Monday, December 15, 2025
Trump has attacked the Houthis, Iran, and is assembling an armada against Venezuela as we speak, but fantasy world dweller Scott Greer says the future of the GOP isn't about foreign policy
The Old Guard Is Not the Right’s Future
... Republicans are less likely now to back NATO and other international commitments. Republicans are not as greatly concerned with foreign affairs as think tankers are. It was ranked near the bottom of issues that 2024 voters cared about. ... Obsessing over fiscal policy, advocating for more foreign interventions, and being willing to capitulate on immigration is not a winning formula either in the GOP primaries or for a general electorate. ... [David] French, unlike other Never Trumpers, has given up on the GOP entirely. He thinks it’s Trump’s party now and for the foreseeable future.
He’s obviously right. Only an America First candidate, not a Paul Ryan type, can hold the coalition together. ...
The
alt-right fringe is now acceptable at The American Conservative, and in
the line-up at Real Clear Politics, all of which have become completely
incoherent, including on the primacy of fiscal policy, which is the
cause of, and the solution to, all the ills now afflicting the young
people Greer would speak for.
Reagan authored those ills, and Trump has
double-downed on them.
This is just awful
Rob Reiner, wife dead in homicide at Brentwood home; police interview family member
... A source who was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation but had knowledge of the investigation confirmed that there was no sign of forced entry into the home. The source also said that the Reiners had injuries consistent with being stabbed.
The sources said that some time after the attack, one of the couple’s children found them and law enforcement was called. ...
You just knew this would be the response in Australia
Australia to tighten gun laws after Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre
The Muslim father and son alleged shooters reportedly owned six firearms legally under the already severely restricted laws since 1996 which have reduced firearm ownership in Australia to 25% of households.
The shooters' rampage went on for many minutes before police arrived to engage and stop them, in widely shared video on the site formerly known as Twitter.
AI says about 813k Muslims live in Australia, where over four million legal, registered firearms are owned by civilians in the country of 27.5 million.
... The incident has raised questions whether Australia’s gun laws, among the toughest in the world, need overhaul, with police saying the older suspect had held a firearms license since 2015, along with six registered weapons. ...
Two flags of militant group Islamic State were found in the gunmen’s vehicle, ABC News said, without citing a source. ...
Jews number about 150,000 of Australia’s population of 27 million, with about a third estimated to live in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, including Bondi.
Sunday, December 14, 2025
The United States and Russia are already obligated to respect Ukraine's sovereignty under the Budapest Memorandum and they're not doing it, so executing another piece of paper without NATO membership will be meaningless
The US under Trump is demanding pieces of Ukraine's economy, and Russia has already taken pieces of its land.
This whole business is a dirty joke, rewarding Russia for its aggression and turning a blind eye to its myriad war crimes.
... “From the very beginning, Ukraine’s desire was to join NATO, these are real security guarantees. Some partners from the US and Europe did not support this direction,” he said in answer to questions from reporters in a WhatsApp chat.
“Thus, today, bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the US, Article 5-like guarantees for us from the US, and security guarantees from European colleagues, as well as other countries — Canada, Japan — are an opportunity to prevent another Russian invasion,” Zelenskyy said.
“And it is already a compromise from our part,” he said, adding that the security guarantees should be legally binding. ...
Saturday, December 13, 2025
My God, The American Conservative is a joke of a magazine
The NSS Is the Strategy We Have Waited For
... The NSS finally says out loud what many of us have argued quietly: proximity shapes power. If the United States wants to compete with China—economically, technologically, militarily—it must simultaneously secure the space in which its own republic exists. A great power does not project strength globally while hemorrhaging authority regionally. China seems to get this instinctively. It does not confront nuclear competitors while tolerating cartel rule on its own doorstep. ...
China is the principal global source for the world's fentanyl and methamphetamine precursors which fuel the cartels in Mexico and in China's own backyard in Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand, which also supply China with its own heroin and opium.
Illegal drugs are a key weapon China deploys against the West, but Trump's new, awful, stupid National Security Strategy couldn't care less.
And Trump is about to prove it again next week when he reclassifies gateway drug marijuana as Schedule III instead of Schedule I.
Friday, December 12, 2025
Trump's FY2026 deficit through November is $457 billion but he thinks he has tariff revenue to play around with to bailout the farmers his own tariffs screwed
The National Debt these deficits increase stands at $38.35 trillion.
And people accuse Wall Street of short-term thinking.
More executive overreach from Trump on AI regulation after Congress balked
Republicans in Congress knew that they would be blamed in Blue states and lose even bigger next November.
Expect this executive overreach to be challenged in court.
... A proposed 10-year ban on states regulating AI was initially included in the Republican spending bill but was cut out before Trump signed it in July. ...
This was a plausible excuse for the latest Fed rate cut
But what it really does is get the meddlesome Trump off their backs, whether jobs are flagging or not. Jobless claims have averaged a very, very low sub-227k in 2025.
Meanwhile Powell & Co. did an end-run around Trump by confirming all the regional bank presidents two months early, before Trump could meddle with that, too, which was a fear.
Which is very amusing.
Long term yields have not believed in the rate cuts.
They have risen, risen indeed!, since the Fed started cutting in the face of persistent inflation in September 2024, and remain higher today.
You can run, but you can't hide from the Hound of Heaven.
Thursday, December 11, 2025
It is obvious to everyone except Republicans that the Reagan Revolution of tax cuts for the rich has failed to produce the economic growth America was accustomed to before he became president
We had a few dozen billionaires in the Reagan era. Now we have hundreds.
Growth of GDP, percent change, annual, rolled over after 1984, inaugurating a new period of lower trendline growth in the economy.
You're not wrong to feel poorer.
Just look at the trend lines for the data in this chart from before 1984 and after 1984. The change is glaring. The money which used to go into the economy to grow it has gone straight into the pockets of the rich.
Meanwhile Trump had one year in 2018 at 5.32% and he thinks he's God's gift to humanity, when Bush 43 did better in 2004-2006 at 6.64, 6.72, and 5.95.
Doddering old Joe Biden comes along and averages 8.22 for four years and what do Democrats do but throw him under the bus.
It's enough to make you scream.
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
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