April 25, 2024—printed off 4/25/24—by VDH
Details of the recent limited Israeli retaliatory strike against Iranian anti-aircraft missile batteries at Isfahan are still sketchy. But nonetheless, we can draw some conclusions.
Israel’s small volley of missiles hit their intended targets, to the point of zeroing in on the very launchers designed to stop such incoming ordnance. The target was near the Natanz enrichment facility. That proximity was by design. Israel showed Iran it could take out the very anti-missile battery designed to thwart an attack on its nearby nuclear facility.
The larger message sent to the world was that Israel could send a retaliatory barrage at Iranian nuclear sites with reasonable assurances that the incoming attacks could not be stopped. By comparison, Iran’s earlier attack on Israel was much greater and more indiscriminate. It was also a huge flop, with an estimated 99 percent of the more than 320 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles failing to hit their planned targets. Moreover, it was reported that more than 50 percent of Iran’s roughly 115-120 ballistic missiles failed at launch or malfunctioned in flight.
Collate these facts, and it presents a disturbing corrective to Iran’s non-stop boasts of soon possessing a nuclear arsenal that will obliterate the Jewish state. Consider further the following nightmarish scenarios: Were Iranian nuclear-tipped missiles ever launched at Israel, they could pass over, in addition to Syria and Iraq, either Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, or all four. In the cases of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, such trajectories would constitute an act of war, especially considering that some of Iran’s recent aerial barrages were intercepted and destroyed over Arab territory well before they reached Israel.
Iran’s strike prompted Arab nations, the US, the UK, and France to work in concert to destroy almost all of Iran’s drones. For Iran, that is a premonition of the sort of sophisticated aerial opposition it might face if it ever decided to stage a nuclear version. Even if half of Iran’s ballistic missiles did launch successfully, only a handful apparently neared their intended targets—in sharp contrast to Israel’s successful attack on Iranian missile batteries. Is it thus conceivable that any Iranian-nuclear-tipped missile launched toward Israel might pose as great a threat to Iran itself or its neighbors as to Israel?
And even if such missiles made it into the air and even if they successfully traversed Arab airspace, there is still an overwhelming chance they would be neutralized before detonating above Israel. Any such launch would warrant an immediate Israeli response. And the incoming bombs and missiles would likely have a 100 percent certainty of evading Iran’s countermeasures and hitting their targets.
Now that the soil of both Iran and Israel is no longer sacred and immune from attack, the mystique of the Iranian nuclear threat has dissipated. It should be harder for the theocracy to shake down Western governments for hostage bribes, sanctions relief, and Iran-deal giveaways on the implied threat of Iran successfully nuking the Jewish state.
The new reality is that Iran has goaded an Israel that has numerous nuclear weapons and dozens of nuclear-tipped missiles in hardened silos and on submarines. Tehran has zero ability to stop any of these missiles or sophisticated fifth-generation Israeli aircraft armed with nuclear bombs and missiles. Iran must now fear that if it launched 2-3 nuclear missiles, there would be overwhelming odds that they would either fail at launch, go awry in the air, implode inside Iran, be taken down over Arab territory by Israel’s allies, or be knocked down by the tripartite Israel anti-missile defense system.
Add it all up, and the Iranian attack on Israel seems a historic blunder. It showed the world the impotence of an Iranian aerial assault at the very time it threatens to go nuclear. It revealed that an incompetent Iran may be as much a threat to itself as to its enemies. It opened up a new chapter in which its own soil, thanks to its attack on Israel, is no longer off limits to any Western power.
Its failure to stop a much smaller Israel response, coupled with the overwhelming success of Israel and its allies in stopping a much larger Iranian attack, reminds the Iranian autocracy that its shrill rhetoric is designed to mask its impotence and to hide its own vulnerabilities from its enemies.
And the long-suffering Iranian people? The t***h will come out that its own theocracy hit the Israeli homeland with negligible results and earned a successful, though merely demonstrative, Israeli response in return. So Iranians will learn their homeland is now vulnerable and, for the future, no longer off limits. And they will conclude that Israel has more effective allies than Iran and that their own ballistic missiles may be more suicidal than homicidal.
As a result, they may conclude that the real enemies of the Iranian nation are not the Jewish people of Israel after all, but their own unhinged Islamist theocrats.
April 22, 2024—PRINTED OFF 4/22/24
Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Why does Biden play Iranian poker with American and Israeli lives?
Answer? He envisions war sort of like affirmative action, in which the less accomplished belligerent is allowed all sorts of concessions for the sake of equity.
Israeli and American military capability, and particularly their missile defenses, are seen as unfair, almost like high achievers’ top SAT scores that are seen as unearned and used to privilege some over others and therefore must be countered or dropped.
Given Iran’s and its surrogates’ incompetence, the administration, then, must extend the theocracy some allowances “to level the playing field.” Biden believes in an e******y of opportunity in war, when an aggressor does its best to attack or indeed destroy a defender, who in turn does its own best to retaliate and achieve victory.
Instead, the Biden administration sees war leading to e******y of result as something to be waged “proportionally,” especially when the power attacked is stronger and Western while the attacking aggressor is weaker and non-Western. The method, then, is to restrain the western power and give repeated chances for the non-western aggressors to catch up.
As a result, the Biden administration’s strategic attitude toward Iran ignores Iranian intent and agendas. So it does not respond fully to its acts of aggression and thereby almost rewards the incompetence of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis without consideration of their murderous aims.
Americans are thus baffled that Biden has not responded to some 170 or more attacks on U.S. installations in the Middle East by Iranian-backed terrorists in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. But in his calculus, Americans “can take the hit” due to their superior defenses—appeasement that only assures more hits.
Thus, other than a few apparently acceptable wounded or dead, there is no need for disproportionate responses to reestablish deterrence and end such opportunistic attacks. Such calculus in the Biden team’s mind would be “over the top,” perhaps “unfair,” or even “medieval.” And yet, it certainly would stop all such aggression quickly and warn aggressors not to touch a single American.
After the successful but mostly demonstrative Israel April 19 retaliatory strike against the Iranian anti-aircraft missile batteries at Isfahan, Biden cautioned Israel “to take the win” and apparently not to rub in the fact of Iranian incompetence, much less stage a follow-up and much greater response.
But what if instead, Biden had warned the Iranians that Israel was not through. Rather, he would tell the Iranians that the restrained Israeli response was a one-off warning and demonstration to Iran that 1) Israel had the ability to strike and destroy the very protective shield of the nuclear installations at nearby Natanz, and thus Natanz itself and plants like it; 2) that unlike the 320 missile/drone Iranian attack on Israel, even Israel’s tiny response was entirely successful; 3) and that in any future Iranian-envisioned nuclear attack on Israel, Iran’s rockets would likely either fail at launch or in the air (half did so on April, 13), with the remnant having a 99 percent surety of being shot down, while earning a 100 percent surety of a devastating Israel counter-attack with the same sort of weapons that Iran claims it will shortly use.
Would such a warning have been more likely to end the current tit-for-tat, “de-escalatory escalation” than the Biden administration’s advice to Israel to “take the win”–in an endless cycle of supposedly managed violence as Iran and its terrorists seek to get it right and respond commensurately?
Similarly, recently, third-party communications with Iran were disclosed about its earlier April 13 attack on Israel. Apparently, the Turkish third-party emissaries claimed that “Iran informed us in advance of what would happen. Possible developments also came up during the meeting with (Secretary of State Antony) Blinken, and they (the U.S.) conveyed to Iran through us that this reaction must be within certain limits.”
T***slated, that meant that apparently launching over 320 cruise, ballistic missiles and drones were acceptable Iranian responses as long as they did not k**l too many Jews?
So what did Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, and Jake Sullivan actually define as damage “within certain limits?” Something like the relatively small number of dead and wounded Americans who have fallen victim to Iranian-backed terrorist attacks from the Red Sea to Iraq and Jordan?
“Within certain limits” for Iran certainly could not mean the huge number of lethal projectiles Iran sent into Israel that were intended by Iran to k**l thousands, but apparently only how many Israelis were k**led by them?
So again, what would have been beyond “certain limits” for team Biden? One dead Israeli for each launched rocket, missile, or drone? 320 Jews or so in total? Did Biden and Blinken assume that some 300 or so projectiles would be mostly shot down or blown up, and thus they played poker with Israeli lives and assumed that the attack would probably fail?
But what might have happened had instead Biden t***smitted to Iran the following warning:
“Given your record of unleashing terror and death throughout the Middle East, I warn you not to send a single rocket into Israel. If you do, we will ensure that none get through, but we will not ensure that there will be any limits on what will likely be a devastating Israel response to your homeland.”
Would Iran have then sent the 320 missiles?
When Israel went into Gaza to end the medieval violence perpetrated by the Hamas cowardly terrorists, it had already been the target of some 7,000 Hamas rockets aimed at its civilian centers and bases. Did Biden see that failed Hamas effort to k**l thousands of additional Jews as a legitimate cause for Israel to go into Gaza and destroy the rocket-launching Hamas?
Or instead, did Biden consider Israel’s unique ability to conduct war—again, sort of like having high SAT scores and a straight A average as proof of unwarranted privilege in admissions—as a disproportionate (and likely “unfair”) advantage over Hamas that thus should be ignored or discounted rather than admired? But had Hamas k**led 1,000 Jews with its 7,000 rockets, would Biden have given Israel the green light to respond fully? Or would it have taken only 500 deaths? Or was the magic number 250 k**led?
What would have happened had Biden not specified certain restraints on the IDF but instead, on October 21, t***smitted the following message to Hamas: “You began this war with inhuman slaughter on October 7 and massive rocket attacks on Israeli cities, and Israel will now end the war with your destruction.”
Six months later, would the Middle East now be safer without Hamas?
In mid-October 2023, a failed Islamic jihad rocket hit Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital, prompting the blood libel that it was Israelis who supposedly were responsible and had k**led hospital patients. An upset Joe Biden was asked about the identification of the perpetrator.
He answered with a joke, but a jest nevertheless quite revealing: “And I’m not suggesting that Hamas deliberately did it either. It’s that old thing; gotta learn how to shoot straight.” Aside from the embarrassing fact that Biden seemed more wary about wrongly blaming the murderous Hamas for the Islamic Jihad rocket than his ally Israel, did he really mean that the global condemnation of Israel for the act of Islamic jihad—and the predicament it put Biden in—would have simply vanished had only Islamic Jihad shot “straight”?
And further t***slated, did Biden logically mean—if only the Islamic Jihad rocket had not fallen short on Gazans but instead had reached its intended target of civilians inside Israel, then there would have been no controversies, no melodramas, given the stronger power Israel could more easily have “taken the hit?”
Note that Biden did not really express much anger that Islamic Jihad was shooting rockets to k**l Jewish civilians. He was only lamenting that its incompetence had led to a blood libel, which required embarrassing explanations from Biden himself.
Biden, note, said something somewhat similar about a possible Putin invasion of Ukraine. He had predicted the U.S. response on whether it was a “minor” offensive or not. In other words, the American response was not predicated on the violation of national borders by an aggressor against an independent nation, but how effectively the aggressor attacked.
In the American Left’s vision of contemporary war, the West brings too many advantages in science, technology, and wealth, especially when fighting in the skies and not in the messy suburbs of Mosul, Fallujah, or Gaza City.
The result is disproportionate. Accordingly, it does not matter that Hamas only stopped butchering, raping, and mutilating Israelis at about 1,200 deaths because of an impending IDF arrival or k**led few despite 7,000 rocket launches into Israel, when their rocketeers had sought to k**l tens of thousands of Israelis.
Instead, by their very failures at the art of war, Iran and its surrogates are constructed as victims, not aggressors, at the moment when either their targets do not suffer too many causalities or their own losses vastly exceed those whom they sought to slaughter.
Third-party managed proportionality, accompanied by the banality of “both sides are at fault,” is not morality but pretentious amorality—as well as a sure prescription for endless war.
Or, in other words, what is unfolding now in the Middle East.
Date: November 24, 2020 -
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Very Interesting!
Subject: Here are the last 10 years of total deaths in the US from all causes - raises a question at the end.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/death-ratehttps://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm 2010
• Deaths: 2,468,435
• Population: 309,346,863
2011
• Deaths: 2,515,458
• Population: 311,718,857
2012
• Deaths: 2,543,279
• Population: 314,102,623
2013
• Deaths: 2,596,993
• Population: 316,427,395
2014
• Deaths: 2,626,418
• Population: 318,907,401
2015
• Deaths: 2,712,630
• Population: 321,418,820
2016
• Deaths: 2,744,248
• Population: 323,071,342
2017
• Deaths: 2,813,503
• Population: 325,147,121
2018
• Deaths: 2,839,205
• Population: 327,167,439
2019
• Deaths: 2,855,000
• Population: 329,110,439
2020
• As of September 24th there are 2,033,736 total deaths in the US. That is a daily average of 7,588 deaths.
7,588 X 365 days= 2,769,620 is the total deaths we could expect in 2020 based on the numbers so far.
So the question is this: How can we have less deaths in the US if there is a p******c going on? For the last 100 years there has never been a decrease in total deaths per year in the US.
If this were a normal year, with no p******c, we should have around 2,875,000 deaths. But this isn’t a normal year so we should end up with around 3,200,000 deaths when you add in the C****-** deaths. Someone isn’t telling us the t***h (media? or government?).
By Mark Swanson—NEWSMAX--18 April 2024—printed off 4/18/24
A Denver finance committee has approved $14.6 million in cuts to the city's police and fire departments — a slice of $41 million in cuts overall — to help pay for "newcomer operations," the Democrat mayor's phrase for housing migrants. The $8.9 million in cuts to the city police department approved by Denver City Council's Finance and Governance Committee on Tuesday reportedly represent the largest ever in the city budget. The sheriff's office is also facing a $3.8 million cut and the fire department $2.4 million. The measure advances to the full city council on Monday. If approved, it goes into effect May 10, KDVR reported Wednesday. Denver is clawing back the $41 million in an effort to help offset its $89.9 million in costs associated with being a sanctuary city for i*****l m*****ts. "After more than a year of facing this crisis together, Denver finally has a sustainable plan for treating our newcomers with dignity while avoiding the worst cuts to city services," Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said last week at a press conference to pitch the "Newcomer Operations and 2024 Budget." The cuts to the police and fire departments represent the largest in terms of dollars. Denver has sheltered more than 41,000 migrants at a cost of $68 million, KDVR reported. There are currently 712 migrants in Denver's hotel shelter and 86 in "short-term shelter," according to the report. The bulk of the $89.9 million Denver plans to spend on migrants — $51.7 million — is to cover "shelter and housing." The city is setting aside another $19.5 million in "one time capital costs" and "contingency." Officials from Johnston's office earlier this month told migrants the city was offering 20,000 one-way tickets out of town. "The opportunities are over," city official Andres Carrera said in Spanish to new arrivals inside a migrant shelter, the Daily Mail reported. "New York gives you more. Chicago gives you more. So I suggest you go there where there is longer-term shelter. There are also more job opportunities there. "We can take you up to the Canadian border, wherever!" Carrera said, in an encounter that was recorded. The group Carrera was speaking to was exported to Denver from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbott on March 26, a city spokesperson said, according to the Daily Mail.
It's unclear how many migrants took the offer.
Patriot clash- March 27, 2024—printed off 4/18/24
In the latest twist of events that seems almost too absurd to be true, New York City has decided to roll out the red carpet for i*****l a***ns, offering them a benefits package that would make even the most pampered VIPs blush. Yes, people, you heard that right. While our veterans, the very men and women who have laid everything on the line for our freedom, are struggling to get the support they deserve, NYC is busy handing out prepaid debit cards to i*****l m*****ts.
Let’s break this down, shall we? As part of a $53 million pilot program, these migrant families are being given up to $350 per week to splurge on food and baby supplies. And just to add a cherry on top, this spending spree is happening in the city’s hotels, where these families are staying. I mean, why not, right? It’s not like the city has any other pressing issues to spend money on. Oh wait, what about that little thing called veteran services?
Fox News did the math, and it turns out that if this program expands to cover all migrants, it’ll cost the city a whopping $53 million. To put that into perspective, that’s more than double what New York State plans to spend on its Department of Veteran Services. Let that sink in for a moment. Double the budget for people who entered the country illegally compared to those who fought for it.
Brian Llenas from Fox News pointed out that each migrant will receive approximately $12.52 per day for food and baby supplies. That’s 40% more than what the average low-income American received in government food stamps in 2022. And let’s not forget the free healthcare for migrants, which is currently the city’s most expensive migrant-related expense, accounting for about half of the $4.7 billion spent on the migrant crisis last year.
It’s a scenario that leaves many scratching their heads in disbelief. How did we get to a point where i*****l a***ns receive more benefits than US veterans? Even a Democrat city council member admitted, “This is insane. It’s not good policy. Obviously, a sanctuary city should not mean protecting criminals.”
This situation highlights a glaring issue in our society’s priorities. It’s important to show compassion and provide support to those in need, but not at the expense of neglecting our own. Our veterans deserve better. They deserve more than just our gratitude; they deserve our unwavering support and commitment to ensuring they receive the benefits and care they’ve rightfully earned. It’s time for New York City, and indeed the entire country, to reassess where our loyalties lie and to remember who truly deserves the VIP treatment.
April 15, 2024—printed off 4/15/24
Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
We have seen enough of the Biden-Trump race so far to predict what lies ahead over the next seven months of the campaign. Currently, the polls are about dead even. Trump, however, for now enjoys small leads in the majority of the fickle swing/purple states that will likely decide the e******n. So here is what we should expect:
Biden has three major vulnerabilities and three major assets. His fate will depend on how these criteria play out.
First, on the negative side of the ledger, Biden suffers continual mental and physical decline, which is accelerating exponentially. His work week is now more off than on. Aides pray that he can get through a teleprompter without complete incoherence. His speech is so slurred, his syntax so bizarre that he seems to speak a language that is mostly indecipherable. They rightly fear that any young attractive woman or even preteen might earn a trademark Biden weird call-out, a hair- or accustomed ear-blow, or even an attempted p**********l too-long hug or neck nibble. Steps pose an existential threat, given that the president is one trip away from oblivion. Biden is not even the diminished Biden of 2020, when, in his basement, he at least manipulated the C****-** lockdown to mask his infirmities and abbreviated schedules. The odds are 50/50 whether Biden will even make it over the next five months to the August Democratic Convention. And, assuming that he does, can he rein in efforts to push him off the ticket?
Second, the Biden family is corrupt. H****r still faces spring- and summer-long felony exposure in connection with his Biden-family brand of tax c***ting. Joe knows that his own documents, first-hand witnesses, bank statements, H****r’s emails, and testimonies from H****r’s associates reveal that the otherwise talentless but high-living Biden extended family was surviving only by the sale of Senator, Vice President, and future President Joe Biden’s name—and his known willingness to pay fast and loose with legal and ethical constraints. There is still some chance that, in the current impeachment investigations and trial, more incriminating evidence will emerge or turned witnesses will offer proof of Biden’s criminality. For now, Biden’s lawbreaking is completely dismissed by Attorney General Merrick Garland and by special counsel Robert Hur’s satirical-comedy-worthy argument that even overwhelming evidence pointing to Joe Biden’s criminal behavior cannot be prosecuted because of the president’s dementia.
Third, the hard-left Biden agenda is completely underwater. Not a single Biden administration issue or policy—the border, crime, inflation, energy, foreign policy, race relations, education—polls even 50 percent. Worse, Biden never addresses the inflation created by his massive spending program, the lawlessness in our streets since 2021, the spiking cost of gasoline, or the humiliation abroad, from Kabul to Kyiv to the Chinese balloon. His idea of how to combat inflation is akin to combating obesity by gaining 100 pounds, losing two, and—presto—announcing that obesity was abated. He spiked racial polarization, proved indifferent to an epidemic of anti-Semitism, and fueled the national debt (an additional $1 trillion every 100 days). Now Biden is warring on the Supreme Court—a dangerous precedent given that an assassin has already shown up at Justice Kavanaugh’s home, given that mobs have massed at various justices’ residences with impunity, given Sen. Schumer’s prior personal threats at the very doors of the court to Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, and given left-wing rhetoric about packing the court. All candidate Biden can do is either deny an open border, inflation, crime, racial tensions, and the Kabul humiliation—or claim that the successful policies of Trump, out of power for nearly four years, were responsible for all that crashed on Biden’s watch.
Biden, however, enjoys some natural advantages, most notably incumbency.
(Note that this was not much of an advantage to Trump himself in 2020, given the wild cards of the C****-** p******c, the disastrous nationwide lockdown, and the mysterious workings of the Trump-hating administrative state. We remember the 11th-hour P****r declaration that there would be no pre-e******n announcement, as planned, of the success of Trump’s Operation Warp Speed v******tion initiative. Then, there was indeed an announcement—immediately after the e******n. And then there was the mysterious CIA/FBI arming of the Biden campaign, on the eve of the last debate and just days before E******n Day, with the f**e anti-Trump rebuttal of “Russian laptop disinformation.”
Biden will pull every lever of incumbency, working the office of the presidency in the most Machiavellian and cynical of ways:
1. a) hoping to lower gas prices by not filling up the strategic petroleum reserve, jawboning illiberal and “pariah” oil producers to pump what he claims he h**es, ordering Ukraine not to hit Russian refineries, and appeasing enemies like Iran to keep its oil flowing,
2. b) unconstitutionally sidestepping rulings of the Supreme Court to ensure more pre-e******n illegal student-loan-cancellation giveaways,
3. c) prodding the supposedly independent Federal Reserve to lower interest rates before November,
4. d) pressuring Mexico to tamp down illegal entries for a few months to serve their shared interests in defeating Trump.
A second asset is his army of satellites.
These include left-wing justices, weaponized federal, state, and local prosecutors, and Trump-biased jury pools. The left expects these to do what the effort to remove Trump’s name from the b****t did not: destroy the Republican candidate, financially and health-wise, and bind him with the Lilliputian ropes of Fani Willis, Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, and Jack Smith, who are eager to convict him through weaponized judges, juries, and a venomous media. They also include c*********d e******n officials in urban counties in key swing states.
Biden cannot win unless 70-80 percent of v**ers in the key swing states do not v**e on E******n Day. Instead, their b****ts must be mailed in, harvested, and curated without accustomed audit and without verification of whether v**ers are registered US citizens or have v**ed only once and done so legally.
And—his third major asset—Biden will also have billions of dollars more than Trump to pound home these themes in endless ads, social media shenanigans, and news censorship and blackouts.
Biden feels that he nevertheless must make the e******n hinge on destroying a monstrous, demonic, and hideous Donald Trump through any means necessary. Biden’s is not a positive campaign but will be waged by despising Donald Trump and all who support him. Expect more of those “semi-f*****ts”/ “ultra-MAGA” Phantom-of-the-Opera Biden h**e speeches.
In the next seven months, the Biden effort will play out with three narratives: Trump is a J****** 6th i**********nist and dictator and will “destroy democracy,” though apparently without weaponizing the FBI or removing his opponents’ names from b****ts or siccing right-wing prosecutors on his enemies.
Trump purportedly will k**l women by banning all a******ns while relegating non-w****s to the pre-civil-rights era—despite leaving a******n up to the states, and likely gaining more Latino and Black v**ers than any prior Republican p**********l candidate. Then we will hear that Trump is a felon who belongs in jail.
All this is the message of the Biden campaign, period
We have seen enough of the Biden-Trump race so far to predict what lies ahead over the next seven months of the campaign. Currently, the polls are about dead even. Trump, however, for now enjoys small leads in the majority of the fickle swing/purple states that will likely decide the e******n. So here is what we should expect:
trump likewise has both assets and liabilities. His vulnerabilities are mirror images of Biden’s advantages: he lacks incumbency and the powers that come with it; he does not have an army of officials on his side; and he will have a financial disadvantage.
We have no idea how many gag orders remain. How many late-summer days will Trump spend stuck in court? How many hundreds of millions of his dollars will be expropriated by out-of-control anti-Trump left-wing judges? Can Trump—or any candidate—successfully run with a $1 billion overhead in legal fees and fines and with critical days on the campaign trail diverted to left-wing, media-frenzied, blue-city courtrooms?
In addition, Trump is sometimes his own worst enemy. Trump, one could say, is running mostly against Trump. He knows that if he sticks solely to the agenda, contrasting Biden’s failures with his own past stellar record and future contract with America, he can win. He realizes that he must take the high road and talk idealistically rather than going low and getting angry.
But who could be expected to do so after being the victim of two unfair impeachments, left-wing lies like Russian collusion and disinformation, efforts to railroad him into prison with outrageously politicized legal vendettas, and attempts to remove his name from the b****t?
Trump’s advantages are clear. First, his record: on foreign policy, inflation, and the economy. But most important for the e******n is his ability to connect with people. So far, the split-screen differences between candidate Trump and President Biden have proved overwhelmingly to Trump’s advantage: Biden in New York schmoozing at a black-tie night with celebrities and ex-presidents to haul in $26 million in campaign cash from the hyper-rich, while Trump is with middle-class NYPD rank-and-file at a rainy wake for a murdered cop—k**led by a repeat felon released without bail.
Or Trump buying fast food and milkshakes amid a mostly black Atlanta Chick-fil-A crowd, while Biden dines with the venomous Robert De Niro and the zillionaire Jeff Bezos at a White House dinner, with the celebrities’ trophy girls vying to get the most stares at their multi-thousand-dollar designer clothes—as if they were on the red carpet at the Oscars rather than in the people’s house.
What can Trump do to make the best use of all this? He must magnanimously reach out to former rivals such as Haley, even as she continues to demonize him, and to DeSantis as well. He must unite the House Republicans to keep their razor-thin majority at all costs. He must campaign nonstop among poor w****s, b****s, and Latinos, appealing to shared class concerns rather than the racial obsessions and psychodramas of the bicoastal elite.
He should skip the ad hominem invective, forget the past rivalries with his primary opponents, and assume a corrupt media does not deserve a minute of his time. If he does this, he can win.
But if he climbs down into the mud with his l*****t opponents, trades insults, wrestles with his opponents, and obsesses about f**e news and the crooked media, he will likely lose.
Aside from Trump’s temperament, we must always remember that the answers to two other fundamental questions will determine the outcome of the e******n:
Can the Republicans monitor the b****ting and return it to the environment of 2016 rather than 2020? Can Trump convince millions of minorities, independents, and former Biden v**ers that there are plenty of reasons to v**e for someone they may not like—including the very future of the United States as a free republic as envisioned by the Founders, rather than an increasingly weak, anemic, cranky socialist has-been?
Finally, we must also remember that, ultimately, the outcome of the e******n could be determined by unpredictable events. What happens if the Gaza War expands to Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, as Israel is attacked from all directions? Or the military of the United States is attacked in the Middle East, as in the past?
What will be the status of Ukraine by November—static, safer, or absorbed by Russia—and who will be praised or blamed for what ensues?
Will China risk attacking or blockading Taiwan on the theory that it will never be gifted a more ossified president than Biden?
Will the left unleash another late-season October surprise like the 2016 Access Hollywood tape or the 2020 “Russian disinformation” laptop farce? And will these desperate gambits resonate or boomerang?
And, lastly, will the candidates in October and November resemble the candidates of today? These are the two oldest candidates ever to run for president. Will Trump still be vibrant at 78? Will Biden still be upright at 81?
Will Biden’s feebleness still earn him sympathy, or at least respectful silence? Or will it devolve to the point that the public, worn out by his lapses, concludes that Joe Biden would not be able to keep any job in America—except the Presidency of the United States?
April 18, 2024—printed off 4/18/24
Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
The theocracy of Iran has been the world’s arch-embassy attacker over the last half century. So it has zero credibility in crying foul over Israel’s April 1 attacks on its “consulate” in Damascus and the k*****g of Iran’s kingpin terrorists of the Revolutionary Guard Corps there.
Remember, the world was first introduced to the Iranian ayatollahs by their violent takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1980. Iranian surrogates next bombed the American embassy in Beirut and the Marine barracks in 1983. In fact, Iran has attacked US and Israeli diplomatic posts off-and-on for decades, most recently in 2023, when Iran helped plan an attack on the US embassy in Baghdad.
For this reason and several others, Iran’s justification for sending 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles into Israel on the grounds that Israel had bombed an Iranian diplomatic post is completely ridiculous. One, Iran has never honored diplomatic immunity. Instead, it habitually attacks and k**ls embassy personnel and blows up diplomatic facilities across the world.
Two, on April 1, the Israelis attacked a pseudo-“consulate” in Damascus which was hosting grandees of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as they planned terrorist attacks on Israel. Without Iran, the Middle East might have had a chance to use its enormous oil and natural gas wealth to lift its 500 million people out of poverty rather than to be mired in constant tribal and religious anti-Israeli, anti-American, and anti-Western terrorism.
During the Iraq War, Iran’s Shiite terrorists and its massive supplies of deadly shaped-charge explosive devices k**led hundreds of Americans. It routinely hijacks container ships in the Straits of Hormuz and stages near collisions with American ships and planes. How does Iran get away with nonstop anti-Western terrorism, its constant harassment of Persian Gulf maritime traffic, its efforts to subvert Sunni moderate regimes, and its serial hostage-taking?
The theocrats operate on three general principles.
One, Iran is careful never to attack a major power directly. Until this week, it had never sent missiles and drones into Israel. Its economy is one-dimensionally dependent on oil exports. And its paranoid government distrusts its own people, who have no access to free e******ns.
So Iranian strategy over the last few decades has relied on surrogates—especially expendable Arab Shia terrorists in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, along with the Sunni Arabs of Hamas—to do its dirty work of k*****g Israelis and Americans. It loudly egged all of them on and then cowardly denied responsibility once it feared Israeli or American retaliation.
Two, it has fooled Western governments and especially left-wing American administrations by posing as a persecuted victim. Iran claims it is the champion of aggrieved Shiite Arab and Persian minorities, unfairly exploited by Israel, moderate Arab regimes, and rich Sunni Gulf monarchies.
Three, Iran hopes its pseudo-diplomatic outreach to left-wing Western governments, coupled with its lunatic existential threats and unleashing terrorist attacks on its enemies, can coax or bully the West into granting it concessions—especially time to acquire a dozen or so nuclear weapons.
Yet for all its loud, creepy threats, Iran is incredibly weak and vulnerable. Israel and its allies shot down almost all its recent nocturnal missile and drone barrages. Lots of other missiles reportedly blew up on liftoff in Iran or crashed in t***sit. Before the Biden appeasement of Iran, the Trump administration had isolated and nearly bankrupted Tehran and its proxies. Its Revolutionary Guard terrorist planners proved to be easy targets once they operated outside Iran.
Iran’s only hope is to get a bomb and, with it, nuclear deterrence to prevent retaliation when it increases its terrorist surrogate attacks on Israel, the West, and international commerce. Yet now Iran may have jumped the shark by attacking the Israeli homeland for the first time. It is learning that it has almost no sympathetic allies.
Does even the Lebanese Hezbollah really want to take revenge against Israel on behalf of Persian Iran, only to see its Shia neighborhoods in Lebanon reduced to rubble? Do all the pro-Hamas protestors on American campuses and in the streets really want to show Americans they celebrate Iranian attacks and a potential Iranian war against the United States? Does Iran really believe 99 percent of any future Israel barrage against Iranian targets would fail to hit targets in the fashion that its own recent launches failed?
Does Iran really believe that its sheer incompetence in attacking Israel warrants them a pardon—as if they should be excused for trying, but not succeeding, to k**l thousands of Jews? In sum, by unleashing a terrorist war in the Middle East and targeting the Israeli homeland, Iran may wake up soon and learn Israel, or America, or both might retaliate for a half-century of its terrorist aggression—and mostly to the indifference or even the delight of most of the world.
KNOW THE SYMPTOMS!
Thank goodness there's a name for this disorder.
Age-Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.
This is how it manifests:
I decide to water my garden.
As I turn on the hose in the driveway,
I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.
As I start toward the garage,
I notice mail on the porch table that
I brought up from the mail box earlier.
I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.
I lay my car keys on the table,
Put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table,
And notice that the can is full.
So, I decide to put the bills back
On the table and take out the garbage first...
But then I think,
Since I'm going to be near the mailbox
When I take out the garbage anyway,
I may as well pay the bills first.
I take my check book off the table,
And see that there is only one check left.
My extra checks are in my desk in the study,
So I go inside the house to my desk where
I find the can of Pepsi I'd been drinking.
I'm going to look for my checks,
But first I need to push the Pepsi aside
So that I don't accidentally knock it over.
The Pepsi is getting warm,
And I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.
As I head toward the kitchen with the Pepsi,
A vase of flowers on the counter
Catches my eye--they need water.
I put the Pepsi on the counter and
Discover my reading glasses that
I've been searching for all morning.
I decide I better put them back on my desk,
But first I'm going to water the flowers.
I set the glasses back down on the counter ,
Fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote.
Someone left it on the kitchen table.
I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV,
I'll be looking for the remote,
But I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table,
So I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs,
But first I'll water the flowers.
I pour some water in the flowers,
But quite a bit of it spills on the floor.
So, I set the remote back on the table,
Get some towels and wipe up the spill.
Then, I head down the hall trying to
Remember what I was planning to do.
At the end of the day:
The car isn't washed,
The bills aren't paid,
There is a warm can of
Pepsi sitting on the counter,
The flowers don't have enough water,
There is still only 1 check in my check book,
I can't find the remote,
I can't find my glasses,
And I don't remember what I did with the car keys.
Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today,
I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day,
And I'm really tired.
I realize this is a serious problem,
And I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail....
Do me a favor.
Forward this message to everyone you know,
Because I don't remember who I've sent it to.
Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!
P.S. I don't remember who sent it to me, so if it was you, I'm sorry
A 10-point drop compared to August 2019 was observed.
By Tom Ozimek--4/13/2024—EPOCH TIMES-printed off 4/16/24
The share of Americans expressing a negative view of the federal government soared in President Joe Biden’s third year in office, with a new poll showing a 10-percent drop in favorability compared to roughly the same point in former President Donald Trump’s term in the White House.
Just 22 percent of U.S. adults polled in December 2023 had a favorable opinion of the federal government, according to a Pew Research poll published on April 12.
That’s a 10-point drop compared to the 32 percent who held a similar view in August 2019, during President Trump’s third year in office.
President Trump saw the Washington bureaucracy as corrupt, bloated, and ineffective, vowing during the 2016 campaign to “drain the swamp” and following through with a red tape-cutting agenda while in office.
His plans for a second Trump term are to “crush the Deep State,” “fire rogue bureaucrats” and slash wasteful Beltway spending. President Biden, by contrast, recently adopted a new rule that would make it harder to fire civil servants, while specifically citing President Trump’s actions that made it easier to fire bureaucrats and hinting that the move was meant to thwart a similar thrust if the former president manages to win in the November e******n.
Independents Sour on Biden
Meanwhile, in the Pew Research poll on federal government favorability, there was a sharp partisan difference in the numbers.
Republican-leaning respondents gave the federal government in President Biden’s third year in office a dismal rating of just 11 percent favorability. That is a 30-percent drop compared to 2019, when 41 percent had a positive view of the federal government.
The dynamic is flipped for Democrats, with 26 percent giving the government a positive rating during the third year of the Trump presidency, compared to 32 percent who think favorably of it under President Biden.
Americans’ views of their local and state governments were generally more favorable than with regard to the federal government, though partisan opinions varied sharply depending on which party is in power.
The poll didn’t gauge what independents or “undecideds” think of the government, neither did it offer a breakdown into specific areas of government activity—like the economy or immigration policy—around which respondents held views that were negative.
However, the latest poll from The Economist/YouGov shows that Independents track closely with Republicans in terms of their strong approval (5 percent of Independents compared to 3 percent of Republicans) of the job President Biden is doing.
In terms of strong disapproval, Independents fall somewhere in between Democrats and Republicans, with the poll showing that 48 percent of Independents strongly disapprove of the job President Biden is doing compared to 82 percent of Republicans and just 4 percent of Democrats.
Meanwhile, a recent focus group of “undecideds,” including some who v**ed for President Biden in 2020, was asked whether they thought the economy would be better under the former president.
Every single one of the panel members raised their hand when asked if they were better off under President Trump compared to the incumbent.
Minority V**ers Breaking for Trump
Besides indications that Independent v**ers are increasingly Trump-curious, recent polling shows that Latino and b***k A******ns, who have often been entrenched Democrat v**ers, have been turning their backs on President Biden.
A recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed a staggering jump from the 4 percent of black v**ers who said in October 2020 that they would v**e for then-candidate Trump, compared to 23 percent who said in February 2024 they plan to v**e for him this November.
The stunning 19-percent increase in black v**er support for President Trump comes as a majority (57 percent) said they see the country under President Biden heading in the wrong direction.
Also, support for President Trump among Latino v**ers has surged in recent weeks, according to a recent Axios/Ipsos poll.
In December 2021, President Biden enjoyed a 55 percent favorability rating among Latinos, compared to 25 percent for President Trump.
But over time, President Biden’s lead has dwindled, to where he now has 41 percent favorability among Hispanics, compared to President Trump’s 32 percent.
Also, when Latinos who intend to v**e in the November p**********l e******n were asked who they plan to v**e for, 31 percent said President Biden, and 28 percent said President Trump. That’s a difference of just 3 percentage points.
However, given the poll’s 3.6 percent margin of error, this means that it’s technically possible that President Trump could actually be leading his main rival among Latino v**ers by up to 0.6 percentage points.
The poll also showed that President Trump is ahead of the incumbent among Latinos on the their top three most worrying issues: inflation, crime, and immigration.
Neither the Trump campaign nor the Biden campaign responded to requests for comment on the poll numbers.
Treasury Department worker lied to investigators, inspector general says.
Attorney General Merrick Garland in Washington on Sept. 20, 2023.
By Zachary Stieber--4/14/2024- Epoch Times)-printed off 4/16/24
A U.S. government employee violated the law on J*** 6, 2021, but was not prosecuted, according to an internal report obtained by The Epoch Times.
Investigators with the U.S. Treasury Department Office of Inspector General (OIG), acting on a tip from the U.S. Department of Justice’s inspector general, found that an OIG worker was on U.S. Capitol grounds as the Capitol was breached on J*** 6. The employee admitted during an interview with the OIG to being near the Capitol but made a number of false claims, including that he did not witness any violence and did not do anything illegal, according to the OIG.
There was “widespread unlawful behavior” happening around the Capitol when the worker was on Capitol grounds, the report stated. Video footage showed that people gained unauthorized access to areas past barricades at about 1:45 p.m., the same time that the Treasury employee later admitted to walking through a U.S. C*****l P****e barricade at the East Plaza. The worker stayed on the grounds, moving to the West Plaza, for about two hours. During that time, he said later, he saw clashes between the C*****l P****e and protesters. Video footage from the scene showed law enforcement officers retreating, protesters becoming violent, and barricades lying on the ground.
The Treasury Department worker was not identified by name. The official went onto restricted grounds “without lawful authority,” according to the report, which summarized the investigation and was first obtained by Bloomberg News.
“The investigation determined that the employee went through an U.S. C*****l P****e (USCP) barricade and remained inside the restricted grounds for approximately two hours during the r**t at the U.S. Capitol, in violation of restricted grounds or buildings and conduct while on government property,” the watchdog said. “The OIG substantiated this allegation after conducting interviews, reviewing records and conducting open source research. The employee admitted that he went through a barricade and remained inside the barricaded areas for an extended period of time.”
It also said that “the OIG also substantiated lack of candor.”
J*** 6 Judge Blocked From Trying to Police ‘Disinformation’
The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment. An OIG spokesman told The Epoch Times in an email that the employee in question “is no longer employed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.” “I’m sorry, we cannot discuss the circumstances of this employee’s departure,” he said.
Story continues below advertisement The case was presented for prosecution to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, according to the document. That office declined on May 27, 2022, to prosecute the government employee. The office did not respond when asked why it declined prosecution.
The investigation was closed on July 13, 2022. The Epoch Times obtained the document through a Freedom of Information Act request. It has asked for the interviews conducted and records reviewed as part of the probe but did not receive them by press time.
Other Prosecutions
A small number of people who were employed by the government on J*** 6 have been prosecuted.
Federico Klein, a former Marine who worked for the State Department, was charged with and later convicted of assault and other charges related to the breach.
He was sentenced in late 2023 to 70 months in prison and two years of supervised release.
Paul Lovley worked for the National Security Agency when the breach happened. He was charged with entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.
He pleaded guilty to the latter charge in exchange for prosecutors’ dropping the other count. He was sentenced in 2023 to three years of probation.
Story continues below advertisement
Others who worked for local governments, including police officers, have been charged and convicted over the breach.
As of April 6, some 1,387 people have been charged in relation to the breach, with nearly 800 pleading guilty and another 156 being found guilty. Prosecutors are still bringing charges, with the rate of new charges in the first quarter of 2024 being higher than that in the first quarters of 2023 and 2022.
By Nicole Wells-newsmax--15 April 2024—printed off 4/15/24
Independent p**********l candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed again on social media that former President Donald Trump's allies asked him to join the presumptive GOP p**********l nominee's ticket as Trump's running mate. "President Trump calls me an ultra-left radical," Kennedy wrote in a post on X on Monday. "I'm soooo liberal that his emissaries asked me to be his VP. I respectfully declined the offer. I am against President Trump, and President Biden can't win. Judging by his new website, it looks like President Trump knows who actually can beat him."
Trump has stepped up his attacks on Kennedy in recent weeks, blasting the environmental lawyer as a liberal candidate who might prove politically useful. "RFK Jr. is the most Radical Left Candidate in the race, by far," Trump wrote on T***h Social in late March. "He's a big fan of the Green New S**m, and other economy k*****g disasters. I guess this would mean he is going to be taking v**es from Crooked Joe Biden, which would be a great service to America."
On Monday, a top Trump campaign aide challenged Kennedy's version of events. "Re-upping this from January … was true then and it's true now @RobertfKennedJr …. your a leftie loonie that would never be approached to be on the ticket..sorry!" Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita wrote in a post on X, which quoted his denial from January that Kennedy was approached for the role. Make America Great Again Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC, launched a website on Monday that retooled Kennedy's monogram to stand for "Radical F****** Kennedy," The Hill reported. The site spotlights his views on taxes, gun laws, and climate initiatives, among other things. In January, the New York Post reported that Trump's team had attempted to recruit Kennedy for the ticket, and The New York Times reported last week that the former president had suggested Kennedy as his running mate, albeit not seriously. In a close race between President Joe Biden and Trump, political strategists have said that an independent like Kennedy could siphon enough v**es in must-win states to throw the e******n in favor of one candidate.
1 - I'd k**l for a Nobel Peace Prize.
2 - Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.
3 - Half the people you know are below average.
4 - 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
5 - 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
6 - A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
7 - A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
8 - If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.
9 - All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.
10 - The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
11 - I almost had a psychic girlfriend, ..... But she left me before we met.
12 - OK, so what's the speed of dark?
13 - How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
14 - If everythng seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
15 - Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
16 - When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
17 - Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
18 - Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.
19 - I intend to live forever ... So far, so good.
20 - If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
21 - Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
22 - What happens if you get scard half to death twice?
23 - My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."
24 - Why do psychics have to ask you for your name
25 - If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
26 - A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
27 - Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
28 - The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
29 - To steal ideas from one person is plagiarsm; to steal from many is research.
30 - The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
31 - The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.
32 - The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
33 - Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.
34 - If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
35 - If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?
April 15, 2024—printed off 4/15/24
Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
We have seen enough of the Biden-Trump race so far to predict what lies ahead over the next seven months of the campaign. Currently, the polls are about dead even. Trump, however, for now enjoys small leads in the majority of the fickle swing/purple states that will likely decide the e******n. So here is what we should expect:
Biden
Biden has three major vulnerabilities and three major assets. His fate will depend on how these criteria play out.
First, on the negative side of the ledger, Biden suffers continual mental and physical decline, which is accelerating exponentially. His work week is now more off than on. Aides pray that he can get through a teleprompter without complete incoherence. His speech is so slurred, his syntax so bizarre that he seems to speak a language that is mostly indecipherable. They rightly fear that any young attractive woman or even preteen might earn a trademark Biden weird call-out, a hair- or accustomed ear-blow, or even an attempted p**********l too-long hug or neck nibble. Steps pose an existential threat, given that the president is one trip away from oblivion. Biden is not even the diminished Biden of 2020, when, in his basement, he at least manipulated the C****-** lockdown to mask his infirmities and abbreviated schedules. The odds are 50/50 whether Biden will even make it over the next five months to the August Democratic Convention. And, assuming that he does, can he rein in efforts to push him off the ticket?
Second, the Biden family is corrupt. H****r still faces spring- and summer-long felony exposure in connection with his Biden-family brand of tax c***ting. Joe knows that his own documents, first-hand witnesses, bank statements, H****r’s emails, and testimonies from H****r’s associates reveal that the otherwise talentless but high-living Biden extended family was surviving only by the sale of Senator, Vice President, and future President Joe Biden’s name—and his known willingness to pay fast and loose with legal and ethical constraints. There is still some chance that, in the current impeachment investigations and trial, more incriminating evidence will emerge or turned witnesses will offer proof of Biden’s criminality. For now, Biden’s lawbreaking is completely dismissed by Attorney General Merrick Garland and by special counsel Robert Hur’s satirical-comedy-worthy argument that even overwhelming evidence pointing to Joe Biden’s criminal behavior cannot be prosecuted because of the president’s dementia.
Third, the hard-left Biden agenda is completely underwater. Not a single Biden administration issue or policy—the border, crime, inflation, energy, foreign policy, race relations, education—polls even 50 percent. Worse, Biden never addresses the inflation created by his massive spending program, the lawlessness in our streets since 2021, the spiking cost of gasoline, or the humiliation abroad, from Kabul to Kyiv to the Chinese balloon. His idea of how to combat inflation is akin to combating obesity by gaining 100 pounds, losing two, and—presto—announcing that obesity was abated. He spiked racial polarization, proved indifferent to an epidemic of anti-Semitism, and fueled the national debt (an additional $1 trillion every 100 days). Now Biden is warring on the Supreme Court—a dangerous precedent given that an assassin has already shown up at Justice Kavanaugh’s home, given that mobs have massed at various justices’ residences with impunity, given Sen. Schumer’s prior personal threats at the very doors of the court to Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, and given left-wing rhetoric about packing the court. All candidate Biden can do is either deny an open border, inflation, crime, racial tensions, and the Kabul humiliation—or claim that the successful policies of Trump, out of power for nearly four years, were responsible for all that crashed on Biden’s watch.
Biden, however, enjoys some natural advantages, most notably incumbency.
(Note that this was not much of an advantage to Trump himself in 2020, given the wild cards of the C****-** p******c, the disastrous nationwide lockdown, and the mysterious workings of the Trump-hating administrative state. We remember the 11th-hour P****r declaration that there would be no pre-e******n announcement, as planned, of the success of Trump’s Operation Warp Speed v******tion initiative. Then, there was indeed an announcement—immediately after the e******n. And then there was the mysterious CIA/FBI arming of the Biden campaign, on the eve of the last debate and just days before E******n Day, with the f**e anti-Trump rebuttal of “Russian laptop disinformation.”)
Biden will pull every lever of incumbency, working the office of the presidency in the most Machiavellian and cynical of ways:
1. a) hoping to lower gas prices by not filling up the strategic petroleum reserve, jawboning illiberal and “pariah” oil producers to pump what he claims he h**es, ordering Ukraine not to hit Russian refineries, and appeasing enemies like Iran to keep its oil flowing,
2. b) unconstitutionally sidestepping rulings of the Supreme Court to ensure more pre-e******n illegal student-loan-cancellation giveaways,
3. c) prodding the supposedly independent Federal Reserve to lower interest rates before November,
4. d) pressuring Mexico to tamp down illegal entries for a few months to serve their shared interests in defeating Trump.
A second asset is his army of satellites.
These include left-wing justices, weaponized federal, state, and local prosecutors, and Trump-biased jury pools. The left expects these to do what the effort to remove Trump’s name from the b****t did not: destroy the Republican candidate, financially and health-wise, and bind him with the Lilliputian ropes of Fani Willis, Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, and Jack Smith, who are eager to convict him through weaponized judges, juries, and a venomous media. They also include c*********d e******n officials in urban counties in key swing states.
Biden cannot win unless 70-80 percent of v**ers in the key swing states do not v**e on E******n Day. Instead, their b****ts must be mailed in, harvested, and curated without accustomed audit and without verification of whether v**ers are registered US citizens or have v**ed only once and done so legally.
And—his third major asset—Biden will also have billions of dollars more than Trump to pound home these themes in endless ads, social media shenanigans, and news censorship and blackouts.
Biden feels that he nevertheless must make the e******n hinge on destroying a monstrous, demonic, and hideous Donald Trump through any means necessary. Biden’s is not a positive campaign but will be waged by despising Donald Trump and all who support him. Expect more of those “semi-f*****ts”/ “ultra-MAGA” Phantom-of-the-Opera Biden h**e speeches.
In the next seven months, the Biden effort will play out with three narratives: Trump is a J****** 6th i**********nist and dictator and will “destroy democracy,” though apparently without weaponizing the FBI or removing his opponents’ names from b****ts or siccing right-wing prosecutors on his enemies.
Trump purportedly will k**l women by banning all a******ns while relegating non-w****s to the pre-civil-rights era—despite leaving a******n up to the states, and likely gaining more Latino and Black v**ers than any prior Republican p**********l candidate. Then we will hear that Trump is a felon who belongs in jail.
All this is the message of the Biden campaign, period.
Trump
Trump likewise has both assets and liabilities. His vulnerabilities are mirror images of Biden’s advantages: he lacks incumbency and the powers that come with it; he does not have an army of officials on his side; and he will have a financial disadvantage.
We have no idea how many gag orders remain. How many late-summer days will Trump spend stuck in court? How many hundreds of millions of his dollars will be expropriated by out-of-control anti-Trump left-wing judges? Can Trump—or any candidate—successfully run with a $1 billion overhead in legal fees and fines and with critical days on the campaign trail diverted to left-wing, media-frenzied, blue-city courtrooms?
In addition, Trump is sometimes his own worst enemy. Trump, one could say, is running mostly against Trump. He knows that if he sticks solely to the agenda, contrasting Biden’s failures with his own past stellar record and future contract with America, he can win. He realizes that he must take the high road and talk idealistically rather than going low and getting angry.
But who could be expected to do so after being the victim of two unfair impeachments, left-wing lies like Russian collusion and disinformation, efforts to railroad him into prison with outrageously politicized legal vendettas, and attempts to remove his name from the b****t?
Trump’s advantages are clear. First, his record: on foreign policy, inflation, and the economy. But most important for the e******n is his ability to connect with people. So far, the split-screen differences between candidate Trump and President Biden have proved overwhelmingly to Trump’s advantage: Biden in New York schmoozing at a black-tie night with celebrities and ex-presidents to haul in $26 million in campaign cash from the hyper-rich, while Trump is with middle-class NYPD rank-and-file at a rainy wake for a murdered cop—k**led by a repeat felon released without bail.
Or Trump buying fast food and milkshakes amid a mostly black Atlanta Chick-fil-A crowd, while Biden dines with the venomous Robert De Niro and the zillionaire Jeff Bezos at a White House dinner, with the celebrities’ trophy girls vying to get the most stares at their multi-thousand-dollar designer clothes—as if they were on the red carpet at the Oscars rather than in the people’s house.
What can Trump do to make the best use of all this? He must magnanimously reach out to former rivals such as Haley, even as she continues to demonize him, and to DeSantis as well. He must unite the House Republicans to keep their razor-thin majority at all costs. He must campaign nonstop among poor w****s, b****s, and Latinos, appealing to shared class concerns rather than the racial obsessions and psychodramas of the bicoastal elite.
He should skip the ad hominem invective, forget the past rivalries with his primary opponents, and assume a corrupt media does not deserve a minute of his time. If he does this, he can win.
But if he climbs down into the mud with his l*****t opponents, trades insults, wrestles with his opponents, and obsesses about f**e news and the crooked media, he will likely lose.
Aside from Trump’s temperament, we must always remember that the answers to two other fundamental questions will determine the outcome of the e******n:
Can the Republicans monitor the b****ting and return it to the environment of 2016 rather than 2020? Can Trump convince millions of minorities, independents, and former Biden v**ers that there are plenty of reasons to v**e for someone they may not like—including the very future of the United States as a free republic as envisioned by the Founders, rather than an increasingly weak, anemic, cranky socialist has-been?
Finally, we must also remember that, ultimately, the outcome of the e******n could be determined by unpredictable events. What happens if the Gaza War expands to Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, as Israel is attacked from all directions? Or the military of the United States is attacked in the Middle East, as in the past?
What will be the status of Ukraine by November—static, safer, or absorbed by Russia—and who will be praised or blamed for what ensues?
Will China risk attacking or blockading Taiwan on the theory that it will never be gifted a more ossified president than Biden?
Will the left unleash another late-season October surprise like the 2016 Access Hollywood tape or the 2020 “Russian disinformation” laptop farce? And will these desperate gambits resonate or boomerang?
And, lastly, will the candidates in October and November resemble the candidates of today? These are the two oldest candidates ever to run for president. Will Trump still be vibrant at 78? Will Biden still be upright at 81?
Will Biden’s feebleness still earn him sympathy, or at least respectful silence? Or will it devolve to the point that the public, worn out by his lapses, concludes that Joe Biden would not be able to keep any job in America—except the Presidency of the United States?
Additional Notes
Liechtenstein30 years (5 years if married, each year counts for two if under age 20)
Must renounce citizenship in any other country.
United Arab Emirates30 years (3 years for citizens of Oman, Qatar, or Bahrain, 7 years for other Arabic peoples).
San Marino30 years
Citizenship is granted after 30 years of uninterrupted residence. Applicants must renounce their pre...
View MoreQatar25 years, having never left for longer than two months
Must have valuable sk**l. Still will not have full rights once naturalized.
Kuwait20 years (15 for male spouses and certain nationalities)
Must speak Arabic and must have been Muslim for 5 years minimum.
Bhutan20 years (15 for government workers)
Must swear oath of allegiance to king, country, and people. Citizenship can be revoked for criticizi...
View MoreSwitzerland10 years (5 if from Canada, U.S., or E.U. or EFTA country)
Must have difficult-to-obtain permit to stay in country for required time; must demonstrate devotion...
View MoreAustria10 years
Must have in-demand or top-notch professional sk**ls; must learn German, assimilate w/ Austrian cult...
View MoreMonaco10 years
Potential citizens are expected to renounce any foreign nationality and be free from foreign nationa...
View MoreGermany8 years (7 for some)
Must learn German, have gainful employment, and show knowledge of German society.
United States5 years
Must pass increasingly stringent eligibility requirements, must pass English language and U.S. histo...
View MoreJapan5 years
Must undergo years-long screening and interview process, renounce other citizenships
South Korea5 years
Must learn Korean and renounce other citizenships. Males aged 18-35 must serve 18 months in military...
View MoreFinland4-5 years
Foreigners can apply for citizenship after 4 or 5 years of permanent residence. Individuals who have...
View MoreChinaUnclear. Requirement exists but is poorly defined.
Can naturalize if relatives are citizens living in China. Process is arduous and challenging.
Saudi Arabianot applicable
Must be spouse of Saudi citizen.
Vatican Citynot applicable
Must be working for the Catholic Church in some capacity or meet extremely narrow requirements. Citi...
8 of the countries where it's hardest to become a citizen
Becoming a citizen in some countries is as easy as living there for a few years, but in others, it's nearly impossible.
In Qatar, you would have to be a legal resident for 25 years to be able to apply for citizenship, and if you're not a Muslim, you shouldn't even bother.
Here are eight of the countries where it's most difficult to become a citizen.
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NEW LOOK
It seems like US citizenship and immigration restrictions have dominated the news since the 2016 p**********l e******n. It turns out that there are a number of other countries where becoming a citizen is quite difficult. Aside from ancestry and extended residency, one shortcut to foreign citizenship is being a top-level athlete. Some countries will give citizenship to athletes who will improve their chances of Olympic victory. If you aren't a world-class pole vaulter, then you may face a long and, in some cases, nearly impossible road to gaining citizenship in countries like Switzerland, China, and Qatar.
Here are eight of the countries where it's most difficult to become a citizen.
1. Vatican City
With about 800 residents and 450 citizens, Vatican City is the smallest country on Earth, perhaps partially because it has one of the toughest immigration policies on the planet. According to the Library of Congress, you can become a citizen if you are a cardinal living in Vatican City or Rome, if you are a diplomat representing the Holy See, or if you live in Vatican City because you are an official of or worker for the Catholic Church
2. Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein, a tiny, mountainous country between Austria and Switzerland, has a population of just under 40,000 — and the country's immigration policy appears to aim to keep it small. If you want to become a citizen, you need to live in Liechtenstein for at least 30 years, with each year before you turn 20 counting as two years. If you're married to a Liechtenstein citizen and already live in the country, that time period is shortened to five years of marriage. If you want a shortcut from the 30-year residency requirement, you can ask your community to v**e you in after 10 years.
Regardless of method, you'll have to give up your current citizenship.
3. Bhutan
The Himalayan nation of Bhutan is known for measuring its success by its National Happiness Index rather than GDP. It is one of the most isolated countries in the world. The country didn't open to tourism until 1974 and continues to regulate and monitor travel to the country closely, so you can imagine that the immigration process is not easy. It takes two Bhutanese parents to be born a citizen, and if you only have one, you have to apply for naturalized citizenship after you have lived in Bhutan for 15 years. The 15-year requirement also applies to government employees. Those with non-Bhutanese parents who don't work for the government may apply after living in the country for 20 years, as long as you meet a list of requirements, including no record of speaking or acting against the king or country. If you do that in the future, your citizenship can be rescinded.
Even if you meet the requirements, Bhutan reserves the right to reject you for any or no reason.
4. Qatar
If your father is not Qatari, then neither are you, even if your mother is, according to Doha News. If you have been a legal resident of Qatar for 25 years without leaving the country for more than two consecutive months (among other requirements), you can apply for citizenship. The Doha News reported that Qatar only naturalizes about 50 foreigners a year. Additionally, naturalized citizens are not treated the same way under the law as citizens born in Qatar, likely because the country provides very generous government benefits that would be costly to extend to all citizens.
5. United Arab Emirates
The UAE, home to the sparkling city of Dubai, will let you apply to be a citizen if you have legally resided in the Emirates for 30 years, according to the CIA. Federal Law No. 17 states that if you are an Arab citizen from Oman, Qatar, or Bahrain, you can apply for naturalization after three years of residency. Arabs from other countries are eligible after seven years of residence in the UAE. Descendants of Emirate parents are eligible for citizenship if they were born of known or unknown parents within the state. Currently, women with UAE citizenship married to foreign men cannot pass it to their children, according to a UN report. A 2011 decree allows those children to apply for citizenship when they reach age 18.
6. Kuwait
According to the Nationality Law of 1999, after living in Kuwait for 20 years (15 for citizens of other Arab countries), you can apply to be granted Kuwaiti citizenship, but only if you are Muslim by birth or conversion. If you converted, you must have been practicing for five years. You must also speak Arabic fluently. The Nationality Law also states that the wife of a Kuwaiti man can ask to become a citizen after being married for 15 years.
7. Switzerland
According to a new law that went into effect in January 2018, to make a home in the snowy Alps of Switzerland, you must have lived in the country for 10 years and have a working permit called a C permit.
The C permit, which allows you to live and work in the country, requires five years of continuous residence in Switzerland for EU nationals, people from European Free Trade Association countries, US citizens, and Canadian citizens. Everyone else has to be there for 10 years before they are eligible.
8. China
The Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China allows foreigners to try become naturalized citizens if they have relatives who are Chinese citizens, have settled in China, or "have other legitimate reasons." If you don't have a relative who's a Chinese citizen and lives in China, your chances of becoming a Chinese citizen are slim. According to the CIA, while naturalization is possible, it is extremely difficult. Long-term residency is required but not specified.