Yes, I went there.

ITEM 1: Susie Wiles tweeted:

There have been have so many memorable days and proud accomplishments for the President and his team.

The G7 was a huge success and an opportunity to make sure the members and other participates see “America First” in action. Not America Only, America First.

The trip was capped off with a beautiful dinner and birthday celebration for President Trump at Versailles. This was truly spectacular—particularly after his blistering schedule of bilateral and other meetings and working sessions. Nobody works harder.

I asked President Trump what Versailles was like. He said, “Not bad for a starter house.”

ITEM 2: Iran International reported, “The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news agency called on Iranian authorities to close the Strait of Hormuz and end implementation of the Iran-U.S. MoU, citing continued Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon.”

Iran won the peace negotiation by so much that they want to cancel it.

ITEM 3: CBS reported, “Iran says ships transiting Strait of Hormuz will need insurance approved by Tehran.”

You’re in good hands with Islamic State.

ITEM 4: The Washington Free Beacon reported, “Arizona Democratic Candidate Cast As Rural Working Mom Is a Millionaire Consultant With Deep Soros Ties, Wants Sex Work Decriminalized To Help ‘Trans Women of Color.’”

She’s bi. Now we know what kind of women she likes. Too much information, lady.

DEEP THOUGHTS FROM SANDY:

Now you now why it was called the War Between The States.

ITEM 5: Benny Johnson tweeted, “The U.S. Men’s National Team belted out Country Roads accompanied by 70,000 patriots in Seattle after advancing to Round 32 at the FIFA World Cup.”

Happy Birthday, West Virginia, God’s Waiting Room.

I mean, Almost Heaven.

ITEM 6: The minor baseball league team in York, Pennsylvania, had to cancel its Pride Night and forfeit the game after players refused to wear the LGBT uniform.

I can see their point. The pink tutus were a little over the top.

ITEM 7: NYT reported, “MLB issues warning to Giants pitchers who wrote Bible verses on Pride Night caps.”

When’s Humility Night for Christians?

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ITEM 8: The New York Post posted, “SPLC boss funneled $1.2 million to lover in neo-Nazi group—pair even had joint bank account”

Missus Platner. This loon. Democrats are sleeping with Nazis.

ITEM 9: Adam Schiff tweeted, “$1 trillion, if we decided to distribute that equally among American households, your household would get $7,500.”

Congress has spent $99 trillion since he took office in 2001. Where’s my family’s $742,500?

ITEM 10: Barack Obama poses with other ex-presidents and their wives at the opening of his presidential center.

The woman at the very end was the model for the building.

ITEM 11: Democrats nominated a communist to be their next mayor.

Oh wait, you can’t call them communists. You have to call them democratic socialists, just like you have to call them Antifa instead of terrorists, and senators instead of morons.

ITEM 12: Zero Hedge reported, “Gabbard Drops Fauci COVID-19 Receipts On Last Day: He Funded The Research, Cooked The Cover Story, Then Lied To Congress.”

Congress and the media don’t care because they were all in on the deal. Democrat governors moved covid patients into nursing homes to raise the death toll. The CIA gave Matt Drudge a wild tale of seeing smoke from crematoriums rising over Red China.

In good news, this week, Fauci came 7 days closer to his expiration date.

ITEM 13: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent now supports Alberta’s independence.

I’m for statehood except we already have states whose abbreviations are AL, AK, AR and AZ. That leaves AA, which would mean they would have to give up drinking.

OK, OK, OK. I’ll say it. Alberta’s abbreviation will be VO5. I’ve used it before. That’s a Re-pun, Zell.

ITEM 14: NYT reported, “So far this year, Mr. Hegseth has blocked the promotions of at least 40 senior officers to general and admiral ranks. About half of those are women or members of minority groups.”

That means more than half of those blocked are white men—who are 60% of our military personnel.

ITEM 15: President Trump received the new Air Force One.

I asked the former airline owner about the new AF1. He said, “Not bad for a starter plane.”

ITEM 16: Financial Dystopia tweeted about the Boom Belt, 11 states that are “basically America’s new economic engine.”

Swap Virginia for Oklahoma and you have the 11 confederate states with the world’s 3rd largest economy behind the USA and Red China. The CSA accounts for 28% of the national economy.

The South rose again while no one was looking.

ITEM 17: AP reported, “A federal judge on Friday rejected former President Joe Biden’s attempt to block the Trump administration from releasing to a conservative group the recordings that Biden made with a ghostwriter.

“U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich found that the public interest in the material outweighed whatever privacy rights Biden had.”

The world will soon discover that Biden’s brain was empty—6 years after we could have used the information.

ITEM 18: We’ve secretly replaced their education with Folger’s new de-indoctrination education. Let’s see their reaction using hidden cameras.

Legal Insurrection reported, “Arkansas Student Scores Improve After State Rejected DEI and Focused on Fundamentals.

ITEM 19: Metro reported, “Italy’s Meloni says Trump ‘totally invented’ story that she begged him for photo.”

Does this look like the face of a woman who would beg a man for anything?

I thought not.

BEST OF TWITTER:

Old Israeli Joke.

Old Cowboy Joke.

Doggone Fun.

Phone-y.

Finally, David Limbaugh tweeted:

Maybe I’m too optimistic but the more time that passes the less I’m worried about the MOU because Trump has made clear that he knows what all lawyers know: an agreement to agree is not binding like a formal contract and that—it now seems to be clear—is how he regards the MOU.

Further, he has made it quite clear that he not only retains the right, authority, and literal power to renew destruction on that hellish regime, when, not if, it grossly misbehaves, but that he will actually do so. In the meantime, maybe we can avoid a bloodbath in the midterms (I’m less pessimistic here too than most) and continue to do great things.

I just wish there would be less rebuking of Israel, especially by VP JD Vance. They are and remain our strongest and most worthy and unfairly maligned ally in this entire situation.

The woke right will continue also to malign those of us who support Israel and falsely accuse us of putting Israel’s interests above America’s and of being neocons who want boots on the ground and forever wars.

Their repeated lies to that effect do not alter the reality that it’s simply not true. We, not them, are America first. We, not them, want to protect the US, Israel, and everyone else from a nuclear holocaust initiated by the one regime that is affirmatively incentivized to launch such destruction as a matter of its mad ideology and thus not likely to be deterred by the calculus of mutually assured destruction.

So hats off to President Trump and PM Netanyahu for working together to set back the nuclear ambitions of the maniacs hopefully for decades already and eventually much longer. God bless us all.

I do not understand why people believe—truly believe—that President Trump does not know what he is doing. He wrote the book on negotiating.

The Lord had bigger plans for Trump than you or I could imagine.

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The Obamas opened his presidential center (not library because that would require reading) on Thursday.

The duo gave speeches, which were really lectures. Mister Obama drones less than Al Gore but he is just as sophomoric in his mannerism and sophist in his reasoning. Both men received Nobel Peace Prizes. Two decades after Gore’s, the inconvenient truth is he lied to make money and remain relevant.

The Obama building is a thing of ugly. Oliver Wainwright of the Guardian wrote, “Behold the $850 million Obamalisk—or, as it sometimes feels morbidly like, the Obamausoleum.”

He also wrote:

“We had the idea of a beacon,” says architect Billie Tsien, whose practice, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, won the design competition for the Obama Presidential Center in 2016, on the eve of the first Trump presidency. “We thought of four hands coming together,” she adds, holding her cupped hands up against a colleague’s, as if protecting a flame from the wind.

Above us, sheer walls of granite erupt from the ground at a steep angle, before tapering to form a chiseled 70-metre-high monolith. It looks hewn and cleft, towering over the 19-acre campus like a stocky, truncated obelisk. Rising above the low-rise, low-income neighborhood, the building has an ominous presence, its mostly windowless heft recalling a menacing sci-fi headquarters, with small chamfered openings suggesting portals from where drones might be launched, or lasers fired. Some have compared it to a flak tower, others to a “Klingon prison”. If it is a beacon of hope, it seems to be one that has been fortified at all costs against the present regime, a defensive bunker to protect its fragile values from siege.

That is from the left.

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Over at Fox, early-night comedian Jessie Watters said:

Obama has really unified the country: Everyone agrees he has bad taste. These critics are vicious and these are from the left. It looks like a refrigerator that dropped off the Death Star. Completely out of context, it’s as if it was placed there by aliens.

[It’s] an upright slab that makes you feel physically uneasy, but wait till you get inside. It gets worse! Packed with items that would otherwise be in the junk drawer or the landfill. Unique items of historical interest so few you could easily fit them in an average suburban living room.

Spencer Pratt called this communist architecture “Slopitecture.” LA blew its chance to become normal.

All of the critics are correct, but the Obama Presidential Center is perfect. I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to the man elected president because of the color of his skin and not the content of his character.

The center began 10 years ago as a $300 million project to be opened in 2021. It came in five years late and cost nearly three times the estimate.

Bush 43’s presidential center was the same size. It was built on time (2013 opening) and under budget ($250 million). It looks ptesidential.

The Biden library is going slower than a turtle riding a snail through a school zone. The plan is to raise $200 million to $300 million. So far they raised $4 million by rolling leftover funds from his 2021 inauguration into the fund. Maybe he can make it a mobile library.

Presidential libraries are a good grift.

Valerie Jarrett received $740,000 in 2024 as the head of the project.

The Obama Foundation’s total executive payroll and benefits grew significantly from ~$18.5 million in 2018 to $43.7 million in 2024.

Now you know why Gavin Newsom wants to be president. He has lots of family and friends to support. Think of a presidential center as a laundering machine.

Jarrett gave a little speech in which she leaned on the left’s relatively new way to de-legitimatize the nation by saying we live on stolen land, saying, “We honor the Anishinaabe, the Council of Three Fires, the Ojibwe, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi Nations.”

But not the Blackhawks because they won a Stanley Cup.

I would love to have Trump build a presidential library in New York City, just to hear Stephen Miller say, “We live on land stolen from the Bonanno Family, the Colombo Family, the Gambino Family, the Genovese Family and the Lucchese Family.”

That pretty much is the same thing Jarrett said.

I hope this is the last we ever see or hear of Obama. He used his little speech to dump on the Declaration of Independence during its 250th anniversary.

He said, “The founders fell terribly short of the Declaration’s promise.”

The 56 signers of the Declaration pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. Obama wasted 8 years as president trying to divide the nation and the world.

His granite Dumpster in Chicago suits his legacy well.

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Kris Sidial is a prominent derivatives trader, volatility specialist, and Co-Chief Investment Officer and co-founder of The Ambrus Group. He is on vacation in France. He tweeted:

I’m in Versailles right now, staying at the Waldorf, which is connected to the Palace of Versailles.

When we arrived, the receptionist told us the gardens would be closed because, “President Trump is coming.”

I turned to my fiancée and said, “That’s an odd thing for a French citizen to say, wouldn’t you say Macron?”

It’s a very interesting psychological dynamic that exists globally right now with Trump. On a micro level, this small interaction probably reflects the broader perception of why he believes he can walk into meetings of that caliber and project himself as “The Boss.”

President Trump is The Boss.

Indeed, he did visit the Versailles with Macron in tow. Gone are the days when Macron could try to one-up Trump in a handshake. In his second presidency, Trump realizes he holds the cards.

Likely the Secret Service requested the closure of the garden for security reasons. None of the other G7 leaders fear assassination, which reflects their importance. Trump leads the United States, which has an economy larger than the rest of the G7 combined—despite having 100 million fewer people.

Trump used the palace to formally sign the Iran Memorandum of Understanding, ending a war the American military won in 38 days despite the best efforts of Starmer, Macron and Meloni to thwart the very military that protected their nations from Soviet dominance for 45 years.

He walked into the G7 Summit meeting like he was walking onto a yacht. He stopped and said, “Hello. I’m the Boss,” and then the Big Dog continued to his seat at the table between Starmer the corgi and Macron the poodle. The statement was the truth disguised as an inside joke.

The president is the boss because he acts like one.

Any American president should be the boss. The reserve currency throughout the world is the U.S. dollar. The European Union’s attempt to supplant it with the euro has failed. While its share of global reserves is an impressive 20%, the United States is the lion and the lion’s share is three times that of the Europoors.

Every president from Truman on down has been the de facto commander-in-chief of NATO due to the sheer size of the American military. No USA, no NATO.

From FDR to LBJ and Nixon, American presidents were the rock-hard solid protectors of the free world. Both Bushes were humble and seemed overwhelmed but when the storm hit, they steered around the icebergs in two wars and saved the ship. Reagan needs no explanation.

We Americans took electing the Leader of the Free World for granted.

But not every president makes the cut because not every president projects strength needed to lead. The world needs a strong captain at the helm. Bosuns are poor substitutes.

Jerry Ford was just a congressional lifer. Carter and Clinton were failed governors of failed states. Obama was a dinghy and his puppet Biden was a dingbat. Their presidencies covered 26 of the last 52 years birthing a generation unfamiliar with the title Leader of the Free World.

Trump has re-introduced the nation to the full duties of a president.

While liberals and RINOs pretend Operation Epic Fury was a failure, the world cannot deny him his victory in Iran. He has shown not only what America can do but what America does. Uneasy sleep the heads of the tyrants.

Trump explained to reporters at the G7 Summit how the regime change in Iran occurred:

The first group is dead. One little morning having breakfast, the whole group, they thought they’d never be caught because we never bombed during breakfast, but we bombed. And they all—88 people—and I’m not proud of that at all.

The second group came in, and they were very unreasonable too. And they were all gone. They were all gone. And then the third group we’ve been dealing with them, a couple left this planet, but we’ve been dealing with them and again, they’ve been fine.

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The missiles that killed their predecessors should make the third-string team careful not to cross Trump. If not, send in the missiles and wait for the fourth-string to take the field.

There is a lot of caterwauling over lifting sanctions and the possibility of Iran resuming (continuing) its pursuit on an atomic bomb. No one trusts the Iranians, not even the Iranians themselves. As Senator Foghorn Leghorn Kennedy put it, “I say, I say, unless you were homeschooled by a day drinker, no one’s confident that Iran is going to do anything.”

Leave it to Trump to figure out how to enforce the agreement. Leave it to Victor Davis Hanson to figure this out and explain it:

“The two chief issues I’m not as worried about. I think we know where the enriched uranium is. It’s sealed. We have great intelligence. We can bomb it again if necessary, and we can strike more of their industrial complexes if they cheat. And they will open the Strait of Hormuz because they’re nearly broke. The other concerns are the known unknowns. It’s going to be more difficult to ensure they’re not funding Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas. That’s much murkier. We also don’t know exactly what they’re going to do in Lebanon. But the one thing that must remain ironclad is this: any time they violate the agreement, the response has to be decisive and disproportionate.”

Smithereens, Iran, still has plenty of space for exploded ayatollahs and generals.

As for terrorist funding, Scott Bessent should be able to sniff it out.

Our coalition against Iran includes Israel, sure, but also 6 Muslim Gulf states. They are itching to invest in Iran if only to keep the monster under some restraint.

Peter Doocy pressed Trump hard.

PETER DOOCY: “You’ve been clear, President Trump, the United States is not going to directly pay Iran. But the U.S. is going to let the Iranians start making billions of dollars. Selling oil, accessing this reconstruction fund.”

TRUMP: “Only if they’re doing things right. We’re not doing anything. We’re not putting up money. Only if they’re doing things right. If they’re doing things right, if people want to invest, they can invest. But they have this $300 million fund—$300 billion fund—it’s only if they’re doing things right.”

The commander-in-chief still has the upper hand. The USS Abraham Lincoln remains parked off Iran’s coast.

As for Iran’s future, former MTV veejay and Fox News favorite Lisa Kennedy Montgomery had fun in an interview with Vice President JD Vance who is on a book tour.

Kennedy: “[Trump] wants stability in the Middle East and to be able to turn the entire place into a massive Trump World Resort which I also celebrate because I’m hoping by being on the same show with Vice President Vance that I get a discount code when it opens.

Vance: *Laughs* If you want the discount code, it’s ‘Trump 2028’. That’s the discount code.

That is not a bad idea.

The United Arab Emirates are making a killing in tourism, attracting 19.8 million visitors in 2025.

9,800 millionaires to moved there last year. The millionaires have a net worth of $63 billion, or as Elon Musk calls it, pocket change.

Non-Muslims can buy booze and bacon in parts of Dubai. The country has a Ministry of Tolerance and Coexistence (established in 2016) and the Abrahamic Family House opened in 2023 in Abu Dhabi. It is a complex with a mosque, church, and synagogue side-by-side—a high-profile symbol of coexistence among the three Abrahamic faiths.

The world needs a leader who is strong, masculine and powerful. Testosterone isn’t toxic; it is a protection from threats both domestic and foreign. The choice is between Chairman Xi and President Trump.

I’ll go with the Boss.

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Erika Kirk tweeted, “The Left wants the White House to feel like an untouchable institution reserved for political elites. They hate seeing it used for events that remind Americans it belongs to them.

“Turning the White House into a place of celebration, culture, and public engagement, especially as we approach America’s 250th, strips away the myth that government is something distant and above the American people.

“No surprise the Democrats despised last night’s UFC event, but what truly frustrates them is what it represents: a White House that feels like the people’s house again.”

Andrew Jackson would have done it. Abe Lincoln too. TR would have been in the cage.

Benny Johnson tweeted, “My raw reaction to witnessing UFC at the White House is this: Patriots have taken back culture. We are the culture.

“The White House brought rappers, actors, comedians, rock stars, tech billionaires and world leaders together to stand shoulder to shoulder with the enlisted military who protect us all, celebrating the the honor, unity, Godliness, bravery and violent combat that built this country.”

Things have changed in Washington. Parks are open to the public not vagrants and drug zombies. 22 fountains are working again. Statues shed their graffiti like caterpillars revealing their inner butterflies.

3 Junes ago, Biden held an LGBTQ party on the White House lawn with some man displaying his boob job. Transgender surgery was all the rage—especially for kids as groomers sought out sissies and tomboys in the quest for deviancy. Despite the media aiding and abetting this, real Americans stood tall and the media has backed down.

The next Democrat president—be he Butigieg, Newsom or Graham Platner—will not stage another drag queen picnic.

MAGA changed the culture by staying true to ourselves.

Trump sets a good example, sure. Despite the bluster, he stays true to himself. He doesn’t want to be One Of Us because well, he’s not. Instead, he shows his appreciation with large tips and removing the tax on the tips.

We’ve been bullied by elitists who want us to accept the unacceptable. Major League Baseball was the latest institution to DEMAND that Christians accept LGBTQ. Management of MLB threatened a few pitchers for the San Francisco Giants who politely declined to kneel to Pride Night. As always, the left begins by asking for tolerance and winds up demanding obedience.

The NFL kneeled to anti-Americanism to please the elitists.

OK. MAGA long ago moved on to other sports such as UFC because real Americans know where they are not wanted. We’re the patriots. The other side’s allegiance is to George the Third as well as George the Soros.

Thomas Hern tweeted, “25 years ago, 90% of Republicans were proud or extremely proud to be American. 87% of Democrats felt the same way.

“25 years later, 92% of Republicans are proud to be Americans. Just 36% of Democrats feel the same way. It’s not an exaggeration to say the left hates America.”

Thanks to the FIFA soccer tournament, many people are seeing Flyover America for the first time. They are in love—heels over head.

A Frenchman praised Buc-ees cuisine. Sacre red, white and blue. Who knows, someday they might give up eating snails.

A German named Freddy became a star on Twitter by discovering America and liking it. There is an Innocent Abroad tone to his tweets:

“We decided late night yesterday to go to Bourbon street, so today was a late start on our way to Houston. And yeah that place was a little crazy. I honestly don’t even know how to describe it. Why are people throwing beads at each other everywhere?”

Babylon Bee may have been joking when it said America wants to adopt him, but J.J. Watt put him up for the night in a nice hotel in Houston. The suite cost $150,000 a night.

You may not know much about the NFL anymore, but Watt is a hero in Houston because of his help in Hurricane Harvey. He also sacked a lot of quarterbacks.

Once X opened tweets to translations, a bunch of Japanese accounts opened up by people curious about the USA.

NOBUNAGA_夏樹蒼依 tweeted:

Be honest with me, Americans. Do you actually own a gun? In Japan, I have never seen a real one. Not once. Not at a friend’s house. Not in a drawer. Never.

But online, every American just goes “oh, mine’s in the nightstand” like it’s a phone charger.

So now I’m genuinely curious: What’s YOUR gun? The very first one you ever got?

Is this normal everywhere in the USA? Or just some states?

My Korean daughter-in-law was startled to see a cop with a gun. It’s a cultural matter. Unlike liberals, she didn’t lecture me about guns.

What really jolted her was Yeager Airport in Charleston, WV, which was so unbusy that she wondered why we had it. I gave a lame response about just how huge the country is and how we need an airport every 200 miles or so. I left out the part where re-electing Byrd every 6 years supported it.

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Foreigners appreciate America and appreciate its cultural differences. Elitist liberals don’t.

Paul Krugman hopped on his tall hobby horse about MAGA and wrote:

On Sunday Donald Trump celebrated his 80th birthday with a cage match on the White House lawn. The match and the events that surrounded it—especially the press conference with UFC fighters, shown above, held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—were a desecration of America’s capital, whose monuments and buildings have always endeavored to represent small-r republican virtues. The whole affair was an affront to the values on which this nation was founded and also unspeakably vulgar.

Vulgar originally meant of the people. When it entered the English language 750 years ago via French, it meant “common, usual, ordinary” or “in general use.” Now it means obscene because elitists resent that commoners use public property that elitists want to preserve for themselves.

Too bad.

Sunday marked a moment when the People’s House returned to the people. Don’t ever let it go again.

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Move over, Marilyn Monroe. Your happy birthday to President Kennedy is nothing compared to Trump ringing in his 80th with a UFC bout, the Marine Corps Band and a flyover by the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels over the mall with its restored reflecting pool that no longer suffers the aftermath of the Kenyan Klown’s benighted presidency.

Also on Sunday, Iran’s third-string regime waved the white flag and gave up.

Epic Fury was was well-named. In 38 days, America stripped a nation of 92 million people of its military.

We have not had as decisive a military victory since the Persian Gulf War. We did so with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman AND Israel on our side.

If someone told you this 10 years ago, you would have thought them crazy. Arab Muslims supporting Israel against a Muslim nation? Get out of here. Donald Trump saw it as a challenge. He launched the Abraham Accord to bring Jews and the Muslims together.

It worked.

Yes, we lost 13 troops in the fighting—but that just happens to be the number of troops Joe Biden lost in surrendering the Basram airport in Biden’s faile retreat from Afghanistan. Biden left behind at least $8 billion worth of military hardware behind.

The Pentagon estimates we killed 6,000 Iranian military personnel, we sank 150 Navy vessels and we destroyed most of Iran’s 350 aircraft. Many of its planes never left the ground. We took out Iran’s air defense.

A year earlier, Operation Midnight Hammer buried Iran’s nuclear program under three mountains. Here’s a shovel and a pick. Good luck digging it out.

President Trump said:

The main thing is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon!

They fully agreed to that with strong POLICING powers and they won’t have a nuclear weapon, which is what it was all about because they probably would have used it if they had it.

So we had two big moments when we terminated the JCPOA, that was the Obama deal, the Barack Hussein Obama deal.

And when I terminated, that was very important because it was a road to a nuclear weapon. It was a horrible deal for the United States. It was a deal where billions of dollars was given to Iran.

The president later tweeted, “Iran has agreed to never have a Nuclear Weapon! Also, the story that the U.S. is paying Iran 300 million Dollars is Fake News, put out by the Dumocrats!!! President DJT.”

Ah, the Jussie Smollett media. You know, fake noose.

Humiliated by America’s military success, Jeff Bezos and Deep State shill Matt Drudge want to turn victory into defeat by outright lying and saying nothing has changed. The Washington Post spun it:

Trump sought to break Iran’s regime. He settled for reopening Hormuz.

The emerging agreement ends a costly war but leaves Iran’s leadership intact and its nuclear future still subject to negotiation.

The regime is broken. Negotiations were slowed by Iranian negotiators having to fly back to Iran and then travel by land for 14 hours to communicate with the ayatollah.

Trump settled for complete victory. He got it.

For the money we spent on this “costly war,” we could have added 25 Somali childless daycare centers.

Saying the president settled for the status quo is like saying Grant settled for Lee’s sword when he surrendered. For the record, Grant didn’t even take Lee’s horse. Grant didn’t have to because Lee and his army and his nation were broken.

Not until World War II some 75 years later did the southern economy truly recover. The 19th century ended with the North booming during the Gilded Age while the South struggled.

The formerly credible Washington Post tripped over itself trying to deny Trump a victory:

In promoting a deal that halted the fighting, Trump and his top lieutenants said Iran had agreed not to pursue a nuclear weapon. But Iranian leaders, who have made similar pledges repeatedly for decades, suggested Sunday that the difficult conversations about their nuclear program were still ahead and would come only after the U.S. naval blockade on their ports was lifted.

But later in the story, the newspaper contradicted itself by stating:

Negotiators will now need to discuss a moratorium on further enrichment of nuclear fuel as well as the fate of Iran’s existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which Tehran developed after Trump pulled out of the Obama-era nuclear deal in 2018.

So you cannot trust Iranians unless they are talking to Obama.

The best way to compare Trump’s deal to Obama’s is to look at the buildings they constructed in Chicago. Both structures cost $847 million.

Trump built an elegant 92-story building, the second-tallest building in the USA.

Obama built an ugly pillbox 8 stories tall. I get that inflation downsized the structure a little, but it did not downsize the beauty. That was Obama’s doing.

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There is one other difference. Contractors are suing Obama to get paid. Contractors did not have to sue to get paid by Trump because he knew what he was doing.

One subcontractor, Adamson Plumbing, claims it is still owed nearly $4 million. The owner provided spreadsheets showing the firm absorbed millions in extra costs from delays, rework, and over 100 change orders. (Now we know what Obama meant by hope and change.)

I have no experience in construction so maybe a reader can tell me whether 100 change orders is common when dealing with a competent person.

For what it is worth, Grok said:

Complex projects, poor initial design/documents, unforeseen site conditions, owner changes, material/labor fluctuations, or regulatory shifts increase them. Renovations and public works tend to have more than new ground-up builds. Well-managed projects with strong pre-construction planning, clear contracts, and good communication keep numbers low.

Bottom line: For a typical project, expect single digits. 100 is far outside the norm and would raise red flags about project management, risk allocation, or execution. If this relates to a specific project size/type you’re dealing with, more details could refine the comparison.

The main complaint from the right is the lack of regime change. President Trump pointed out that there already have been two regime changes, but people are expecting to see women with no scarves covering their heads holding up a purple finger to show they are free.

That was not going to happen. Iraq is a smaller country devasted by two decades of a cruel dictator. The public wanted him out. Iran is different.

First, the sheer size of Iran protects it from invasion. It is as large as the Confederacy was minus Florida.

Its population of 92 million is the same as the Confederate states today, again minus Florida. We don’t have the 12 million ground troops we would need to control the population because this wasn’t World War II.

Then there are the demographics.

99% of the country is Muslim and 75% were born after the shah left. This is the only life they have known and children accept the reality they are given. A few loudmouth women want to take off their black hoods? So what? There are vegans in Austin, Texas, too.

I wrote my doubts down on January 1:

It shah would be nice to see a regime change in Iran.

After 46 years of people predicting this, I am beginning to doubt that 92 million Iranians are about to topple their theocracy, considering 78 million of them were born after the ayatollah took over in 1979. This is the only life they have known.

Iran’s Islamic regime is a terrible player in the world.

Tehran remains the sugar daddy of terror, sending suitcases of cash to Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas while keeping the fires burning from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. The Iranian people deserve better than being hostages to men who dream in blood.

I would love to see the people rise and overthrow their Muslim masters but people prefer security over freedom. The ayatollah still controls the army.

Most Americans could not care less about Iran believing that any atom bomb it had would be used against Israel, something an uncomfortably growing number of Americans now want. Fortunately 6 Gulf nations realize Mecca and the Vatican are second and third on Iran’s list of infidels to destroy.

“Nothing’s changed” is the mantra of RINOs and their communist friends alike. They buy the spin that Barack Obama used 100 change orders to magically stop the nuke program.

Marc Thiessen summed up the situation quite well: “It’s the exact same deal except for the 14,000 military strikes that buried their entire nuclear program under rubble so deep the Iranians can’t even reach it.

“We destroyed 82% of their defense industrial base. Sank their entire navy. Grounded their entire air force. And oh yeah, the Ayatollah, Qasem Soleimani, and the top two tiers of their leadership are DEAD.

“Other than that totally the same as Obama’s deal 😂”

Criticism from the right is just as silly. Byron York complained that re-opening the Strait of Hormuz somehow is a concession to Iran. He said, “When the blockade lifts—that’s instant money for Iran. Lifting US blockade means $500 million in relief every day for Iran.”

It will take weeks if not months for Iran to bring its oil shipments back to normal. This time, the USA would control the flow, not the ayatollah.

Cuba is next. I doubt we’ll kill many leaders and we cannot destroy their air force, navy and air defense because they don’t exist. We could land troops, but why? Cuba needs foreign investment, not Army Rangers.

Over the past year, the world has seen the power of the United States military in full force. We are making tyranny tremble.

I’m not talking about the Tomahawks and other missiles. I’m not talking about the B-2s and the B-52s. I’m not talking about aircraft carriers. I am not even talking about the enlisted troops, the NCOs, the warrant officers, and the commissioned officers.

I am talking about the commander in chief. Red China and India are grateful to have the oil flow again. They will be more careful throughout the rest of his presidency. I advise Putin and Zelensky to negotiate a ceasefire and then a peace agreement as quickly as possible.

Trump had a happy birthday and the world has a new tomorrow. The alliance among the USA, Israel and the 6 Gulf states has castrated Iran and changed the Middle East for the better.

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At the height of the Depression that Democrats call Great because it gave them power for 50 years, Yip Harburg wrote the lyrics to the song Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; Now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower up to the sun, brick and rivet and lime.
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

The song is an anti-capitalism anthem and tribute to the forgotten laborers who built the railroads and the skyscrapers only to lose their jobs. Their plight was used by Marxists to advance the socialist (Junior League communist) cause. Harburg adopted the nickname Yip, which stood for Young People’s Socialist League.

The song is sad but laborers were not the only victims of the worldwide collapse of the economy. Their bosses went broke.

Indulge me this morning as I rattle off some history of Cleveland, where I grew up in my grandmother’s house. It was between Little Italy and Little Budapest with Shaker Heights as its backdrop. The house was high on a hill, reflecting my grandmothher’s childhood in Wheeling.

On a clear night you could see the lights from Terminal Tower, which at the time was the tallest building between Chicago and New York City. The skyscraper held that title for 64 years before Key Tower opened catacorner on Public Square from the Terminal.

First and foremost, the Terminal Tower was a railroad station, albeit a 52-story tall railroad station, but nonetheless that was its purpose.

Oris Paxton “O.P.” Van Sweringen and Mantis James “M.J.” Van Sweringen, two young men from Wooster, Ohio, developed the project—as well as Shaker Heights—and along the way, they made railroads great in Cleveland and gave the city its first rapid transit system.

13 years ago, Pete Beatty laid out the story of the brothers who slept in twin beds in the same room all their lives even when they built and lived in a 54-room mansion. They never married. They never had children.

He wrote, “The Sweringen empire began very modestly. O.P. negotiated an option to sell a house on the East Side of Cleveland. This entailed listing a house that he didn’t yet own, but would pay for out of the proceeds of the eventual sale. The leveraged buyout, wobbly financed, was a Sweringen trademark from the very beginning. The brothers cleared $100 in the deal. They were in the game.”

Selling houses they didn’t own caught up with them and they wound up in bankruptcy court. But they bounced back. Instead of buying houses and selling them, they decided to sell land. To do this, they bought land and incorporated the town of Shaker Heights in 1912.

Shakers (United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing) viewed sex as the root of original sin and practiced complete celibacy—not even to procreate. Communities grew by adopting orphans and attracting adult converts.

The cult died out but they owned some nice farmland that a syndicate from Buffalo acquired for $316,000 in 1889. It was worth half that when the Van Sweringens came along. In their 20s, they made a deal to sell the land, which its owners now saw as a white elephant.

More than a century later, Shaker Heights remains an upscale suburb. Driving from the suburb to downtown took 45 minutes by road. The brothers built a rapid transit along the railroad lines to cut the time to 12 minutes.

Their railroad connection began with their purchase of a farm from a widow, whose brother handled the detail. He was Alfred Holland Smith, who would become the head of New York Central Railroad.

Cleveland was the main hub of the railroad and Cleveland’s lines were a mess. The brothers straightened it out and built the terminal—which doubled as the link between the suburb and downtown.

The brothers also acquired 30,000 miles of railroad lines including the Nickel Plate Railroad.

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When the Terminal Tower opened in 1927, they were worth $3 billion—which would be the equivalent of $57 billion today adjusting for inflation. But if you go by the value of gold, it would be $612 billion.

But it was all paper profits. When the stock market crashed and the trains stopped running, their fortunes vanished. They died in 1935 and 1936 respectively with $3,000 each to their name. Like the Shakers, they left no heirs.

Let this be a caution to Elon Musk.

But Jimmy Kimmel said:

“Tomorrow, SpaceX will reportedly launch the biggest IPO in history. An IPO is when a private company starts selling shares to the public for the first time. And once SpaceX does that, Elon Musk is expected to become the first ever trillionaire in the history of the world. I’ll hold for applause.”

[Audience boos/laughter]

“Okay. And what makes that even more unsettling is that this man, our first trillionaire, the richest man in the world, is also one of the weirdest people we’ve ever seen on this planet. This obscenely wealthy weirdo has the ability and means to blow up the moon if he chooses and also to put a lot of other people’s money in his pockets.”

Readers, please do me a favor. If Highlights of the News on Saturdays ever falls that low, tell me. Write “You Kimmeled” in comments.

At least Bill Maher, who also wants to confiscate Musk’s money, can tell a joke. Maher said, “Elon is now a trillionaire. Now I give Elon his props. He has created amazing things. Yes, SpaceX is amazing, so is Tesla, Neuralink, and Starlink. Elon owns a company that can rewire your brain. It’s called Twitter.

“Elon says he will use his wealth to get to Mars because he believes one thing above all: if you have to leave Earth to avoid California taxes, you do what you have to do.”

But most liberals stopped telling jokes and became them.

Pocahontas said, “Elon Musk just became the world’s first trillionaire. The typical American household would have to work more than 11 MILLION years to make Elon Musk’s level of wealth. We need a wealth tax.”

Really?

That means it will take 440 million years to pay off the national debt. She spends $7.5 TRILLION a year—and she wants to spend more? For what? Hasn’t her party defrauded the country enough?

We know what Musk is doing with his money. Neuralink chips are helping paralyzed people control computers, phones, cursors, robotic arms, or other devices just by thinking. The blind may see again.

Tesla is building cars that drive themselves, which will allow baby boomers to maintain autonomy.

SpaceX is catching rockets and saving astronauts stranded in space left by Joe Biden and his fellow heartless Democrats. The plan is to build a way station on the moon and colonize Mars.

NASA spent $668 billion in the last 40 years. It cannot catch rockets or save astronauts. Not knocking NASA, just saying capitalism is needed too,

Starlink is giving people around the world access to the Internet. Just 30 years ago, you used cups to call AOL to get online.

While he did or is doing all this, ask yourself why a government taht spends $7.5 trillion a year has not already done this?

Musk’s fortune could be gone tomorrow. But what he will leave behind has already helped millions of people.

In the end, we all die paupers. Until we do, please spare the brother a dime because not long ago he built the city you are living in.

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Saturday Night Live’s Semiquincentennial bits are injecting comedy into the show.

ITEM 1: ABC reported, “A Somali referee for the 2026 FIFA World Cup was denied entry into the United States over the weekend due to vetting concerns, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said on Monday.”

No problem. Just pluck one from Minnesota.

ITEM 2: Retard Finder tweeted, “New Lord Mayor of Belfast, Róis-Máire Donnelly, in her inauguration speech on 1 June 2026 said, ‘Diversity enriches our city, and the lives of all of our citizens, and I will champion that diversity.’”

This week, one of her diversities tried to behead an Irishman. Ireland should embrace this enrichment and start beheading murderers.

ITEM 3: CNN reported, “UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer suffered a fresh blow on Thursday after Secretary of Defense John Healey resigned over a budget dispute, saying the government is not willing to give the British Armed Forces the “resources they need.”

I know how the UK can beef up its defense on the cheap. Sign up the Belfast Beheaders Brigade.

ITEM 4: A jury convicted Karmelo Anthony of the cold-blooded murder of Austin Metcalf. Dallas attorney Thelma Anderson said, “Pray for the Anthony family, because they have been legally lynched for the last year and more so by this slaughterhouse of a courthouse, as well as the family of the Metcalfs.”

So why didn’t she take the case pro bono?

Oh wait. She can’t. The Texas Bar suspended her after a fraud conviction.

ITEM 5: Only 20 liberals gathered for the protest outside the courthouse and there were no riots anywhere.

George Soros must be running out of money.

Or maybe it was ending US AID.

ITEM 6: Obama: We can’t drill our way out of this.

Yes we can. We just did.

Visegrád 24 tweeted, “The United States has become the world’s largest exporter of crude oil and fuel, unseating long-time energy titans Russia and Saudi Arabia.”

First time in post-World War II history.

ITEM 7: A judge overturned the NCAA ban on players betting on games, clearing the way for Brendan Sorsby to quarterback Texas Tech. Pundits argued about this outrageous decision on ESPN until a commercial break.

An ad for Draftkings.

ITEM 8: Red State reported, “The Cleveland Clinic has reached a settlement with the Trump administration over pediatric gender-transition treatments, becoming the second major hospital system to do so in less than a month. Under the agreement, the hospital will stop providing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors, commit $2 million to de-transition care, and pay $308,000 to resolve billing allegations.”

Ever notice that the same people who opposed the use of steroids by ballplayers consider giving estrogen to boys and testosterone to girls is a sacred rite?

I wonder why that is.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK:

Top customer: MOM.

ITEM 9: Victor Davis Hanson said, “ When I started in 1984 at Cal State Fresno, I had really good students. When I finished 20 years later, I couldn’t even offer a class with the same syllabus. The kids couldn’t do it.”

So he went from teaching college to teaching junior high.

ITEM 10: The Toronto Globe and Mail reported, “SpaceX IPO makes Elon Musk the first trillionaire. Here’s how to properly hate him.”

They’re jealous. He has a space program that can launch rockets into outer space. Canada doesn’t.

ITEM 11: 4,400 other Space X employees became millionaires on Friday thanks to Musk’s stock sharing. The employees included janitors and cafeteria workers.

400 of them are now worth over $100 million.

We’ll see how empty the employee parking lot will be on Monday.\

ITEM 12: Ro Khanna sneered, “A 5% tax on Elon’s trillion net worth would literally pay for free college and trade school for every American.”

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Congress spends 150 times that amount each year. Why isn’t Khanna already doing this?

ITEM 13: Ian Jaeger tweeted, “Governor JB Pritzker warns that the Trump Administration has removed 120,000 people in Illinois from receiving SNAP benefits.”

He’s a billionaire, He can cover the loss. After all, AOC, Bernie and Pocagontas agree that no one earns a billion bucks.

ITEM 14: Just the News reported, “Democrat leading Michigan Senate primary defended terrorist Muslim Brotherhood power grab in Egypt.”

“I’ll take Political Parties for $2,000.”

“And the answer is ‘Nazis, Muslim terrorists and communists.’”

(Buzzes in.) “What is the modern Democrat Party today?”

ITEM 15: Sig Hansen, a renowned Norwegian-American fishing captain with a TV series, was among the fishermen who went to the Oval Office to watch President Trump sign an order re-open 500,000 square miles of ocean to USA fishermen that Bush, Barack and Biden closed—which allowed Red China and other nefarious nations to poach our waters.

The Captain said to Trump, “I spent a couple of months with you on The Apprentice, and I saw your work ethic there, and I’ve got to tell you, I can’t fathom how you can do all of this. Representing us, and helping the fishermen the way you have done, it is mind-boggling to me, because I know you have your hands full, but putting us on that pedestal and backing up our industry the way you have, is just phenomenal.”

The Trump he met is one of a dozen clones. FJB had an Auto Pen. Trump has his Manbots.

ITEM 16: Media-ite reported, “Chuck Todd Says He’d Bet on the 2028 GOP Nominee Being ‘Somebody With the Last Name of Trump.’”

The Donald is going to adopt Marco?

ITEM 17: American Greatness reported, “HUD Yanks Federal Funding From LA Homeless Agency, Launches IG Investigation into Potential Fraud.”

The story said, “The scandal-plagued agency has received nearly $1 billion in federal funding since 2021, even as the homeless crisis exploded on city streets.”

But without the money to house the homeless, fired social workers will lose their mansions, which will create more homeless.

ITEM 18: What did this graphic leave out?

Also, life expectancy was 50.

ITEM 19: Jonathan Turley predicted California’s extended vote counting is coming to an end.

“A majority of the justices were prepared to say that when federal law says election day, they mean election day.”

Gavin Newsom’s excuse is nobody told him there would be math.

ITEM 20: We Love Trump reported, “An Obama-nominated federal judge just handed President Trump a win. On June 12, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta denied an emergency bid to shut down UFC Freedom 250 on the White House South Lawn.”

This opens the door for Midget Bowling on Labor Day.

ITEM 21: Late last night, Trump tweeted, “At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet Earth.”

Unalive. Unalive. You’re in the past tense generation.

Why Charles III is a majesty.

She won that round.

Stumping Saint Peter.

Medical advice.

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Congressman Brandon Gill does not look like a Texan. At 32, he looks like an investment banker and hedge fund analyst from the Ivy League, which he was until he ran for Congress in 2024 with the blessing of President Trump to succeed a retiring Republican.

But boy can the young man in the black suit grill.

Chris Newman, general counsel of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network recently learned that the hard way.

Gill: “Your organization shut down the Manhattan Bridge during rush hour a couple years ago to demand that New York State set up a $500 million fund to give unemployment benefits to illegal aliens. Do you think that was a good thing to do?”

Newman: “I don’t know that my organization shut down anything, Congressman. Uh, I know that there was...”-

Gill: “’March in NYC shuts down Manhattan Bridge to call for $500 million unemployment fund. The march was led by members of the FEW coalition, including the National Day Laborers Organizing Network.’”

Newman: “You’re holding.”

Gill: “That is your organization?”

Newman: “Yeah, that is. You’re, and you’re holding up, uh, a sheet of paper. I don’t, I don’t know where that’s from.”

Gill: “This is from your website. This is from the National Day Laborers Organizing Network website.”

Boom, boom, boom. Out go the lights.

Gill hit Congress like a Mike Tyson punch and became president of the freshman class of 63 congressmen. He landed an appointment to the House Oversighht Committee. He chairs some subcommittee whose hearings made him a star on C-Span.

Gill: “Would you agree that calling someone a racist is a serious accusation?”

*long pause*

Governor Walz: “I think it’s just an observation of reality.”

Gill: “Is it racist for a government official to identify fraud?”

Walz: “No”

Gill: “Is it Islamophobic?”

Walz: “No.”

Gill: “How come multiple whistleblowers have said that your administration told them not to say anything about widespread fraud across multiple agencies because doing so would be considered Islamaphobic or racist?”

Thanks for playing, Tim. Here’s your consolation prize: a lifetime supply of tampons.

Gill schooled Nickie Antonio whose only claim to fame is being the first lesbian elected to Ohio’s state senate.

Gill: “Senator Antonio, thank you for being here. Um, has Somali immigration been good for Ohio?”

Antonio: “You know, that’s really outside of my purview.”

Gill: “You’re a state senator. Would you like to see more [information]?”

Antonio: “As far as I’m processing your question, I have to say that I was almost brought to tears just now because the rate and the level of hateful rhetoric based on false information is shocking to me. The lack of even humanity. I am shocked and appalled by the behavior here right now.”

Gill: “It’s inhumane to allow your own state to be defrauded at an astounding rate! Billions taken out from working class people by criminal fraudsters!”

$1.2 billion and counting.

NPR CEO Katherine Maher showed why her network lost federal funding.

Gill: Do you believe that America is addicted to white supremacy?

Maher: I believe that I tweeted that. I believe much of my thinking has evolved over the last half-decade.

Gill: Do you believe that America believes in black plunder and white democracy?

Maher: I don’t believe that, sir.

Gill: You tweeted that in reference to a book you were reading at the time: The Case for Reparations.

Maher: I don’t think I’ve ever read that book, sir.

Gill: You tweeted about it. You said you “took a day off to fully read the Case for Reparations.”

Maher: I apologize. I don’t recall that I did.

Evolved in the last 5 years? What is she, a fish learning to walk?

He cooked the Southern Poverty Law Center so long, the meat slipped off the bones. Here he grills its CEO, Bryan Fair.

Gill: “Do you think that somebody that has a Nazi tattoo on their chest should service in the United States Senate?”

Fair: “I wouldn’t vote for that person.”

Gill: “Do you think that this should disqualify him from serving in the Senate?”

Fair: “I’m not sure where the lines of questions are going.”

Gill: You don’t think that Graham Platner’s Nazi tattoo is indicative that perhaps he holds Nazi sentiment?

Fair: “It may well be.”

Gill: “Do people that aren’t Nazis normally get Nazi tattoos on their chest?”

Fair: “I assume they don’t.”

A federal indictment says the SPLC gave up to a million bucks to Nazis and klansmen. Herr Fair just wants to get one in the Senate.

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Fair did not fare well on abortion.

FAIR: What I think is that reproductive liberty is the right that every woman should enjoy.

GILL: How many babies in the United States that are reported are Black? About 40% of abortions nationwide are black babies. Blacks represent 13% of the population. Does that sound like something a white supremacist would oppose? Calling someone a white supremacist is a pretty serious charge, isn’t it? I would think you would be able to defend that. You clearly seem unable to.

FAIR: Mr. Gill, I’m not sure you would think why I’m able to do anything.

GILL: You are the president of the SPLC, which labels pro-lifers as racist. Is your organization throwing around epithets like that without any justification?

Raghead Representative Jaime Raskin interrupted to spare Fair from answering that question because without abortion there is no need for open borders.

Gill’s best moment to date may be allowing Marco Hunter-Lopez, a 16-year-old sophomore at Wylie East High School (Wylie ISD) in Wylie, Texas, speak. He said:

Last year as a freshman, I founded the Republican Student Club because I wanted to foster a space for students who share the same values. What should have been a simple act of student leadership became a prolonged battle against school administrators who treated my group differently from every other club on campus. On August 16, 2024, we met every requirement: 10 members, a teacher sponsor, and a room. Other groups, including the Muslim Student Association and organizations supporting gender-affirming ideology, were approved without issue. Our club was denied for being “political in nature.”

(Note to Wylie school officials. Rename your sports teams the Coyotes.)

The student also said:

On February 2nd, I was leaving a meeting and was walking to the cafeteria for lunch and I saw a large booth labeled “Islam” set up during lunch. Four adult women from the organization “Why Islam” were there. I was confused and did not want to give it attention, but after discussing it with my friends, we decided to approach the booth. I had a discussion with the women — one in particular who they kept referring me to because she knew most of the theological questions. As we tried to understand their goal, I looked over and saw multiple pamphlets spread out, one of which was explicitly titled “Understanding Shariah.”

This was very concerning to me and other students. They were also making Qurans available that include a “Shahada Card” on the last page instructing students how to convert: “To become a Muslim, one needs to make the following declaration: ‘I bear witness that there is no god worthy of worship except God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God’.”

This occurred openly during lunch, with administrators present who did nothing to intervene. The dangers of allowing Sharia to be promoted in public schools are real and immediate: Sharia is not simply personal religious observance. It is a comprehensive legal and political system that includes unequal treatment, restrictions on free speech, harsh punishments, and fundamental incompatibility with the U.S. Constitution, Texas law, and American values of individual liberty and equality. Handing materials that present Sharia favorably to minors during the school day—without parental approval—risks normalizing ideas that undermine the very principles our public schools are supposed to uphold. This is not neutral education; it is ideological promotion under the guise of diversity and inclusion.

The contrast with my own club could not be clearer. While the Republican Student Club faced denial, censorship, poster removal, and hostile oversight, an outside organization was given easy access to distribute Sharia-related materials directly to students. Administrators not only allowed it—they have actively promoted Islamic events.

The principal has enthusiastically participated in World Hijab Day two years in a row that we are aware of. When she wore a hijab and promoted it on social media and stated “I LOVED this experience”. The district now offers halal meals, a dedicated prayer room for Islamic observances, and has placed the Quran in at least one middle school library while no Bible is offered. Conservative and Christian student groups have never received comparable accommodations or leeway. This is not mere negligence. It is complicity through selective enforcement and viewpoint discrimination.

I guess separation of church and state does not apply to mosques.

Enjoy his grilling for now but keep an eye on Gill and hope he doesn’t turn into a RINO-stone Cowboy like Trey Gowdy, Dan “Eyepatch McCain” Crenshaw and the Divine Miss MTG.

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Ya got trouble right here in college football. Trouble with a Capital T that rhymes with B and stands for Brendan Sorsby.

Or so the NCAA would have you believe.

Sorsby is a vagabond college football quarterback who just signed to play for Texas Tech, his third team. The school will pay him $5 million.

But Sorsby bet $90,000 on college football games, which of course is against the NCAA rules. The team sought an injunction in its home county (Lubbock) against enforcing the rule. The local judge recused himself and Tarrant County Judge Ken Curry popped out of retirement to grant the injunction until the case is argued after the season ends.

Let the virtue signaling begin!

Trey Wallace of OutKick wrote, “The integrity of college athletics has officially left the building, and the final nail in the coffin came from a Houston judge who ruled that Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby can play this upcoming season for the Red Raiders after admitting to gambling on his own team.

“What Judge Ken Curry just essentially said was that you can break the rules, but because you will suffer monetary gains from an ineligible ruling from the NCAA, we’re going to paint the ones who enforced the rules as the bad guy.”

Integrity!

Yahoo’s Dan Wolken wrote, “The entire crisis around Brendan Sorsby could be avoided with one simple decision. Texas Tech could choose to do the right thing and tell its starting quarterback his services are no longer needed. Why is it too much to ask the adults at Texas Tech—starting with mega-booster Cody Campbell and his underlings to just suck it up and do the right thing here?”

Do the right thing!

Chris Fowler, ESPN’s lead college football play-by-play voice, said, “College football is filled with upsets. The fact that a Lubbock judge ruled that way I would not call an upset.

“I think you can find a judge to an injunction for or against anything in the world and it didn’t surprise me gambling is a pretty serious thing it should be taken really seriously by anybody who’s in charge as you said the problem is no one is in charge of college football so maybe there’s other chapters to happen.

“I mean I never take pleasure in seeing a dude make a big mistake and then have it cost in his career but there are consequences for these things.”

Consequences!

I agree that college football has no integrity because it (and the U.S. Supreme Court) failed to do the right thing and now thhe game suffers the consequences.

Once upon a time, the NCAA tried to stop the madness.

But on June 27, 1984, in NCAA v. the University of Oklahoma, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that colleges could sell TV rights directly without the NCAA’s permission citing antitrust laws.

One of the biggest impediments to progress is the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. It is so ridiculous that in 1945, the feds used it to bust Alcoa even though it had no competitors having invented the modern electrolytic process for making aluminum from bauxite.

Judge Learned Hand acknowledged that Alcoa had not engaged in classic predatory or exclusionary tactics but still found Alcoa guilty of illegal monopolization because it expanded capacity aggressively to meet growing demand, keeping prices low enough to discourage new entrants.

Got that?

Alcoa kept prices low, just like Rockefeller did with Standard Oil, helping consumers. This stupid antitrust law and overzealous attorney general punished the companies for being successful.

The reason Alcoa expanded was the need for aluminum to make the planes that won World War II. Had it raised prices, the government would have accused Alcoa of war profiteering.

The judge stayed the ruling until the government’s need for aluminum abated. Learned Hand? How about Hypocritical Bigfoot?

In NCAA vs. Oklahoma, the antitrust law opened a Pandora’s Box of woes. Television outlets chased college football rights like children scrambling for Easter eggs. College football no longer was an amateur game. The sport became a rainmaker that did not have to pay its players.

Today, college football is a hurricanemaker. ESPN alone pays $5 billion a year to broadcast the games.

TV rights pay each Big Ten team $80 million a year, SEC teams get $72 million a year, Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) teams get $47 million a year, and Big 12 teams like Texas Tech get $40 million a year while others in the conference get $31 million a year.

Television changed the leagues. The Big Ten has 18 teams as does the Big 12. The ACC has extended the Atlantic to California as it expanded to 16 teams.

With all the money coming in, the NCAA added more games for TV. In 1979 when ESPN began, there were 15 bowl games. Today there are 47 including the college football playoffs.

In 1979, Alabama went 12-0 to win the national title. Today, that record would cover only your regular season. Indiana had to go 16-0 to claim the title last season.

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College football became a racket. The networks made money. The coaches made money. The college athletic departments made money and used it to subsidize women’s and other non-revenue sports.

The only people who didn’t make money were the football players—45% of whom are black—you know, the people who risk CTE and bad knees in middle age.

The argument to keep football amateur for the players was well, you get $50,000 a year scholarships. Coach gets millions. You get to attend class and live on campus to attend classes in addition to your full-time job as a football player.

Football stopped being a fall season only long ago—at least at the big schools.

But ESPN and the rest don’t buy TV rights out of the kindness of their hearts. Cable license fees and commercials pay for those rights. ESPN now averages a cable fee of $9.42 per month for each customer regardless if they watch the channel.

The commercials are dominated by an industry that most benefits from college football.

Gambling.

Bookies take between $8 billion and $15 billion in college football bets each year. About 10% goes to the house.

States meanwhile pocket roughly $3.7 billion a year from the bookies for all sports.

Sorsby’s first school was Indiana in a state that collects 9.25% of the house’s money.

His next school was Cincinnati where Ohio takes 20% of the house’s money.

The most famous line from the anti-drug commercials in the 1980s was “This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?”

The runner-up lines applies here: “Where did you get it? Answer me! Who taught you to do this stuff?”

“You, ALRIGHT! I learned it by watching you!”

I am not excusing Mister Sorsby or Texas Tech. He should not be on the team. Period.

However, let us remember how and why we got here. We got trouble with a capital T, which stands for television.

I opened today’s letter with a parody of Ya Got Trouble from The Music Man, a loving tribute to small town America and hustlers circa 1912. The trouble then was gambling. It still is today. There were very good reasons we banned gambling. There was no good reason to legalize it.

To raise money for schools? Ha! That is what they said about sales taxes and income taxes. The government would let you pimp your mother as long as you kick back 20% in a tax to raise money for schools.

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As the Saga of Oystergruppenfuhrer Graham Platner continues in Maine, the focus turns to the vetting process used by the Democrat Central Committee included a panel of experts with white-tipped canes. The verdict is in: They would run a Nazi just to get a Senate seat.

Democrats have given a pass to unfit candidates for decades.

Consider Kathryn Ruemmler, who served as White House counsel for 3 years until she got her ticket punched and landed at firm Latham & Watkins, where as a partner, she co-chaired (and later became Global Chairwoman of) the white-collar defense and investigations practice.

As White House counsel she vetted political appointments.

She also handled such white-collar scandals as Solyndra in which Obama guaranteed a $535 million dollar loan. Officers at Solyndra spent the money and dissolved the company in bankruptcy court.

The spending spree was wild. Bloomberg and others reported “whistling robots,” spa-like showers, a high-end conference room with switchable “smart glass” walls that turned opaque, and other signs of luxury amid rapid scaling.

State-of-the-art machinery was reportedly bought hastily and later sold for pennies on the dollar (sometimes still in plastic wrap). Employees described “giddy” spending and inventory piling up as sales lagged.

In the months before bankruptcy, more than a dozen senior executives received sizable quarterly bonuses of up to $60,000 while the company was bleeding cash.

No one vetted the company or its executives. But it is worse than that.

Trust in Trump tweeted with a video:

2017. Jeffrey Epstein’s good friend Kathryn Ruemmler explains that she ran Obama’s vetting and ethics department and was responsible for vetting all of Obama’s cabinet members.

Ruemmler also said that she was saddened because Trump had “debased” the Presidency.

Ruemmler was so close to Epstein that she called the convicted sex offender “Uncle Jeffrey.”

I ran the video by Grok, which verified the facts as true.

This is why Joe Biden got a pass on sniffing little girls. Judging by what is happening in Maine, Biden may have been the cleanest Democrat in the Class of 2020.

Ruemmler called Epstein uncle after his conviction for underage sex in 2009. Why not? She was 38 then, which made her safe from the lecher.

The white collared and white caned lawyer cashed in well. But that sort of ended in February.

BBC reported:

Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, has announced she will step down from her role after months of pressure over her friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Emails disclosed by the US justice department show she referred to the disgraced financier in emails as “Uncle Jeffrey”, advised him on how to push back against media and accepted luxury gifts from him.

“My responsibility is to put Goldman Sachs’ interests first,” Ruemmler, who previously served as White House counsel to former US President Barack Obama, said in a statement.

Goldman CEO David Solomon thanked her for “sound advice”. Her resignation will take effect from 30 June.

So in a few days Uncle Jeffrey’s niece will be gone—sacked by Goldman Sachs. She’ll walk out with an an $8.5 million cash bonus. Her compensation last year was $25 million.

Don’t rock the boat and Democrats will take care of you.

The tradition of turning their seeing dog’s eyes away from the scandal continues. They didn’t screen Platner. They recruited him.

Democrats recruited a 41-year-old manly man veteran oyster farmer in Maine to knock off Governor Janet Mills, 78, in the primary and Senator Susan Collins, 73, in the general election, which would allow Das Party to pick up a seat and making winning the Senate easier.

No one noticed the Nazi tattoo he got 18 years earlier when he was in the service. He claimed he didn’t know it was a Nazi SS symbol. He disclosed it on a Democrat-friendly podcast last October 20, had it covered up the next day, and pretended that was old news.

I suspect this sudden move came just ahead of oppo research that would reveal his Nazism. I say that because he keeps bring up AIPAC donations to Collins.

Around the time the podcast dropped, his campaign staff began dropping out. On October 17, political director Genevieve McDonald resigned. 10 days later, longtime friend and newly hired campaign manager Kevin Brown stepped down after just days on the job.

On October 31, finance director Ronald Holmes resigned.

Why did they leave him there all alone?

McDonald shared with the public her resignation letter. According to her, the campaign offered $15,000 if she signed a non-disclosure agreement. She said she refused because she was offended by his communist comments online and his downplaying of sexual assault in the military.

She wrote:

“These statements were not known to me when I agreed to join the campaign, and they are not words or values I can stand behind in a candidate for the United States Senate.”

“While I am empathetic to Graham’s experiences and respect his personal journey and growth, I cannot overlook the volume and nature of his past comments, many of which were made as an adult, not as a young man.”

“The words we choose to use online reflect who we are and what we stand for.”

The resignations should have ended his campaign.

But the Maine People’s Alliance (CCP) sent its political director Ben Chin in to manage and save the campaign. He has. Chin chased Mills out of the race.

Democrats have no morals or ethics. They just want power. Sure they ousted Al Franken from the Senate years ago but that was only because he represented a safe Democrat state that has now voted Democrat in 13 consecutive presidential races.

The party forced Eric Swalwell to drop his bid to become California’s governor over allegations of sexual abuse. But the party was more worried about a splintered party that would result in two Republicans as the surviving candidates in the general election.

The press doesn’t care. In its 1,288-word Election Day wrap-up, AP failed to mention Platner’s SS tattoo.

But the story contained some good stuff if you read far enough down:

Platner sits at the very center of the Democrat Party’s quest to reclaim the Senate majority this fall. So Democrats need him to take a significant step forward Tuesday, with the eyes of the nation watching, in the urgent task of rebuilding his credibility.

It was barely a week ago when revelations surfaced that Platner had engaged in sexually explicit messages with multiple women while married. Allies wondered if more baggage would emerge, and then The New York Times reported new allegations about his behavior during previous relationships.

There is no doubt that Platner will win his party’s Senate nomination Tuesday. His most serious opponent, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her campaign in April after it became clear Platner was in a commanding position. That said, Mills is still technically on the ballot and some advocates have suggested voting for her as a way to protest Platner.

More important, perhaps, will be Platner’s public remarks Tuesday night. Friends and foes alike will be paying close attention to how he addresses the evolving questions about his past and whether he can refocus the race on Collins.

Also not in the story is an allegation that he told his girlfriend that if anyone broke into his home, he would sodomize them. She is now his ex-girlfriend because she has higher standards than Schumer, Jeffries and the rest.

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Newsweek ran a story, “Graham Platner Challenges Democrats to Abandon Purity Tests.”

U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner is asking Democratic voters to send him to Congress despite a Nazi-associated tattoo, years of offensive social media posts, and a sexting scandal that his own wife flagged to his campaign. So far, they appear willing to do it.

Senior Democrats, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have reaffirmed their support for Platner’s bid to unseat Republican Senator Susan Collins in Maine, even as a handful of party voices have questioned whether he is the right candidate to carry what Democrats consider their best shot at flipping a Senate seat in November.

But Platner is pure to the party today because he is an anti-Semitic communist. As to that other stuff, well Biden showered with his daughter when she was way too close to puberty

I am all for a free press. When do we get one?

Ro Khanna, increasingly the BIPOC face of the Democrat Party said, “People in Maine knew that he had had two tours of duty in Iraq. He came back broken in a dark place. That doesn’t excuse his behavior, but they knew this. He was in Washington, and then he went back to Maine, and he started an oyster farm. He took accountability. He himself has said it was shameful, and he had redemption.”

PTSD does not explain why he was tossed out of a private school over behavior problems in his freshman year.

If you called Epstein “Uncle Jeffrey” you are not vetting the candidate. You are checking out what disqualifications there are and how to get the press to dismiss them.

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Royce Webb wrote a few years back, “On April 29, 1979, Carter traveled via Marine One—the presidential helicopter—and his motorcade to the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, for Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals between his hometown teams: Atlanta and Washington.”

Atlanta broadcaster Skip Caray interviewed Carter at courtside during the warm-ups. He was a guest of Bullets owner Abe Pollin. As the first sitting president to attend an NBA game, the event was treated as historic and positive.

The Bullets downed the Hawks 100-94 and Washington advanced.

In its next-day report, the Washington Post lightheartedly noted, “If this keeps up, President Carter may become Washington’s good luck charm in a Big Game.”

On February 21, 1997, Clinton attended a Chicago Bulls-Bullets game. Michael Jordan scored 36 points and everyone had a jolly good time. Clinton sat midcourt (about 10 rows up), visited both locker rooms, munched popcorn, and stayed until the end.

12 years later, on February 27, 2009, Obama became the third president to attend an NBA game—the Washington Wizards vs. Chicago Bulls. The team dropped the name Bullets because Washington’s murder rate was so high. Thanks to Trump, they can go back to being the Bullets. Shoot basketballs, not guns.

Widely circulated images showed Obama courtside with big smiles, high-fives, and cheering—featured in Time, Getty, Reuters, and more as a positive guys’ night out moment.

Which brings me last night’s Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knickerbockers and the the Spurs of San Antonio. I would have named them the Strolls, but no one asked me.

Trump, a long time Knicks fan, attended. How dare he, right?

Communist House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries asked, “Why does he have to ruin a good thing?”

Kathy Hochul, the Karen Governor of Trump’s birth state, said, “I’d ask him to name the starting lineup of the 1993 championship team and see how he does.”

The Bulls won the 1993 NBA championship. I don’t see why you would have to name Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen to get into a game at Madison Square Garden, but maybe she meant the 1973 Knicks who was the last Knicks team to win the NBA championship.

Knicks fans should know that, right?

I expect Democrats to be dumb and wrong. That is their default setting. But sports sections in newspapers and ESPN used the occasion to signal their virtue.

USA Today posted:

President Donald Trump has openly trashed the NBA as a bastion of player activism with overt liberal politics that could “destroy” the game of basketball. And he’s deeply unpopular in New York City, with a historically low job approval rating.

So why is he planning to attend Monday’s Game 3 finals matchup between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs, the first in Madison Square Garden in 27 years?

To steal a phrase from former President Bill Clinton, “It’s the politics, stupid.”

The writer is the paper’s domestic security correspondent. His take was odd. He said Trump went to the game to widen his name recognition.

And while Trump is much more aligned with the pro-MAGA Ultimate Fighting Championship crowd, he’s likely going because it presents him with yet another opportunity to build his brand and be seen by more than 10 million people watching at home, presidential historian Matt Dallek told USA TODAY on June 5.

“He loves attention. He loves eyeballs on him and being at the center of everything,” Dallek said. “And even though he decamped and moved to Florida, he still identifies in many ways as a New Yorker.”

“The Knicks being in the finals for the first time in many decades is a chance for him to kill two birds with one stone,” Dallek said. “He can generate some controversy. He can put all eyes on him, and he can bask in the reflective glory of the New York Knicks, even if he’s getting booed or heckled.”

There would be no UFC without Donald Trump. No one else would give Dana White a venue to stage the games. Enter The Donald and his casino in Atlantic City. White’s loyalty decades later is a joy to behold.

Maybe—just maybe—Trump likes NBA basketball. His criticism of the league’s management may stem from wanting to protect the NBA from its heirarchy.

He has owned a football team, sponsored Mike Tyson when he was an unknown, and encouraged and sponsored an assistant pro at one of his golf courses to try the PGA again. The guy did and won the Houston Open.

So we have this pecker-headed writer at USA Today dumping on the president—something the writer would never do to Obama. Or Clinton. Or even Carter.

Well, life’s not fair.

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But I try to be and so I will relate the story of how Donald Trump saved a 19-year-old Kobe Bryant from being pummeled by Jayson Williams during the NBA All-Star Weekend in New York City in 1999.

Williams, Charles Oakley and Trump were on an elevator at the Hyatt Regency, which was Trump’s first major project.

Bryant—making his first appearance as an all-star—entered the elevator and Williams felt Bryant did not show enough respect for his elders. The two men had words. Finally, Williams lunged at Bryant and punched him. Trump stepped in between them and told Bryant to get out of the elevator. He did.

In 1975, before Trump became successful in New York real estate, he appraised Madison Square Garden for its owner during discussions with Arab investors who wanted to buy it. The deal never went through but this was the earliest mention of The Donald in the New York Times.

As for last night’s game, one team scored more points than the other.

The big winner was America. Eric Daugherty tweeted with video, “WOW! Madison Square Garden ERUPTS in USA! USA! USA! chants with President Trump in attendance.

“The arena is still FILLED WITH PATRIOTS even though leftists booed him.”

Nice to hear USA! USA! USA! replace FJB.

I am sure the crowds cheered Carter, Clinton and Obama as well. This shouldn’t be news but the fact that it is shows how far sports journalists have fallen.

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Five months following Mitt Romney’s disastrous presidential campaign in 2012, the Republican National Committee (acronym USELESS) issued a report from its “Growth & Opportunity Project.”

The report said:

“If Hispanic Americans perceive that a GOP nominee or candidate does not want them in the United States (i.e. self-deportation), they will not pay attention to our next sentence. It does not matter what we say about education, jobs or the economy; if Hispanics think we do not want them here, they will close their ears to our policies. In the last election, Governor Romney received just 27% of the Hispanic vote. Other minority communities, including Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, also view the Party as unwelcoming. President Bush got 44% of the Asian vote in 2004; our presidential nominee received only 26% in 2012.”

“In essence, Hispanic voters tell us our Party’s position on immigration has become a litmus test, measuring whether we are meeting them with a welcome mat or a closed door.”

“As one conservative, Tea Party leader, Dick Armey, told us, ‘You can’t call someone ugly and expect them to go to the prom with you. We’ve chased the Hispanic voter out of his natural home.’ ”

“We are not a policy committee, but among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our Party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only. We also believe that comprehensive immigration reform is consistent with Republican economic policies that promote job growth and opportunity for all.”

“The RNC must invest financial resources in Hispanic media. In a $1 billion campaign, much less than 1% of the total budget was spent on Hispanic or other demographic group oriented media.”

In 2016, Trump ignored the advice and called for building a wall to keep illegal aliens out. He said Mexico was not sending its best, meaning illegal aliens included thugs, mugs and pugs who raped, murdered and robbed.

The Hispanic media, the deadstream media and the president of Mexico all denounced Trump as a bigot and racist. He was dismissed as a Know Nothing, named for a mid-19th century political party that wanted to block immigration. They elected nobody but were instrumental in building Ellis Island to screen immigrants for disease and the like before letting them enter.

Trump’s mother and two of his wives were immigrants. Four of his five children have immigrant mothers just like him.

Facts are like poo to liberals because liberals are like flies and no amount of argument from the bees will convince the flies that honey tastes better than poo.

The predictions of doom failed because Trump got 28% of the Hispanic vote in 2016.

Four years later, 36% of Hispanics voted for him.

In 2024, he received 48% of the Hispanic vote—fueled by the shift of the male Hispanic vote.

The Asian vote also went up: 27% in 2016, 34% in 2020 and 40% in 2024.

The last race was against the first candidate of Asian heritage.

Trump called for self-deportation and brought the Hispanic vote back. His 48% share in 2024 topped every Republican candidate, including Ronald Reagan!

I didn’t bother checking before 1980.

Hillary enjoyed a 40-point lead among Hispanics. 8 years later, Kamala had whittled that down to 3 points. Well, at least she can make a 3-pointer unlike Angel Reese of the WNBA.

Trump succeeded for three reasons: courage, authenticity and his success in his first term. The cries of the useless to pander failed. He wasn’t asking Hispanics to the prom. He was asking them to make him president.

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And his gains among Hispanic voters helped Mayra Flores, R-Texas, in 2022 become the first woman born in Mexico elected to Congress.

This has Democrats worried, according to Manzanita Miller, the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.

In 2022, Democrat Congressional candidates won Hispanics 60% to 39% according to NBC News exit polls. In 2018, Democrats won a full 69% of Latinos and Republicans won 29% according to CNN exit polls.

Now, the latest surveys show Democrats will be lucky if they can achieve even 40% of the Latino vote in November just four years after they achieved 60% in 2022.

Let me put that in perspective. The upcoming vote is a midterm election. The president’s party is supposed to lose seats in the House. In the last 5 midterms, that loss has averaged 31 seats.

In 2018, Democrats had a 69% share.

Now? She wrote, “The latest Economist/YouGov survey from May 22-26 shows just 39% of Hispanics plan to support a Democrat for Congress. That is over a twenty-point decline for Democrats in four short years and a thirty-point decline in eight years.”

Democrats are worried. Last month they finally released their autopsy on Kamala’s political suicide in 2024. I’ll issue mine: “Get sane candidates.”

Their autopsy said:

“The 2024 election revealed a seismic shift in Latino voting patterns Democrats cannot ignore. Trump improved his performance with Latino voters by double digits compared to 2020, particularly among Latino men.”

“Democrats can no longer assume Latino voters, especially younger Latino men, are a reliable part of their base. The party needs a complete rethink of its Latino outreach strategy, moving beyond traditional approaches like Spanish-language ads and late-cycle surrogates.”

“Successful candidates like Gallego and Rosen showed how year-round presence, economic messaging, and addressing cost-of-living concerns resonate more than identity politics. Organizations with significant Latino membership—particularly service sector Labor groups—need to be central partners in this recalibration.”

Trump refused to pander, running on policy instead of demographics. His call for deportations appealed to every demographic group, as did his call for ending the tax on tips and Making America Great Again.

In short, Trump treats Hispanics as equals— sharp contrast to Democrats and their treatment of demographic groups as children who need the benevolence of the Great White Father in Washington in order to survive.

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ITEM 1: Shem Horne tweeted, “When President Trump fills the reflecting pool to reveal the hidden image he had painted on the bottom.”

Sadly, this turned out not to be true.

ITEM 2: The Mirror reported, “Dementia fears raised as mysterious lump spotted in Trump’s pants.”

Is that dementia or are you just happy to see me?

My dementia began around my 12th birthday.

ITEM 3: Good news from Arkansas:

Murder charges against Aaron Spencer have been dismissed, marking a major turn in a case that has drawn statewide and national attention.

Spencer was charged with second-degree murder in the October 2024 fatal shooting of 67-year-old Michael Fosler. Prosecutors alleged Spencer confronted Fosler after finding him with his teenage daughter, leading to the fatal shooting.

Court records and prior reporting show Fosler had been facing multiple sexual offense charges involving Spencer’s then-13-year-old daughter and was out on bond at the time of the incident.

According to court documents, the case was dismissed because of how law enforcement handled missing dash-camera evidence.

A happy ending, especially after Spencer primaried the sheriff who pushed the charges. Spencer is a shoo-in for the job in November’s election.

ITEM 4: Dr. Peter A. McCullough is a physician-scientist, board-certified internist, and cardiologist. Theo Von interviewed him on a podcast.

THEO VON: “Was there anybody who was immune to COVID-19?”

DR. MCCULLOUGH: “There’s one adult group. You’re going to laugh. Smokers.”

So hear me out, we re-brand Lucky Strikes as a covid vaccine.

ITEM 5: Yahoo reported on Tuesday, “VSXY Stock On Track For Its Biggest Percentage Gain Ever—What’s Behind Victoria’s Secret’s Super Rally?”

Maybe changing its name on stock listings on Tuesday from VCSO to VSXY had something to do with it.

(Note to self: Change Newsletter Name to Sexy Surber.)

ITEM 6: Michael Bolton pleaded guilty to one count of mishandling classified materials, a charge that could lead to five years in prison.

Excuse me. That was John Bolton. I get my TV celebrities mixed up.

ITEM 7: Richard Gere on Trump: “Whoever thought America could turn like this? Whoever thought that a maniac like this would be president of the United States? We’re living in the darkest moment that I’ve experienced on this planet.”

The gerbil shortage is real.

ITEM 8: NPR reported, “DOJ is investigating former congressman George Santos for insider trading on Kalshi.”

If he stayed in Congress, he would be safe.

ITEM 9: President Trump and the White House Correspondents Association will give holding a dinner another shot on July 24.

Perhaps I should have worded it differently.

ITEM 10: An employee accused his boss of murdering his place of business. The boss fired him.

The Gomer Pyles in the media cried, “First Amendment ay-rest. First Amendment ay-rest.”

ITEM 11: Sesame Street tweeted, “Happy Pride Month from Sesame Street! Join us in celebrating and uplifting the LGBTQIA+ members of our community.”

‘Cause a groomer is a person in your neighborhood
In your neighborhood
He’s in your neighborhood
A groomer is a person in your neighborhood
A person that you meet each day

ITEM 12: The New York Times did a half-hearted hit job on Nazi Graham Platner and revealed he has more sexual issues than Playboy.

Now we know his 100% VA disability isn’t for PTSD or physical wounds. He’s just a cashew. Watch out for squirrels, Oyster Boy.

ITEM 13: Speaking of mental illness, the Bulwark believes a Nazi tattoo-wearing misogynist who wants to sodomize enemies—“not in a gay way”—and be rough with women is presidential material.

Under the Pronouns Rule, you must honor his request under penalty of the law and call him crazy.

ITEM 14: PJ Media reported, “NYT Deliberately Withheld the Most Explosive Graham Platner Allegations From Its Own Story.”

It was an inoculation against Republican opposition research. Democrats busted Al Franken for a jokey picture because Minnesota is safe state. Maine isn’t so they go all Tamy Wynette.

ITEM 15: Fox News tweeted, “Democrat senators dodge questions on whether they still back Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner after leaked explicit sexual messages surfaced—with some refusing to even acknowledge the scandal as Maine’s primary hits Tuesday.”

Susan Collins cast her 10,000th Senate vote this week. Democrats are doing everything they can to give her 10,000 more.

ITEM 16: The New York Post reported, “The Southern Poverty Law Center paid reluctant white nationalists and Ku Klux Klan members thousands of dollars in donor money to remain in the notorious hate groups—even making them whole for money spent on cross-burnings, the Justice Department alleged in a shocking superseding indictment filed Tuesday.”

Nice money machine SPLC has. Fund hate groups and raise even more money to fight the hate groups on your payroll.

Remember, the ACLU and the U.S. Supreme Court believe burning crosses is protected free speech. Clarence Thomas was the only dissenter.

ITEM 17: Rod Martin asked, “Is Scott Bessent Working to Crash the Yuan?”

I sure yuan him to do to Red China’s currency what he helped Soros do to the British pound 35 years ago.

ITEM 18: MARC ANDREESSEN: “We had meetings with the Biden admin where they told us to not even start AI companies because there’s no way they’ll let them succeed.”

JOE ROGAN: “What do you do after a meeting like that?”

MARC ANDREESSEN: “You go endorse Donald Trump.”

Democrats keep forgetting that people don’t become billionaires by being dumb.

ITEM 19: Trump signed an executive order freeing money to build 13 coal-powered electric plants in 10 states including West Virginia.

The John E. Amos Power Plant across the river from Poca may be getting a baby brother!

ITEM 20: The Telegraph reported, “International Space Station astronauts given evacuation order.”

Do they have a mean landlord or what?

ITEM 21: The Daily Signal reported, “The Supreme Court on Thursday sided 8-1 with the Federal Communications Commission against two telecom giants over a combined $100 million in fines. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. The lone dissenter was Justice Clarence Thomas.”

He pointed out that the companies paid the fines because they couldn’t get a jury trial at the time. Once again, he’s right and 8 justices are wrong.

ITEM 22: Today is the 82nd anniversary of D-Day. How Ike met the troops the day before.

Hard to write tearing up like this.

ITEM 23: Katie Kouric said, “I don’t think that Bari Weiss had any choice” but to fire Scott Pelley. “It’s a classic definition of insubordination.”

This has nothing to do with him replacing her on CBS News. Nothing, Colonel Hogan. Nothing!

ITEM 24: The Texas Rangers are the only Major League Baseball team that isn’t celebrating LGBTQ+ month.

Liberals are welcome on 10 Cent Tears Night, also known as Faith and Family Night.

ITEM 25: Lawrence Person reported, “Katie Porter Whacked Eric Swalwell To Come In 5th.”

At least she didn’t pour scalding hot potatoes on his head.

ITEM 26: Yahoo reported, “Yes Ford, we want a four door V8 Mustang.”

That’s so ghey that the Rangers would ban it from their ballpark. What would be next? A Mustang station wagon?

BEST OF TWITTER:

Every family has one.

War Story.

The proposal.

Finnish the job.

Testing 1, 2, 3.

Two polls today.

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Three important things happened in 1953: Eisenhower began his peaceful and prosperous presidency, I was born, and the Keep America Beautiful campaign began.

The American Can Company and Owens-Illinois Glass Company got it rolling with the simple idea of not living like pigs who litter the streets, the parks and other things. Don’t be a litterbug! they said. And we stopped being litterbugs.

Well, most of us.

The National Mall was left quite messy after Barack Obama’s first inauguration on January 20, 2009.

1.8 million people attended and left at least 130 tons of trash for city and federal crews collected at least 130 tons of trash, including paper, plastic bottles, food wrappers, newspapers, and discarded American flags.

Nearly 8 months later, on September 12, 2009, the tea party held its Taxpayer March on the National Mall. Glenn Beck-linked Tea Party volunteers actively raked leaves, picked up sticks, and bagged trash on the Mall in follow-up efforts.

Similar behavior noted at other Tea Party gatherings: Attendees (mostly older, middle-class conservatives) brought their own bags or stayed to tidy up, aligning with the movement’s emphasis on personal responsibility. It was like a Methodist potluck dinner without food. You can be darned sure, no flags were left behind.

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The Mall is home to the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. President Taft pushed to build the former. Civic leaders raised money and built the latter. Construction of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool began under President Harding.

Obama made two major contributions to the mall. He made the reflecting pool environmental, replacing treated water with the brackish water of the tidal basin to accommodate algae blossoms and bird droppings.

As you may know, President Trump is undoing as much of that as he can.

If only he were not so shy about his accomplishments.

Trump said on Thursday, “You’re going to have the reflecting pool opened within hours. I mean, literally within hours. The water starts pouring in tonight. It’s going to be beautiful. You haven’t seen that since 1922!

“The parks are open. We changed the grass. You know, grass has a life also. Grass has a life. And that grass hasn’t been changed in 70, 80 years. It died many times over!

“We have beautiful grass, beautiful parks, beautiful everything. We don’t have people living on it. And Washington, D.C. In a matter of 14 months, Washington, D.C. is like a different place that people are coming here!

“You know, the restaurants were all going out of business, you know, because you used the restaurants. And now the restaurants are hot. In fact, if anything, we don’t have enough restaurants based.

“They’re all reopening. It’s become vibrant. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. And I am honored that I’ve been able to do it to our nation’s capital.”

While the press mocks him and dismisses his three-story penthouse in Trump Tower as gaudy, the fact is he has excellent taste and an eye for beauty. Mar-a-Lago is a testimonial to that.

Obama is an ugly little man. His second gift to the National Mall was this atrocity.

The New Yorker said of it, “The National Museum of African American History and Culture aims to faithfully represent blackness in America but does not present the full force of its rage and the full range of its experience.”

Rage. That’s the key word. Totalitarians love rage and playing on emotions.

Trump wants to keep America beautiful, which is uplifting and what leaders do in a free republic.

That is the opposite of Obama’s goal of subjugation through architecture. His windowless presidential center looks more like a mausoleum than a library. He spent $850 million constructing his center.

Trump spent $847 million in 2009 building the 98-story Trump Tower Chicago in 2009. It’s the second tallest building in the nation. The city collects hotel, sales and other taxes from Trump’s business.

Obama’s center is a tax-exempt non-profit generating only sales taxes when someone buys his books and other paraphernalia.

Making America ugly is a tactic that echoes Stalin destroying 45,000 churches and cathedrals in Russia.

The most iconic and architecturally celebrated church destroyed under Stalin was the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, which Christians built to commemorate Russia’s victory over Napoleon in 1812. It took 44 years to build. Stalin ordered it dynamited on December 5, 1931, to make way for the never-completed Palace of the Soviets.

After the wall fell, Russians rebuilt the cathedral in the 1990s.

Stalin demolished the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Pokrovka, built in the 17th century, in 1936 to widen a street. A restaurant now stands there.

I don’t blame all the bad architecture and ugly buildings in America on Obama.

The graying of America has turned McDonald’s and Wendy’s into mini Obama centers. Gone are the playlands and the red-and-yellow plastic signage. The food is bland. The prices are high. And the staff turnover seems constant. I feel sorry for the franchise owners who are stuck with these unfriendly restaurants that seem better suited for Pyongyang.

Never surrender your red and yellow, Buc-ee’s.

And Obama did not start the Democrat war on beauty in public spaces. The war dates back decades. This led to Rudy Giuliani’s broken window crusade in which graffiti and yes, littering, were policed leading to a turnaround in crime. Liberals whined about his Disneyfication of Times Square. I guess we now know who the customers were for those XXX shops.

In this century, Democrats have rolled their 101st Homeless Division and its sister 82nd NARCAN-borne Drug Zombies to take over the parks. Instead of arresting junkies, we give them free needles and food stamps to buy the drugs.

Democrats legalized shitting in the streets, then shoplifting, then leaving restaurants without paying the tab.

Trump has cleaned up Washington DC. Fountains flow again. Bums no longer own the streets. Even carjackings are down.

Keeping America Beautiful is part of Making America Great Again. Nothing saddens Obama more.

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Secretaries Scott Bessent, Markwayne Mullin and Marco “Polo” Rubio testified before Congress this week. Democrat congressmen and Thom Tillis may wish to reconsider their life choices after the outings.

Collin Rugg tweeted with video:

Democrat Senator Ron Wyden goes completely silent after Secretary Scott Bessent torched him for his son’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Bessent: “Senator Wyden has mendaciously slandered the Treasury building in an attempt to cover up his son having an investment meeting with Jeffrey Epstein to ask for funding...”

Wyden: “Let’s be clear here. Nobody is interested in the ramblings of a capo in the most corrupt regime in American history...”

Bessent: “We would like to hear what Adam Wyden and Jeffrey Epstein talked about. Your son’s largest investment position was Rick’s Cabaret. Did your son and Jeffrey Epstein talk about pole dancing as he begged him for money, using your limited credibility?”

Brutal.

Rick’s Cabaret? Bogart sold the gin joint? Well, we’ll always have Paris.

Then there was this:

WYDEN: “We’re in a clean energy arms race with China. Which side are you on?”

BESSENT: “China will build a hundred new coal plants this year. There is not a clean energy race. There’s an energy race.”

Anyone surprised that Wyden sides with Red China?

Nick Sortor liked this exchange:

TILLIS: “Did you tell Director Pulte you’d punch him in the face?”

BESSENT: “No sir—I actually said I was going to kick his ASS!”

Then Pocahontas poked the bear.

Eric Daugherty tweeted with video:

Scott Bessent just threw Elizabeth Warren into RAGE MODE as he calmly dismantles her claims about President Trump and stock trading.

“Why don’t we investigate many people on THIS COMMITTEE [for insider trading]?”

“Why don’t you GET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER...LEAD by EXAMPLE. Have your fellow committee members, MOSTLY ON YOUR SIDE, do the same!”

Enough about the Secretary of the Treasury. Secretary Mullin of Homeland Security also testified.

Daugherty tweeted:

DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin just stared insufferable Sen. Chris Murphy (D) IN THE EYE and PUMMELED his lies

MURPHY: DHS is just making up the law!

MULLIN: “When YOU throw out reckless terms, and you start referring to our agents as being ‘dangerous, unconstitutional, and lawless,’ THAT’S why our agents’ DEATH THREATS are up by 8,000%!”

“I understand wanting to get soundbites, and that was OBVIOUS because the whole time you was giving your testimony, you wasn’t looking at me, you was looking at a CAMERA!”

“For YOU to throw my 275,000 employees underneath DHS, with a broad stroke like that, is RECKLESS and IRRESPONSIBLE in your part!”

“We’re doing the job that CONGRESS gave us the authority to do, and our men and women out there every single day is enforcing laws. If you don’t like the laws, YOU can CHANGE them!”

“The outlandish claims you made there is just flat wrong. You start saying we’re breaking the law, and you really start looking at it, and we’re enforcing laws that Congress did pass. That’s reckless.”

“Your political theater, that’s what it causes. When you start looking at assaults on our officers, they’re up by 1,300%. Senator Murphy, is that what you want?!”

The plumber knows his shit.

Fox News tweeted:

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin shuts down Rep. Lou Correa’s talking points after the Democrat raised concerns about American citizens being roughed up during ICE operations.

REP. CORREA: “What can we do to protect the rights of American citizens?”

SEC. MULLIN: “We can protect the rights of American citizens all day long. They don’t have the right to assault my officers.”

Graham “Cracker” Platner and der furor he has brought came up.

Daugherty tweeted:

HOLY SMOKES. DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin just OBLITERATED Indian Rep. Shri Thanedar

THANEDAR: When will you stop spreading bigoted and racist words?

MULLIN: It’s INTERESTING you make those claims with no facts yet YOUR party is the one supporting a guy with a NAZI TATTOO on his CHEST in Maine!

THANEDAR: I have the facts!

MULLIN: No, there IS no facts. You throw out Nazism, that’s EXACTLY what causes hatred and violence to our officers! You should be ASHAMED!

THANEDAR: It’s not my words!

MULLIN: It IS your words...did you endorse the Nazi candidate in Maine?

THANEDAR: Colorado fusion center says white nationalist messaging could lead to violence.

MULLIN: Who? What message? Don’t give me some left-wing POLL. Give me your specific details about what DHS SAID.

THANEDAR: Let me reclaim my time!

MULLIN: YEAH—you don’t want to TALK about it but you want to throw out RACISM all the time at my Department, which ISN’T TRUE.

Mullin has to understand that the swastika is a symbol of peace in India.

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Maybe Thanedar would be more comfortable there. He can take Platner with him.

Red Wave Press liked this:

Rep. Al Green (D-TX): “Racists take offense at peaceful protests. A racist, Mr. Secretary, would do what happened to Ruby —”

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin: “Are you calling me a racist?”

Al Green: “Reclaiming my time, ask him to shut up.”

“Shut up! Shut up! It’s my time.”

Markwayne Mullin: “I’m not gonna let anybody call me a racist, chairman.”

“I will continue to interrupt as long as someone’s… calling me a racist.”

“Evidently, his constituents heard enough of him because they voted him out of office.”

Nailed it!

In his final campaign, Green told voters let’s stay together. They said no.

But the main attraction was the heavyweight of Trump’s A Team—Rubio.

Daugherty tweeted:

Marco Rubio TOYS with insufferable Rep. Sara Jacobs (D)

JACOBS: Who won 2020?

RUBIO: I’m not answering about 2020, this is a FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

JACOBS: You can’t admit the shoes Trump bought you are too big

RUBIO: The Florsheims he gave me fit fine

JACOBS: Your shoes look nice, Mr. Secretary

RUBIO: How can you see them? They’re way down here. We’re talking about SHOES, are you KIDDING ME?! I mean, is this the Foreign Affairs Committee or a CIRCUS?! What IS this?!

We get what you’re getting at, sister. AWFL. Just AWFL.

At his Senate hearing, Tammy Duckworth played the part of Miss Jacobs:

DUCKWORTH: *Lobs attacks at Marco Rubio* “I yield back my time.”

MARCO RUBIO: “OK, I didn’t get to answer ANY of that. Can I ANSWER? She made a bunch of POINTS, I get to answer them. I don’t understand, we did a peace deal in Azerbaijan, that’s diplomacy—”

DUCKWORTH: “—that’s great, but the Trump admin has BLOWN THROUGH money!”

RUBIO: “WHEN do I get to TALK here?! Do I get to talk?”

CHAIR: “Duckworth, I will let Rubio reply to the statements you made.”

RUBIO: “She said a LOT of stuff. I get to answer.”

Rubio not letting any BS go unchecked.

What’s a Duckworth?

Around $5 a pound.

Back at the House, Bill Keating swung and missed:

KEATING: “Not ONCE did you mention Ukraine!”

RUBIO: “Tried to stay under 5 minutes.”

KEATING: “IT’S NOT FUNNY, SECRETARY!”

RUBIO: “You can’t even answer questions here! You MAKE these questions and won’t respond!”

KEATING: “I reclaim my time, Mr. Chairman!! He’s interrupting me!! Can you reclaim those seconds back?”

CHAIRMAN MAST: “No.”

How ugly was it? This ugly.

Then there was this:

Democrat Tim “Sarah” McBride: “I assume you are aware that Greenland is part of Denmark?”

Rubio: “For now.”

He left a man confused about his sex confused about his geography.

Back in the Senate, Booker T. Newark managed to hit into a triple play with the bases empty:

RUBIO: “They did NOT get $50 billion, and they are now LOSING HUNDREDS of millions per DAY because of the blockade.”

BOOKER: “The Strait was open before this unjustified war. Now we’re scrambling...this regime is getting MONEY!”

RUBIO: “I don’t understand how they’re getting, what REVENUE are you referring to?”

BOOKER: From the Chinese [and] you’re proposing they receive! This is like the same Obama nuclear deal you criticized!

RUBIO: “They intended to do this ANYWAY!”

BOOKER: Now we’re BEGGING to get into a deal you trashed!

RUBIO: There’s NO BEGGING. No one’s begging. The IRANIANS might be begging because they’re losing hundreds of millions per DAY! I don’t know where you’re getting this perception Iran is stronger! No navy, lack of industrial base, missile launchers, their economy is FAR worse today. Hundreds of BILLIONS of reconstruction costs will be needed from them!

And with two out.

In 2017, Donald Trump accepted the Cabinet that was handed him by Senate Republicans.

This time, he assembled the tightest and most fit Cabinet since Washington’s.

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.

“I stand with the indigenous people of the UK”—Matt Walsh.

Vickrum Digwa, 22, repeatedly stabbed and killed Henry Nowak, 18, in Southampton, England, around 11 PM local time last December 3. Police arrived as Nowak lay dying. He said, “I can’t breathe.” Digwa—a British-born Sikh of Punjabi origin—told police that Nowak attacked him and called him racist names. Police arrested and handcuffed Nowak as he lay dying.

Until that chance encounter, the victim and his killer had never met.

On May 28, a jury found Digwa guilty of murder and carrying a bladed article in public. Jurors convicted his mother of assisting an offender. On Monday, Honour Judge William Mousley KC (King’s Counsel) sentenced him to life in prison for a minimum of 21 years.

At sentencing, the judge told Digwa, “Henry Nowak, aged 18, died on [December 3]. He was a much loved, kind, hard-working and ambitious young man, devoted to his family and with a bright future. He was a first-year student at Southampton University, the first in his family to go to university. He was careful and principled, full of humour, warmth and promise.

“You, Vickrum Digwa, murdered him. By doing so, you robbed him of all those he loved, all the things he cared about and liked to do. He would have been expected to live a long, hopefully, happy and fulfilling life. You have brought misery and a lifetime of loss upon his family and great sadness to everyone who knew him.”

Later, the judge addressed a grievance many white Britain’s have with enforcement with restrictions on the possession of knives. Religious exemptions allow Sikhs to carry a knife.

The judge said to the convicted murderer, “You were sober but were carrying a large Sikh dagger in a sheath attached to a belt over the outside of your clothing. It is a strict requirement of the Sikh faith to have a knife, called a kirpan, at all times.

“Generally, this will be a small knife, hidden from view, often on a length of cord and worn around the neck. You had that but, in addition, the large dagger in a sheath. You are a member of an order of Sikhs called the Nihang who have a tradition of having a second knife, or kirpan and that is often fully visible, believing that the guru will look favourably on that. You observed that tradition in your everyday life, at work and in public.

“However, it was not a strict requirement; that is borne out by the fact that neither your brother nor father who arrived on the scene after you had stabbed Henry were so dressed.”

The judge explained why he imposed a life sentence that must be served 21 years before parole can be considered.

Firstly, you stabbed Henry three other times than when inflicting the fatal wound, all with a highly dangerous weapon.

Secondly, mental suffering was inflicted on Henry once he lay dying from his injuries, by your attitude towards him of which he would have been aware and, separately, by your lies which had resulted in a young adult of good character being arrested and handcuffed.

Thirdly, there was additional degradation by filming his suffering.

Fourth, your repeated and concerted actions after the event included attempts to cover up and to conceal evidence had a tendency to pervert the course of justice.

Fifth, you wrongly placed blame on Henry and your lies also led to unnecessary arrests for members of your family which would not have happened if you had told the truth.

Sixth, you prevailed upon your mother to assist your attempts to pervert the course of justice.

Seventh, Henry was only 18, unarmed and alone which made him additionally vulnerable.

Eighth, the offence has had a significant community impact upon others as described and evidenced in press reporting and social media reaction.

Ninth, your lies misled the attending police officers which influenced their decision not only to arrest and handcuff Henry but also to give subsequent emergency first aid in ignorance of the fact that he had a serious chest wound.

Lastly, you abused the privilege extended to Sikhs to have a knife in a public place for religious reasons, dishonored your religion and have now put others at risk of repercussions.

The murder upset white people who have seen the number of non-whites grow in Britain unabated.

45 years ago, 5% of the population of the United Kingdom was non-white.

Within 40 years, it grew to 18%—with the media and the government promoting the colonization of their own country.

The release of police bodycam video—which showed the cops arresting and handcuffing the victim—ignited a protest that isn’t peaceful outside the Southampton Central Police Station.

Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) told the crowd, “If Henry wasn’t white, he wouldn’t have been handcuffed.”

And “I heard someone say this wasn’t about race, this is about race. Even after they found out he [Digwa] had stabbed him five times, they still didn’t handcuff him. A white boy who done nothing was handcuffed, a murderer in possession of a knife who stabbed someone five times isn’t.”

And “As white people we are treated like second-rate citizens by our own government. White privilege? Does Henry look like he has white privilege when he was on the floor?”

Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform UK party, said, “The fear of being called racist was greater than dealing with Henry Nowak’s murder. We should respond to this with pure cold rage. Britain’s historic way of life is being thrown away.”

He hit that nail on the head so hard, he drove it through the board.

Konstantin Kisin blamed America. Hear him out:

Cast your mind back exactly six years. It is the summer of 2020 and Britain is undergoing what its commentariat breathlessly described as a “reckoning.” The murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, thousands of miles away, sent hundreds of thousands of British people into the streets. As American cities burned, across the pond, statues were toppled. Multinational corporations issued groveling statements. Police officers—British police officers, in British cities, policing British people—took a knee before British protesters. So did Keir Starmer, then leader of the opposition and now prime minister. So did every major soccer team in the country. People were fired, companies changed, a new code of acceptable behavior was drawn up. Life in Britain changed, if not quite as much as it did across the Atlantic.

The message that was repeated endlessly by politicians, journalists, and institutions of every stripe was unambiguous: Racism kills, and we will do whatever it takes to make sure it never happens again.

And there is the problem. Kisin wrote, “You train officers to weigh an allegation of racism so heavily that it overrides the evidence in front of their eyes.”

He concluded:

What is particularly striking about this case is the way it mirrors, almost exactly, the injustice that movement was supposedly designed to prevent. George Floyd died saying “I can’t breathe” while a police officer knelt on his neck. Henry Nowak died saying “I can’t breathe” while police officers, kneeling on his back, handcuffed him. The British establishment that wept for Floyd has been conspicuously quiet about Nowak. Politicians who marched through London’s streets in 2020 have not rushed to the cameras. The corporations that changed their logos and funded diversity initiatives have not issued statements.

George Floyd was never about George Floyd because he was merely the vessel used to create racial tension where there had been little. Totalitarianism needs chaos and crisis to gain power and rule.

The murder of Henry Nowak is the event that triggered a bullied people to fight back.

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Adolf Platner. Six Genders Talarico. Tampon Tim. The first two are Democrat Senate candidates while Walz was the party’s vice presidential nominee in 2024. Democrats aimed these weirdos at collecting the XY vote. They have the combined testosterone of my 5-year-old grandson.

The more Democrats try to run candidates to lure American men into voting for them, the more desperate they become, the more they show how little they know about the U.S. Male.

Years of pandering to women—how many first woman presidents have they run?—and ridiculing men cost them dearly. The party barely stole the 2020 election because Trump received 5.8 million more male votes than Biden did.

Yes, the official story is that Biden won fair and square. The establishment called it a legitimate election even though voter participation hit a 100-year high of 67%—10 points higher that 2016 and 2024.

But go by what pols do not what polls say. Democrats are madly recruiting male candidates and the choices the party made reflect its bigotry and stereotypes of men.

In Maine, they ditched Governor Janet Mills in favor of Graham Platner, a veteran and an oyster farmer who worked as a bartender making him a male AOC.

He’s also a misogynist with a Nazi SS tattoo (since covered up) on his chest. He fed Reddit with anti-woman comments and a vicious mocking of a soldier who was shot while trying to save his comrades. Platner also sex-texted women online while a newlywed. Among the sites he used was KiK, which targets teenagers 13-18.

That last scandal cost him his political director, Genevieve MacDonald and other staff members who quit when they learned of the sex-texting.

I am old enough to remember when the party threw Anthony Weiner out of Congress for sex-texting. Today, Democrats would kick a 78-year-old woman governor down the stairwell to nominate Tony.

How awful and toxic is Platner? He’s too Nazi for Twitter. I asked Grok to put a swastika armband on him in the cartoon above. Grok refused. I agree with the policy banning AI-generated swastikas because we overuse and dilute the horror of Hitler and Nazis.

I asked about Grok about showing Platner as he is. The reply made me laugh.

A political cartoon showing Platner’s original chest tattoo (the Totenkopf/SS death’s head skull) would get blocked by the same filter that nixes swastikas. It’s treated as a Nazi symbol, full stop—no exceptions for satire, news, or “look how ridiculous this is” commentary.

When Grok tells you that you are evil, you are so evil that you could work for Google.

Platner’s excuse is he didn’t know the SS symbol was an SS symbol—for 18 years. He covered it up just like Clinton tried with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. It didn’t work for Clinton either.

But wait. There’s more. The Washington Free Beacon reported:

Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner discussed buying cocaine in now-deleted Reddit posts and admitted to drug use and “partying it up” while backpacking during paid military leave.

Platner, in posts from 2020, recalled his travels through Europe just before leaving the Marine Corps in 2008.

Well, Hitler did a ton of meth and some coke so Platner being a cokehead makes sense in that he’s only following Der Führer.

That’s enough about the Democrat outreach program to Nazis in Maine.

In Texas, Democrats nominated James Talarico. I’m not saying he is light in his cowboy boots, just that they are made of papier-mâché. Gossip holds that he is an incel (involuntarily celibate) and not gay.

Tripp Whitbeck tweeted, “Talarico’s campaign staff have been begging him to grow a Buttigieg Beard™ to butch himself up.”

He already has a beard. Her name is Brianna Menard, who was his chief of his Texas House staff. She’s a yoga enthusiast, cat mom, and involved in Austin community efforts. Talarico insists that she’s the vegan; he’s not.

I report. You decide.

Where’s the beef? In his napkin.

Oh and in 2022, he said, “It is now existential that we try to reduce our meat consumption. I am proud to say that our campaign has officially become a non-meat campaign, so we are only buying vegan products from our local vegan businesses.”

In the four years since, someone must have told him Texas ranks No. 1 in beef production in the USA and 6th in the world.

Talarico says he is a seminarian. In a debate on a transgender bill in 2021, he said, “God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is nonbinary.”

He paraphrased Genesis saying we are “God’s children, made in God’s own image.”

That is actually the case against transgendering because God determined your sex before your conception and not arbitrarily assigned a sex by some doctor.

Talarico also said in that debate, “Modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes—in fact, there are six, which, honestly, Representative Hefner, surprised me, too. The point is that biologically speaking, scientifically speaking, sex is a spectrum and oftentimes can be very ambiguous.”

Stephen Miller tweeted, “Which of the six genders is Talarico?”

Talarico ain’t suave.

His take on the Bible is different. He said, “Jesus never talks about abortion. The Bible is silent on abortion. And when that happens with a social issue as important as abortion, we Christians have to take scripture as a whole.”

Jesus was born to a 15-year-old unwed mother. That doesn’t tell the Lord’s views on abortion; that shows it.

The nominee said, “For me, prophetic voices like Jesus have helped me reckon with my own whiteness, my own masculinity, my own certainty, my own ego. It’s a never-ending process, and it’s a painful process.”

Jesus is just a prophetic voice? I now see why some Roman Catholics detest Protestants. Our religion is Christianity, not Prophetic-voice-ianity.

And why did Talarico have to reckon with whiteness? The vast majority of white men accept that they are white men and are quite happy, just as black women are proud to be black women. The doctor didn’t assign race either. That, too, God decided.

Tally Ho Talarico also said, “White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus [of racism]. But we spread it wherever we go—through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don’t have to be showing symptoms—like a white hood or a Confederate flag—to be contagious.”

And he said, “Radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country.”

This is how Democrats view conservative men, hence the party’s backing of a Nazi in Maine.

While Democrats stumble and bumble and try to figure out how to eat barbecue, President Trump continues to lead the free world in a cold war against Red China.

Business Insider Africa reported:

The United States has secured long-term access to one of the world’s largest untapped rare earth deposits, a move that could reduce its future dependence on mineral-rich African nations as Washington races to build a critical minerals supply chain independent of China.

REalloys, a Florida-based rare earth materials company, has signed a 15-year offtake agreement with Critical Metals Corp. covering 15% of Phase 1 production from the Tanbreez project in southern Greenland.

The deposit is among the world’s largest known sources of heavy rare earth elements, including dysprosium and terbium, two minerals essential for fighter jets, missile systems, radar platforms, drones and other advanced defense technologies.

The deal comes as the United States seeks alternative rare earth supplies ahead of a Pentagon requirement due to take effect in 2027 that will restrict the use of Chinese-origin materials in key defense applications.

The Stephen Colbert Crowd mocked President Trump and said he was out of is mind when he advanced the idea of buying Greenland upon returning to office. Looks like he didn’t have to buy it—just rent it and let the landlord take care of maintenance.

By the way, REalloys has a market cap of $700 million and a CEO—Lipi Sternheim—who has experience in this field. It seems like a real deal. We shall see.

I will not dump as much on Governor Walz because he’s old news and boring. Democrats promoted hom as the head coach of state champion high school football team. He was an assistant.

Democrats promoted him as a command sergeant major and a war hero. Actually, he retired as a master sergeant to avoid deployment to Iraq.

These Democrat politicians lose because they are trying to be something they are not.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump doesn’t pretend to be one of us. He is too busy being what many of us would not mind being—tall, rich, handsome and humorous. He has something that Democrats lack these day.

Authenticity.

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Operation Epic Fury did not begin February 28. It began in Donald Trump’s first presidency when he made his first trip abroad landing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 20, 2017, accompanied by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Melania, and Trump’s Jewish son-in-law and Jewish daughter.

King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud personally greeted them on the tarmac—a rare honor not extended to President Obama. The Saudis greeted Trump with a grand military display with fighter jet flyovers, cannon salutes, and trumpets. American and Saudi flags lined highways, with billboards of Trump’s image.

State newspapers splashed the visit on their front pages and inside as well.

The king awarded the president the Collar of Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s highest honor for a foreign leader, for strengthening bilateral ties.

The visit concluded with an Ardah—a traditional sword Saudi all-male dance. Trump dances as well with a sword as he does to the YMCA.

Then Trump and his entourage flew directly to Tel Aviv without stopping in Cyprus making Air Force One the first and perhaps only aircraft to travel straight to Israel. The Saudis knew and didn’t care because they knew they had a trusted ally residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I have no doubt the Arabs knew Trump briefed Bibi. In fact, Trump was their messenger boy. :)

After 8 years of Obama’s pro-terrorist call for an Arab Spring and his engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood Saudi Arabia and several other Gulf states had it with the USA. Egyptian President Nasser had banned the Muslim Brotherhood in 1954 for its terrorist activities including assassinations.

Saudi leaders were shocked and angered when Obama quickly called for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down in early 2011. Obama accepted the election of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi as president.

Gulf states (especially Saudi Arabia and UAE) poured billions into supporting Egypt’s 2013 military coup that removed Morsi and backed the new regime under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Under Obama, the USA was as trustworthy as a scorpion because Obama wanted a world of chaos, which would put the various isms in control.

Obama giving Iran $1.7 billion to finance terrorism did not help ease tensions because Obama loved to flip the bird at those who won’t accept the new Marxist world order.

Trump’s task and purpose in Saudi Arabia was to the inauguration of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology—an alliance of Muslims who oppose terrorism.

In a darkened room filled with computer screens (part of the new center’s high-tech monitoring setup), President Trump, Saudi King Salman, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and First Lady Melania Trump placed their hands on the volleyball-sized, translucent glowing orb.

The press and the late-night hosts tried to mock the orb because deep inside, they knew Trump changed the world that night.

Earlier, at our favorite president addressed Arab leaders at the Arab Islamic American Summit:

“We are not here to lecture—we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship. Instead, we are here to offer partnership – based on shared interests and values – to pursue a better future for us all.”

“This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations. This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life, and decent people of all religions who seek to protect it. This is a battle between Good and Evil.”

“A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and extremists. Drive. Them. Out. DRIVE THEM OUT of your places of worship. DRIVE THEM OUT of your communities. DRIVE THEM OUT of your holy land, and DRIVE THEM OUT OF THIS EARTH.”

“America is prepared to stand with you, but the nations of the Middle East cannot wait for American power to crush this enemy for them. Muslim nations must be willing to take on the burden.”

What is the result of all this?

Well, I have noticed that since then the USA under Trump has unalived many a terrorist leader, including General Soleimani, without a pip from Arabian nations. Iran is not an Arab state.

And of course, the six major Gulf states—Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman—host U.S. military personnel and operations.

I state all this in light of a tweet by Newt Gingrich, which said:

After spending this week reviewing the Iranian war I am now convinced President Trump is on the edge of an historic victory. The real breakthrough for me came as I reviewed President Trump’s decisions and maneuvers not from the standpoint of American unilateralism but from the standpoint of the leader of a remarkable historic coalition, the largest coalition ever put together in the modern Middle East.

Everyone understands that Israel is an important ally. What is little discussed is the depth of support from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region. It has to be sobering for the Iranian dictatorship to realize that it does not have a single ally willing to challenge the American naval blockade. Slowly, gradually, timidly, our European allies are lining up to help with the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

A great deal of President Trump’s maneuvers against Iran make sense once he is seen as a coalition leader and not just as a unilateral American President.

[Blah, blah, blah.]

Coalitions are inherently slower than unilateral campaigns. However coalitions ultimately bring vastly more power to the fight. I am as frustrated as everyone else by the pace of talking with the dictatorship but having reviewed the correlation of forces and the options available to the coalition on one side and the Iranian religiously motivated dictatorship on the other I am prepared to assert that President Trump’s coalition leadership (something almost none of his critics want to acknowledge) is within reach of an enormous historic victory.

Bang on. Gingrich does not use the word history lightly because he taught it for decades and he made it by returning the House to Republican control after 40 years of Democrat speakers of the House.

More than 75 years after ganging up on Israel to end its statehood even as it began, President Trump has everyone on the same side as Israel. Remarkable.

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ITEM 1: The Wall Street Journal reported, “U.S. Races to Set Up Quarantine Facility in Kenya for Americans Exposed to Ebola.”

I should hope so. The last thing we need is another disaster from Kenya.

ITEM 2: CNN reported, “A Kenyan high court has temporarily frozen plans by the United States to establish an Ebola quarantine and treatment facility in Kenya—which has not recorded any Ebola cases—for Americans potentially exposed to the deadly virus in Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 1,500 miles away.”

Dang. Obama appointed judges there, too.

ITEM 3: Barry tweeted, “You know the NFL season is right around the corner when players start getting arrested.”

It was only domestic abuse. For real controversy in the NFL, you have to appear on a stage at a rally with a president.

ITEM 4: Texas Democrat Senate nominee James Talarico said, “Our trans community needs abortion care too.”

This is why he will turn Texas blue—which is a euphemism for dying.

ITEM 5: The Telegraph reported, “Spielberg: Soulless AI should never have final say in film-making.”

Absolutely. Only soulless CEOs should decide.

ITEM 6: The Center Square reported, “ExxonMobil shareholders approve plan to redomicile to Texas.”

New Jersey’s new state song is All My Exxons Now Are Texans.

ITEM 7: Fox reported, “A former senior U.S. government official with top secret security clearance was arrested after the FBI raided his Virginia home and discovered a staggering $40 million stash of gold bars, $2 million in cash and 35 luxury watches, court documents reveal. David J. Rush was arrested May 19 and is facing federal charges for theft of public money after allegedly swindling the government out of tens of millions of dollars while posing as a highly decorated Navy Reserve captain and Air Force test pilot.”

Someone ratted on him.

That’s right. He was gold-fingered.

ITEM 8: Just the News reported, “A federal judge on Thursday cleared the way for President Donald Trump to implement his executive order tightening mail-in voting, slapping down Democrats’ arguments for now that federal efforts to police voter rolls with citizenship checks was illegal.”

Didn’t Democrats assure us no illegals voted, so why are they suing?

ITEM 9: The 11th Circuit Court reprimanded a federal judge in Atlanta for having sex with a cop in her chamber that was so loud people complained.

Apparently there are noise ordinances in federal buildings.

Obama appointee, which proves his judges don’t just screw citizens out of their rights.

ITEM 10: News Max reported, “Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called ‌for a ‘new partnership’ with the United States to ‘help make America great again,’ in a speech delivered in New York on Thursday.”

Make America Great Again by staying on your side of the border.

ITEM 11: Andrew Leyten tweeted, “Police responded to a call for the sound of gunshots at the home of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett last night, but quickly realized it was a swatting call and cleared after meeting with her security detail.”

What was James Dougherty’s worst decision: divorcing Marilyn Monroe before she was a star or inventing the SWAT team?

ITEM 12: Iran International reported, “Palestinian foreign ministry condemns ‘Iranian attacks’ against Kuwait.”

It is pretty bad when your sock puppet turns against you.

ITEM 13: They want to put Trump on the $250 bill.

Would it be in poor taste to suggest putting Scott Bessent on the $3 bill?

It would? OK. I won’t then. How about Harriet Tubman on the $20?

ITEM 14: Jill Biden said she thought Joe was having a stroke when his brain turned to mush in the 2024 debate with Trump.

It was her way of reminding everyone that she is an EdD—not a medical doctor.

ITEM 15: Trump replied, “Jill Biden is now out there finally admitting that she did NOT know what went wrong with Sleepy Joe during our spectacular, and highly rated, 2024 Presidential Debate, where Joe was not exactly performing to the highest level of debate standards. She said that she thought he was having a ‘stroke,’ and various other really bad things, and yet never rushed onto the stage to help her troubled husband, as any good wife would do. The only thing she failed to mention was how well I was doing prior to his near total collapse. In other words, as many have asked, did my strong performance in that debate cause him to plain and simple ‘choke,’ leading to his ignominious defeat, or were other reasons the cause? Nobody else knows the answer to that, BUT I DO!!!”

We all know what happened. Obama wanted FJB out and moved the debate up to June, took away his meds, watched the disaster unfold, and waited for him to drop out.

And waited.

And waited.

And that’s how we got President Harris.

ITEM 16: CBS hired Nick Bilton to be the new head of 60 Minutes. In an introductory letter to staffers, he said:

Think back to September 1968, when the first episode of 60 aired. A gallon of gas was thirty two cents. The first pocket calculator wouldn’t go on sale for another two-and-a-half years. If you needed money, you went to the bank, stood in line, and asked a human being for it. Long distance calls were billed by the minute and you thought twice before making one. There were three networks. Most people watched the first episode of 60 Minutes in black and white. If you missed it, you missed it.

Now we know who’s to blame for $4.50 gasoline, cellphones and Netflix.

60 Minutes.

ITEM 17: Iran International reported, “An Iranian lawmaker said on Thursday that a possible agreement with the United States would violate the Supreme Leader’s red lines on the Strait of Hormuz, the nuclear issue, compensation and Lebanon.”

The last time we crossed an ayatollah’s red line was on February 28 when Israel landed a Blue Sparrow missile on his head.

ITEM 18: News Max reported, “Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the United States has secured agreements with 20 countries to accept migrants living in the U.S. illegally who refuse to return to their home nations, describing the deals as a key part of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement strategy.”

As my bartender always says at closing time, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

ITEM 19: Gateway Pundit reported, “Republican Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett is calling for the return of hanging as a federal execution method in response to one of the most depraved crimes in recent memory: the months-long torture, rape, and murder of 19-year-old Isabella Stroupe in Charlotte, North Carolina.”

Hanging is too good for them. Just drop them from a 10th floor window. Splat. Put a tarp down to make cleaning up easier.

ITEM 20: The New York Post reported, “Ryan Breslow, the brash CEO of Bolt Financial, made a splash last week when he announced that he’d quietly abolished his financial technology firm’s entire human resources department earlier this year.”

When I looked at the rules they laid down when I was working, I always thought H.R. was puffing stuff. They’re no friends when things get rough.

ITEM 21: The New York Post reported, “Sex therapist who vowed to put ‘American Zionists’ into ‘castration’ centers loses Texas Democrat primary.”

Hitler was like whoa. She’s crazier than I was.

ITEM 22: CNBC reported, “Mercedes-Benz could find itself shut out of the U.S. auto market—banned from making or selling new vehicles in the country—under legislation making its way through Congress.”

Lou Ann, don’t you buy me no Mercedes Benz.
Owned by Chinese now, they just ain’t our friends.
First time in my lifetime, I praise Congress evidently.
So, Lou Ann, won’t you buy me a British Bentley.

That was for my wife.

ITEM 23: PJ Media reported, “The Democrats’ Greatest Fear: The GOP Will Turn James Talarico Into a Creepy, Unmanly Weirdo.”

He already turned by topping Tampon Tim with Abortions For Men.

ITEM 24: The New York Post reported:

President Trump declared Friday that he has “no interest in continuing” to oversee operations and renovations at the Kennedy Center—and will move to transfer those responsibilities to Congress—after a federal judge ordered his name to be removed from the performing arts venue.

⁠District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that within 14 days all physical signage bearing Trump’s name must be removed from the building and all references to a “Trump Kennedy Center” must be eliminated from official materials, in response to a lawsuit by Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), who is an ex-officio member of the institution’s board.

Better yet, let Judge Obama Appointee run it.

The Kennedy Center—America’s white elephant.

BEST OF TWITTER:

Polish Sausage.

Before He Was Neil Diamond.

The Funeral.

Caught.

Brazilian Hell.

The Great Rubio-Trump Debate.

FINALLY, I end on a serious note, retweeting from Newt Gingrich:

After spending this week reviewing the Iranian war I am now convinced President Trump is on the edge of an historic victory. The real breakthrough for me came as I reviewed President Trump’s decisions and maneuvers not from the standpoint of American unilateralism but from the standpoint of the leader of a remarkable historic coalition, the largest coalition ever put together in the modern Middle East.

Everyone understands that Israel is an important ally. What is little discussed is the depth of support from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region. It has to be sobering for the Iranian dictatorship to realize that it does not have a single ally willing to challenge the American naval blockade. Slowly, gradually, timidly, our European allies are lining up to help with the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

A great deal of President Trump’s maneuvers against Iran make sense once he is seen as a coalition leader and not just as a unilateral American President. I spent a lot of the last couple weeks reviewing kinetic options including wining the battle of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz and if necessary using the shocking and shattering level of force President Nixon and Secretary Kissinger used against Hanoi and Haiphong in Christmas 1972 (which both leaders believed convinced the North Vietnamese to agree to a truce and the freeing of American POWs).

If this were a unilateral American campaign I could enthusiastically support a more aggressive kinetic campaign. However it is also clear it would shatter the coalition because our Arab allies are convinced Iran could still do enormous damage to their oil fields and infrastructure. Coalitions are inherently slower than unilateral campaigns. However coalitions ultimately bring vastly more power to the fight.

I am as frustrated as everyone else by the pace of talking with the dictatorship but having reviewed the correlation of forces and the options available to the coalition on one side and the Iranian religiously motivated dictatorship on the other I am prepared to assert that President Trump’s coalition leadership (something almost none of his critics want to acknowledge) is within reach of an enormous historic victory.

And if the Iranian dictatorship ultimately proves it is hopelessly committed to a suicidal position there will be plenty of time for a kinetic campaign of enormous power and effectiveness. Either way we are on the edge of an astonishing victory for our values and for a safer Middle East.

I told you 9 years ago this picture would be on the final exam.

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On January 9, 2023, the Washington Post reported that officials announced they were cleaning up Union Station, a landmark railroad terminal in the nation’s capital.

Jeffrey Stark of Arlington panned the plan, “If Union Station officials are serious about creating a desirable destination, they need to address homelessness and panhandlers.

“On Jan. 2, I spent half an hour in the station waiting for a train. In that time, I witnessed people sleeping on benches in the waiting area, reducing seating space for actual patrons. I endured the stench of urine in the waiting area. I observed how the cleaning crews couldn’t keep up with the messes the homeless left in the restrooms. I was approached by a panhandler while I waited for my traveling companion at a concession stand.

“These experiences reminded me why I avoid Union Station whenever possible, and why I minimize my time there when avoidance isn’t an option. Until the place is no longer a de facto homeless shelter, this will continue to be my policy. A new coat of paint in the main hall is lipstick on the proverbial pig. It won’t entice me to visit.”

Barbara Kraft of Washington wrote, “It might be newsworthy that Union Station will get new retail [vendors], but the real news is that a national and local treasure, essential to so many, was allowed to fall into disrepair and no one has been held to account. Where have the Union Station Redevelopment Corp., Congress, the National Park Service, the New York management company and other elected and appointed public officials been? Where is the information about USRC’s structure, role and finances that would explain the station’s abysmal condition?”

The project failed. The restrooms were still a mess. Panhandlers and drug addicts still filled the place. Tourists and other travelers were not welcome. Vendors left.

Enter The Donald. The man who cleaned up Midtown Manhattan with the transformation of the Commodore Hotel—a roach motel with XXX bookstores—into the Hyatt Regency (now Hyatt Grand Central New York) was back from a four-year vacation. I am sure you have seen the holiday photo of his visit to the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta.

[INSERT MUG SHOT HERE.]

Trump is very familiar with DC architecture having taken on the decades-long attempt to transform the Old Post Office into a luxury hotel. He did so in two years, ahead of schedule and under budget. That’s the Trump Way.

To bring Union Station back, Trump cut through the clutter of the Union Station Redevelopment Corp., Congress and the National Park Service—and got the job done using park service personnel to work—much like he is getting the reflecting pool at the National Mall de-Obamanized.

President Trump launched Operation D.C. Safe and Beautiful last summer to crackdown on crime and beautify the city ahead of our 250th birthday on July 4th. Federal agencies worked with various National Guard units (including West Virginia’s 863rd MP Company and 167th Airlift Wing) to clean up Washington.

Violent crime fell 29% comparing 2025 numbers to 2024 as criminals scurried like cockroaches once the refrigerator light of the operation hit them.

Carjackings are down 83%.

However, Congress has questioned the reliability of Metropolitan Police Department under former Police Chief Pamela Smith. Crimes were downgraded, misreported and suspected of not being recorded. She resigned suddenly last December to, um, spend more time with her family. Yes, that is exactly what she said.

123 years ago, the land the B&O and Pennsylvania Railroad built Union Station on was a swamp. Congress let Teddy Roosevelt sell the land to them and the two companies spent five years and $16 million building it. Four years later, they added the Columbus Circle fountain and plaza, which made the Washington Terminal (its official name) a gem.

But 70 years later, when passenger trains went almost the way of passenger pigeons, the terminal looked terminally ill. On February 23, 1981, the National Park Service closed the building to the public after a leaking roof caused part of the ceiling to collapse in the main waiting room.

Enter The Ronald. He got Congress to put up $160 million to buy and renovate the station. This was a much bigger project than this year’s cleanup.

Seven years later, the station reopened as a vibrant festival marketplace with shops, restaurants, and restored Beaux-Arts grandeur—the version most people today remember as the good old days.

Nearly 40 years later, the place needed a cleaning up. The fountain at Columbus Circle stopped running in 2007.

But the problem went deeper than graffiti and crime. The station needed permanent change to make it friendly to the public. The Trump administration got the job done and re-opened the renovated Columbus Circle fountain at Union Station on Thursday.

Three years ago, Jeffrey Stark of Arlington said Union Station officials had to address the homeless situation. Trump did. The president also is cleaning up other places including the aforementioned mall pool. He also has dropped crime considerably.

For the first time in decades, Washington should be safe and clean enough to visit—just in time for the 250th celebration of independence.

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