was it a surprise that they downplay or simply ignore the obvious elation with which the Iranians themselves greeted the long overdue demise of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It is striking, however, that the Democrats fail to see that their reflexive attacks on Trump for taking action against such a dangerous regime and indifference to the response of the Iranian people reinforces the public perception that their party is weak and out of touch.

The last two Democrat Presidents have already damaged their party’s credibility where Iran is concerned by coddling the Khamenei regime with financial, diplomatic, and political concessions. Yet a key architect of the Obama administration’s disastrous 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), Ben Rhodes, had the unmitigated  audacity to post the following on social media: “Trump lied about being against forever wars, he broke the most basic promise he made to his own supporters.” Rhodes’ comments were not well received. Former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell responded, “You were part of the team who gave billions of dollars to the Iranian Regime … Once again, President Trump is cleaning up your mess.”

Meanwhile, prominent Democrats are once again claiming that the President has somehow violated the Constitution. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), for example, called Trump’s actions “illegal and unconstitutional.” This is nonsense, of course, as the only sane Democrat Senator pointed out to Dana Bash on CNN Sunday morning. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) “Have people ever read the War Powers Act? You know, what’s required of the president is to provide 48 hours of notification, and then he or she has 60 days, up to 90 days, to withdraw those troops, you know, before Congress approves that.” Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley expands on Fetterman’s explanation by providing some useful historical background:

Past presidents, including Democratic presidents such as Barack Obama and Joe Biden, have asserted the unilateral power to attack other nations when they believe that combat is warranted by national security. The War Powers Act was the response of Congress to try to curtail such unilateral authority. Overriding the veto of President Richard Nixon, Congress mandated that presidents must consult with them and cease all combat operations within 60 days if Congress has not approved the use of force. Presidents, and some academics, have long argued that the WPA is unconstitutional.

Nonetheless, the Democrats have continued to issue irresponsible statements. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) claimed, “Donald Trump chose to put American lives and national security at risk while threatening to draw us into yet another expensive, taxpayer-funded forever war without Constitutionally-required authorization, a defined end-state or a real plan to prevent the instability that could come next.” Likewise, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) felt compelled to parade his ignorance on BlueSky: “Donald Trump is once again sidestepping the Constitution and once again failing to explain why he’s taking us into another war. Americans asked for affordable housing and health care, not another potentially endless conflict.”

Predictably, we heard from New York City’s socialist Mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Despite his widely-publicized inability to assure that the trash will be collected in the Big Apple, he is evidently a foreign policy expert: “Today’s military strikes on Iran – carried out by the United States and Israel – mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war. Americans do not want this. They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change. They want relief from the affordability crisis. They want peace.” And no Trump action would be complete without a denunciation from that widely-respected foreign policy authority, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.):

This war is unlawful. It is unnecessary And it will be catastrophic … We learned this lesson in Iraq. We learned this lesson in Afghanistan. And we are about to learn it again in Iran. Bombs have yet to create enduring democracies in the region and this will be no different. In moments of war, our Constitution is unambiguous: Congress authorizes war. The President does not. I will do my part to uphold our Constitution by voting YES on Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie’s War Powers Resolution. Every member of Congress must join us in rejecting this aimless war.

You will note that AOC plans to vote with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) who has made it his mission in life to be a thorn in Trump’s side on virtually every issue, and insists he will work to ensure a Congressional vote on further conflict in Iran. He posted the following on social media: “I am opposed to this War … When Congress reconvenes, I will work with @RepRoKhanna to force a Congressional vote on war with Iran. The Constitution requires a vote, and your Representative needs to be on record as opposing or supporting this war.” They will be joined in opposing President Trump’s Iran operation by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), an interesting ménage à trois that confirms the venerable adage that politics makes strange bedfellows.

In the end, both history and precedent suggest that President Trump adhered to the War Powers Act when he ordered the Iran operation. But the Democrats, and the odd Republican publicity hound, have little interest in the law and less in the Iranian people. The former have their eyes on the midterm prize, and the latter are focused on the headlines. They don’t object to regime change in Iran based on genuine principles. It’s all about money and power.

The New American Century

Townhall 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it best, before his speech for Western restoration, when he declared: “The world is changing, very fast right in front of us. The old world is gone. We live in a new era in geopolitics, and it’s going to require all of us to re-examine what that looks like, and what our role is going to be.”

This is the new American Century, one in which America no longer forces change through aggressive intervention and costly wars, but a strategic mixture of force, diplomacy, and sanctions.

The new century, with Trump currently at the helm, started with a terrorist attack: 9-11. 

American prosperity at home and naiveté worldwide had distracted us. In the 1990s, Americans felt invincible. The Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union dissolved, and communism collapsed. It seemed there were no more enemies to fight. Then emerged Al-Qaeda, the four hijacked planes, and three thousand American lives lost on American soil.

To her credit, America did not cower. Sadly, she rushed in heedlessly, thinking that the post-World War II consensus and military might would defeat civilizational threats.

America’s first attempt to restore its hegemony in the Middle East failed. Force alone, without wisdom or cultural transformation, would collapse. We should fault Bush (and Obama) for maintaining military efforts with no real plan in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Their military approach impoverished our country and emboldened our enemies. How could anyone have believed that the United States could reshape the world in our image, through our means, to accept our values?

Trump understood this. If you want world peace, a strong America taking care of her own problems would have to lead the way. No more misguided ventures, but the United States would not sit back and endure trauma and terror without retaliation.

With President Trump’s ascendancy arises the New American Century. A new vision of American Greatness and national self-respect is taking off with a bang. Trump understood then—and still understands—that American force alone won’t bring the changes needed in the world.

The people in their respective countries must choose freedom for themselves. President Trump put his country first, and other nations started expecting their leaders to do the same.

The UK deserves credit for this new Weltgeist. In June 2016, six months before Trump’s first election, the voters of the British Isles said “Enough!” with the European Union, and Brexited out of that unwieldy, undemocratic continental bureaucracy. The island nation still has a long way to go, but breaking away from the EU was a necessary start.

In 2019, the Number One murder capital of the world, El Salvador, elected a Christian conservative committed to tackling crime. Running on an independent platform, breaking from the established controlled opposition political parties, Nayib Bukele uprooted the corrupt political class which enchained his beloved El Salvador. He also locked up the klepto-kakistocracy of gang and drug lords. Last year, the residents of San Salvador celebrated their first Christmas parade in decades.

In 2023, the century-long basket-case Argentina elected Libertarian president Javier Milei, who promised to undo the harm of “The Caste” and shout “Afuera!” to every corrupt, useless, burdensome aspect of the state. In three years, following a landslide set of Congressional victories, Milei has restored the economy while expanding freedom in the once long-Peronist hellhole. Milei took a chainsaw to everything. No more government handouts, dependence, or preeminence. Recently, he pushed through key legislation that breaks the power of the Argentine labor unions and forces juvenile criminals to be tried as adults. Viva La Libertad, Carajo!

At the outset of 2026, American forces unraveled the vile legacy of the narco-communist regime of Hugo Chavez with the arrest of his happy-feet successor Nicolas Maduro. President Trump and his team secured his immediate arrest with no loss of American lives, and the remaining leaders of Venezuela are feeling the pressure of the people to respond to their needs. The United States will not effect regime change. The people of Venezuela can and must.

Across Latin America, after twenty years of violent collectivism, repression, and tyranny, the various peoples have also shouted “Enough!” Communist regimes are collapsing, with pro-American, free-enterprise capitalists, conservatives, and common-sense leaders taking the helm. Who would have imagined that countries south of the United States would have voted to turn their countries around? No longer are they turning to the United States for full assistance. The answer is not the open-border United States, but a restoration of citizenship.

Trump’s America First policies led by example for other countries to choose a new direction. Trump’s refusal to turn the United States into the Battered Women’s Shelter of the world forced the citizens of Third World Countries to look inward, to take responsibility for their countries, to take charge, and make their own countries great again. They looked to America, they saw the beauty and greatness of “Make America Great Again,” and they want it for themselves. They want to be free, and they are willing to fight for it.

This driver for citizen-led freedom is breaking out in the Middle East, as well.

Before the wave of freedom, the year 2023 unleashed unprecedented horrors on the world. Taking advantage of the weakness of woke Western leaders at the time, including Sleepy Joe Biden and the morally inept talking heads in Europe, the Islamic terrorist group Hamas unleashed unspeakable atrocities on innocent Jews, Christians, and others on October 7th, 2023. They bit off more than they could chew, on purpose, hoping to drive Israel into urban combat, with the inevitable fallout of civilian casualties.

There was one problem: most of the Western world has stopped trusting corporate media, long committed to painting Israel in the worst light while playing up the purported plight of Arab countries suffering under “Zionist occupying” oppression. Trump made that happen, and the rest of the world failed to catch up. Hamas lost the ground and PR war, and Trump recently brokered a cease-fire.

Even right after Trump won re-election, eye doctor turned dictator Bashar al-Assad was blindsided. His grip on Syria slipped as upstart rebels rose, targeted Damascus, and forced the brutal Shiite dictator from power. Russia couldn’t help, and Iran was helpless, bogged down by long-term failures in Lebanon and Gaza.

And now it’s Iran’s turn to topple. President Trump targeted the Ayatollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s nuclear capabilities last year, then finished the job by taking out the Ayatollah and his entourage. These maniacal Islamic militants targeted Americans for years. They wanted to blow us off the face of the earth—along with Israel—and now they can’t.

Trump has aided the people of Iran in taking back their country, but it is their country to take back, not ours. Regime change is the cause of the people, not the President of the United States. Do they want to be free? They must rise and seize the opportunity. Gone are the days when the United States barges in and does the work.

We have ourselves to take care of now. Trump pursues America’s interests, and when we succeed, other countries can follow suit. This is the way, and the New American Century.

🎭 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓

 

Welcome to 

The 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓 

Here’s a place to share cartoons, jokes, music, art, nature, 

man-made wonders, and whatever else you can think of. 

No politics or divisive posts on this thread. 

This feature will appear every day at 1pm mountain time. 

Need Reasons to Vote This Year? Dems Plot Serious Retributions on Trump Supporters

RedState 

We are still eight months out from the crucial November midterm elections that will determine what is possible in Donald Trump’s last two years in office. But already ominous signs of Democrat rage or fear, perhaps both, have begun to emerge.

In recent days, at least two prominent Democrats have issued stark public vows of retribution, including prison terms for Trump supporters, when the opposition party captures control of Congress this year and then the White House in 2029.

Others appear to advocate violence and promise lawfare against Trump government agents like ICE officers. “We will find you!” one city’s district attorney vowed.

With no leadership and no attractive policy alternatives to rally their voters to donate and come out, Democrats have fallen back on appeasing their controlling leftists with promises of outright revenge on Trump supporters for his comeback victory in 2024 and the ensuing policies. 

It’s a sharp reminder, if any is needed, that there’s much more at stake on Nov. 3 than simply legislative races.

In one sense, this is not surprising. Democrats on both the national and local levels have been going after Donald Trump since even before his historic 2016 upset of the notorious email deleter, Hillary Clinton, denied her the White House.

The fictitious Steele Dossier hoax, initiated and financed by Clinton’s campaign and disseminated and treated as credible by media and James Comey’s FBI, was just the beginning of years of attempts to destroy their one-time donor’s political career, his reputation and finances, and spirit.

They all failed obviously. And Trump has spent the first 14 months of his second term orchestrating a blizzard of policies, executive orders, and foreign affairs initiatives. 

These include several peace initiatives around the world, attempts to negotiate an end to Iran's ambitions to develop nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. When that lengthy process failed, came this weekend's still unfolding joint attacks with Israel to destroy those systems militarily. 

All of which appears to have overwhelmed a feckless Democrat Party after its disastrous 2024 defeat, leaving it devoid of leadership or energy to offer a viable political alternative to voters beyond the trite “Trump is bad.”

Now, it seems Democrats' plan is to go after both individuals and organizations that have supported Trump and his policies, such as those that abandoned DEI and Woke policies under pressure from this president.

So far, these voices of retribution involve a U.S. senator, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, known for not much of anything except his anti-gun stance, and Susan Rice, a former U. N. ambassador and leading liar during the endless Barack Obama administration.

Rice was tapped as that administration's sacrificial spokesman to explain, falsely, to the American people the 2012 murders in Benghazi of four Americans, including an ambassador, left unprotected during a terrorist attack that destroyed the consulate on the anniversary night of the Sept. 11 attack.

Rice said her claim that the deadly assault was “a spontaneous demonstration” was based on the best intelligence available at the time.

That anniversary day had seen numerous outbursts of violence across the Middle East, including the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. Libya had already been turned into a lawless state of roaming militias after Obama, without alerting Congress, ordered the U.S. military join the European effort to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi the previous year. He was killed by a mob in his hometown.

Yet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had mysteriously ordered security reduced for American staff in Libya. 

An angry mob began assembling at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that afternoon. Clinton said she talked around 5:00 PM with Obama, who then disappeared in the White House.

The commander in chief was absent for 16 hours as the mob stormed and burned the consulate, killing the ambassador and an aide, and then two American contractors in mortar attacks at an annex. No explanation was ever provided for the president's absence during the international crisis.

No rescue or relief efforts were attempted. Defense Secy. Leon Panetta said you don’t send troops into an unknown situation, which would be news to members of the military who train for just such events.

Obama reappeared the next morning to vow “swift justice” on his way to two campaign fundraisers in Las Vegas. 

It was left to the Trump administration, 14 years later, to announce the arrest, extradition, and indictment of Zubayar Al-Bakoush as a conspirator in the fatal attack that occurred under an AWOL Barack Obama.

The unanswered Benghazi tragedy ignited intense controversy and widespread anger at the time. Senior White House aide Susan Rice was tapped for the unusual duty of appearing on all five Sunday morning news shows to attempt an explanation that appeared to clear Obama of any responsibility.

Like many Democrats called to testify on screw-ups, Rice later claimed she could not recall who assigned her to those appearances, who briefed her, and who wrote her talking points from alleged intelligence reports. She did, however, remember that the controversy took a toll on her family, safely at home.

Rice later admitted, “That information turned out, in some respects, not to be 100 percent correct.” 

But she claimed to have no regrets over so thoroughly spreading such a false claim that, not coincidentally, appeared to clear the Obama team of responsibility for the defenseless Americans' deaths.

That preposterous claim and resulting criticism torpedoed Obama’s intent to name Rice to succeed Clinton at State. Instead, he chose John Kerry, the ex-senator and failed 2004 presidential candidate, who went on to negotiate the generous, sieve-like anti-nuclear pact with Iran that Trump ultimately canceled.

On a recent podcast with Preet Bharara, Rice denounced corporations that “take a knee to Trump,” saying they would face retribution under a future Democratic administration:

If these corporations think that the Democrats, when they come back in power, are going to, you know, play by the old rules and say, 'Oh, never mind, we'll forgive you for all the people you fired, all the policies and principles you've violated, all, you know, the laws you've skirted,' I think they've got another think coming.

Trump later said Rice should be fired as a member of the board of Netflix. The entertainment giant was attempting an $83 billion purchase of the film/television studio and streaming assets of Warner Bros. Discovery, including HBO/HBO Max, which would require administration approval.

Netflix has since withdrawn its bid.

In January, Philadelphia  District Attorney Larry Krasner called the administration’s ICE agents “a small bunch of wannabe Nazis” and said:

If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities. We will find you. We will achieve justice.

James Carville, who led Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, said those who cooperate with President Trump are “collaborators” who should be treated as Nazi collaborators were after World War II.

Murphy, who is now in his third term, predicted Republicans “are going to get their clocks cleaned this November, and a bunch of people are probably gonna end up going to jail.”

Democrat Party leaders have joined in this intensified brand of rage politics, which masks the absence of realistic policy alternatives and divisive intra-party feuds. 

New York Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer has called on people to “forcefully rise up.” And Democrat House Leader Hakeem Jeffries, also of New York, pictured himself brandishing a baseball bat, urging people to “fight in the streets.” 

Late last year, I wrote here about the intensifying trend toward verbal threats and harsh rhetoric, noting that:

Decisions to utter words, like all the other decisions in life, have consequences. And each violent remark raises the level of what can seem to be acceptable in a civil society that once condemned such harsh talk.

About the same time, Gallup reported that substantial and enlarged majorities of Americans agreed that today’s politicians have adopted too harsh rhetoric. 

Election campaigns have always been designed to create separate camps of Us and Them. But they used to argue that the Us side was better and provide reasons why. 

Now, the argument is how bad and even “Nazi-like” the other side is and what “justice” (vengeance) will be wreaked upon them once victory is achieved.

EU calls for 'credible transition' in Iran to avoid protracted war

 There is now an open path to a different Iran, one that its people may have greater freedom to shape,' says top diplomat Kaja Kallas

The EU warned Sunday against a prolonged war in the Middle East, saying further escalation could threaten Europe and beyond, as it urged Iran to refrain from indiscriminate retaliation after U.S.-Israeli strikes.

Foreign ministers from the bloc’s 27 nations — most of which are NATO members — held extraordinary talks via video link on day two of an assault that killed Iran’s supreme leader, as EU chief Ursula von der Leyen called for a “credible transition” in the country.

“The Middle East stands to lose greatly from any drawn-out war,” the European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said, speaking on behalf of member states after the meeting.

“The events unfolding in Iran must not lead to an escalation that could threaten the Middle East, Europe and beyond, with unpredictable consequences, also in the economic sphere.”

Writing on social media after calls with several Middle East leaders, von der Leyen said the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spurred “renewed hope for the people of Iran” but also carried “a real risk of instability.”

The Islamic republic launched a new round of retaliatory attacks across the Gulf on Sunday after vowing to avenge the supreme leader.

NATO said its top commander in Europe was “closely” following developments in the Middle East and adjusting forces as needed to defend against “potential threats” — citing in particular “ballistic missiles or unmanned aerial vehicles, emanating from this or other regions.”

The commander, U.S. General Alexus Grynkewich, was speaking “actively and regularly” with military leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, and with NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte, the alliance said.

Von der Leyen said Brussels was engaging closely “with all key actors” to safeguard stability and security.

“The risk of further escalation is real. This is why a credible transition in Iran is urgently needed,” she wrote on X, calling for a “lasting solution.” after speaking with Qatar’s ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

“This must mean the halt of Iran’s military nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and the end of destabilizing actions on air, land and at sea.”

Von der Leyen also spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Likewise, Kallas said she was in contact with regional partners “that bear the brunt of Iran’s military actions” to find practical steps for de-escalation.

“The death of Ali Khamenei is a defining moment in Iran’s history,” she wrote on X.

“What comes next is uncertain. But there is now an open path to a different Iran, one that its people may have greater freedom to shape”.

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/eu-iran-credible-transition-avoid-long-war

Gulf States Draw Line, More Countries Now Ready to Counter Iran With Force

RedState 

Things in the Middle East may be getting even spicier than they already were. On Sunday, Fox News correspondent Bret Baier too to his X account with a report that a coalition of Persian Gulf states is preparing to join the fight against Iran. If this is true, as someone once said, it's a big freakin' deal.

The post concludes:

"They will take all necessary measures to defend their security and stability and protect their territories, citizens, and residents, including the option of responding to the aggression."

The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, also known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has six members: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Saudi Crown Prince's government has already summoned the Iranian ambassador, according to the Times of Israel. 

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry says it summoned the Iranian ambassador, a day after the kingdom accused Tehran of targeting its territory with strikes.

“Foreign Ministry summons the Iranian ambassador to the Kingdom in response to Iran’s brazen attacks that targeted the Kingdom and a number of brotherly countries,” the ministry says in a statement on its X account.

Some of the Arab Gulf states are no doubt displeased about being the target of unprovoked Iranian attacks, not to mention Iran's having been a destabilizing force in the region for nearly the last half-century. 

It gets better. Some of the same European nations that, only Saturday, were wringing their hands over Iran's theocracy being dismantled by American and Israeli explosives, are now starting to dial in their forces, at least to adopt a defensive posture. That's prudent; it's unknown who the remaining Iranian thugs may lash out at next.

Also on Sunday, the Joint E3 nations (The United Kingdom, France, and Germany) took a (written) swipe at Iran as well.

E3 leaders are appalled by the indiscriminate and disproportionate missile attacks launched by Iran against countries in the region, including those who were not involved in initial US and Israeli military operations. Iran’s reckless attacks have targeted our close allies and are threatening our service personnel and our civilians across the region.

We call on Iran to stop these reckless attacks immediately. We will take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies in the region, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source.

We have agreed to work together with the US and allies in the region on this matter.

British forces on Cyprus have already been warned of an

So, what does all this mean? 

First of all, as noted above, several of the Gulf states aren't happy about Iran suddenly launching missiles at them, even though relatively little damage was done. Also, there's a long history between the Arab states and Iran (Persia) that goes back thousands of years, and nobody should think for a moment that anyone in the region has forgotten that.

Second, in one day, three key European powers, the UK, France, and Germany, seem to have changed course. There's no real indication that they are about to send aircraft over Iran to join the party, but their stance on Sunday is a far cry from what it was on Saturday, perhaps in part because the British, at least, obviously have some evidence of a threat to their forces, and that threat would have come from Iran.

Things in the Middle East are getting very interesting indeed. The Islamic Republic is growing increasingly isolated. The people are in the streets. It's looking more and more like the old regime is going down.

The fat lady may not be singing yet. But she's sure as heck warming up in the wings. Stay tuned; we'll be back with any new developments.