Welcome once again, my dear readers, to the asylum. I am sorry I haven’t been very productive on this front lately. Things haven’t been great lately, and still aren’t. Maybe worse even, but one must endeavor to persevere. There is so much going on with so much wrong information, I owe it to you all to comment on it. This week, we will discuss Trump to date, examining the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The good. Right out of the gate, Trump was doing awesome, closing the borders, working to clean up the massive illegal alien problem left by the Biden administration, and forming the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to take a hatchet to government spending. Trump worked to protect actual women in their sports and private places, removed needless restrictions on energy production, and began dismantling the environmental industrial complex that had established itself in Washington, DC (here, here, here, and here). He took steps to restore our military readiness that had been eroded under Obama and Biden (he just let it ride his first term) (here). Trump also put a halt to the extreme amounts of “aid” being provided to Ukraine (here). It appeared to be amazing, and it was why he was elected. It looked like a dream come true, a president who was finally keeping his campaign promises.
All of this excellence was met with more lawsuits than any administration has faced in history (here, here, and here). Many of them are still working their way through the system, and for the most part, if the lower court Judge was a Republican, then Trump won, and if the lower court judge was a Democrat, Trump lost. In truth, none of that actually matters because all of these cases are going to the Supreme Court, and so far, I really like how they have ruled because this is the most constitutionally aligned court of my lifetime (here, here, and here). Trump hasn’t always won, and I have mentioned it before. While I like what he is attempting to do, I don’t think he actually has the authority to do all of it by executive order (because he isn’t a king). There are even groups that brag about the percentage of cases Trump has lost. It isn’t because he was wrong necessarily. He lost because these litigants are not dumb and make sure to file the cases where there is a politically sympathetic judge (here). While they do initially win once the cases move to higher courts, their win rate drops precipitously.
This is all excellent stuff because the more legal resistance offered to the mandate Trump was elected to carry out, the more it hurts the lunatic fringe that has taken over the opposition. The more elected officials publicly encourage gangs to fight Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and other violent acts (here, here, and here), the more the opposition and the propaganda mainstream media (MSM) openly and obviously lie about leftwing violence (here, here, and here). It is ugly and unpleasant, but in the end, the vast majority of the people are done with the crazy, they are done with reality-denying, and they are done with the manipulation. In the end, all of these ugly things mean we win.
The bad. Trump was off to an epic and awesome start, and he had significant support from congress with Senators Paul and Massie, Congresswoman Boebert and Greene, just to name some of the most well known, to get the things done that couldn’t be done by executive order like closing the department of education, and massively cutting spending. Unfortunately, Trump seems to have lost the plot and rather than shrink the government, he decides to hang his star of his “Big Beautiful Bill” that is just more bloat and swamp water (here and here). While there are good things in the bill, they do not at all make up for the massive loads of cancerous garbage. Rather than work with his support to build a bill that not only spent the money on what was important to Trump, like the military and border security, while taking a hatchet to all the things DOGE found, dismantling government agencies, pulling out of NATO,
pulling out of the UN, and other cuts to produce a streamlined bill that didn’t require another elevation of the debt celling and more currency debasement resulting in inflation (that is totally killing the working and middle class), Trump chose to publicly attack his strongest supporters in an all-or-nothing style temper tantrum more
appropriate for a preschool playground than the oval office (here, here, and here). It isn’t a good look. It also opens the door for the left’s lies about Trump voters regretting it becoming true. This is the worst squandering of political capital I have ever seen in my life. All Trump had to do was work with his broad base of support, put in the promised cuts to pay for the spending, and take a victory lap. It may have been marginally harder, but going the “easy way” (spend without cuts) is turning into a train wreck that does far more damage to Trump’s image and base than anything else.
Then there are the tariffs. These are presented like they are a simple thing. The left says they will increase consumer costs. The right says they will increase revenue without raising prices. The truth is, tariffs are incredibly complex and will have several varying effects on different products. They can make consumer goods more expensive, but they can also make domestic goods more competitive. Tariffs can also encourage manufacturers to move production into America to avoid the tariffs, creating jobs and economic growth. Tariffs can also cause goods to become unavailable, as manufacturers decide they increase the cost of doing business by too much to continue in that market. The truth is no one knows if the net effects will be good or bad until the tariffs are in place and time passes by.
That is all moot, however, because at this point I don’t think Trump is serious about his tariff policy at all (note he shouldn’t have the power to place tariffs in the first place [here]). I think he just sees it as a lever to strong-arm other countries into doing what he wants. While it is true most other countries do have higher tariffs and duties on American goods than we have on their goods, the more Trump plays this insane game of apply tariffs, pause tariffs, make demands (often unrelated to trade), apply tariffs, remove tariffs (here, here, and, here) with friend and foe alike, the more he looks like a toddler playing ‘I’m not touching you’ just to annoy other children. It is only effective for so long before the other kids just won’t play with you anymore. Either apply the tariffs and let the chips fall where they may, or don’t, but to keep up as he is doing not only looks weak, but also indecisive.
The Ugly. I remember Iran being less than a week away from nuclear weapons since at least the Clinton administration. It is totally made-up bullshit (here, here and here). All the while, Iran has said it wasn’t developing weapons, and international inspectors agreed. The goal was always to transition their power grid to nuclear power plants (here, here, and here). Our own intelligence agencies say they are not developing a bomb (here and here). Sadly, Gabbard flip-flopped a day later. I believe her first statement and trust her less because of the second. Unfortunately, I don’t know what she was threatened with, and I hope it wasn’t just a bribe (I thought better of her than that). As far as supporting Israel goes, sure, whatever, but Israel is fully capable of protecting itself. Issues between them and other states in the Middle East are not our concern. Israel has enough firepower and nukes to fend for itself without our intervention. Bottom line, none of our business.
This might also be a good time for a history lesson. The only reason Iran is an Islamic state and not a secular democracy today is that the CIA and MI5 toppled the democratically elected secular government in 1953 and removed the checks on the Shah’s power, resulting in a brutal dictatorship to protect British petroleum and Standard Oil's interest in the country. Before the coup in 1953, Iran was a constitutional monarchy patterned heavily after the British monarchy (here). Iran was a strategic partner against the Soviet Union after WWII. During this period, Iran rapidly modernized and copied greatly from Western culture. This lasted until 1951, when the Prime Minister of Iran got a resolution passed not to renew Western leases on Iran’s oil when they expired in 1954. Up to this point, the Shah wasn’t a forceful or decisive ruler, acting more like a figurehead than a monarch. While he still had power, he was very much on his way to being a ruler like the King of England is a ruler today. Sadly, American and English interests decided to remove the Prime Minister rather than lose access to the profits from Iran’s oil. This led to a coup in 1953 that left 300 dead and the Shah an absolute monarch for the first time. The Shah of Iran was a brutal and totalitarian monster who ran roughshod over his citizens, to the point that they overthrew him in 1978, leading to the current Islamic state of Iran (here, here, and here).
That pissed off the CIA and MI5. So they launched a proxy war, supporting Iraq with weapons, money, training, and intelligence, fighting Iran for most of the 80s (here). With what was done to them and what we continue to do, it is no wonder that the people of Iran hate us, or at least our government.
Anyway, Iran almost has nuclear weapons for real this time. So, we bomb them... Trump promised an end to interventionism and foreign conflicts, a promise he has broken. I can hear the keyboard warriors, “but airstrikes aren’t war”. They are an act of war, and many right now are very concerned about Iranian sleeper cells in the US. We know that a lot of Middle Eastern illegal immigrants crossed the border during the last administration (here). While I think they are here, I don’t think the intention was to ever use them. To understand why I say that, you have to realize that terrorism is a tactic of the weak and also one where ‘terrorist’ or ‘freedom fighter’ depends on your perspective. George Washington was a terrorist from the Hessian perspective. The truth is, Iran is incapable of mounting any kind of conventional resistance to almost anything America might choose to do to it. We have proven we can bomb them with impunity; we sank half their total navy in less than a day under Reagan (here). For Iran, sleeper cells is literally their only option to try and defend themselves from us. They don’t have any other viable options.
Trump kicked the hornets’ nest for no particular reason (Israel was doing a fine job of putting warheads on foreheads without our help). While it hasn’t yet spiraled out of control, it has the potential to do so. We bomb them from billion-dollar planes (over a false excuse) then they bomb us with some poor guys in a $500 82 Chevy. All of a sudden, they spilled our blood (as if it is more precious than theirs we spilled first). We have boots on the ground back in the sandbox in another war we can’t win. Sure, we can take the place overish, dodging IEDs and sniper fire forever, or it will revert to how it was before we came in, less than a week after we leave, just like Afghanistan. Wasting blood and treasure for nothing. All in all, this is Trump’s big blunder, the one that stands to cost him massive popular support. It is looking more and more like Trump is just another swamp thing at the end of the day. Only time will tell.
John 8:44
44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
God bless you
-Sam