A follow on from the story of Democrat hypocrisy over illegal immigration I posted yesterday. Here is a list of Democrats Lawfare against Trump:
🚨Peak Obama hypocrisy just hit different.🚨
Watching Barack Obama lecture President Trump about the “dangers” of weaponizing the DOJ against political opponents — with ZERO remorse for what his own side did — proves exactly what a colossal hypocrite he is.
Here’s the actual record of lawfare they unleashed on Trump and Republicans:
Obama laid the foundation:
• Crossfire Hurricane: FBI launched a full counterintelligence op on the Trump campaign using the fake Steele dossier (Clinton-funded dirt). FISA abuse on Carter Page, spies in the campaign, illegal unmaskings. Obama was briefed.
• IRS scandal: Conservative and Tea Party groups systematically targeted, harassed, and delayed for years while liberal ones got fast-tracked. Lois Lerner and the rest weaponized the tax code.
Biden turned it into all-out war:
• Four bogus indictments designed to bankrupt, gag, and jail Trump during the campaign — Manhattan hush-money zombie case, Georgia RICO election nonsense, Jack Smith’s two federal cases.
• Coordinated raids, leaks, gag orders, and endless lawfare from DOJ, local Democrat prosecutors, and the White House.
• Hunter Biden sweetheart treatment while Trump world got the full Gestapo.
They tried to remove him from ballots, brand him a “convicted felon,” bankrupt him, and lock him up — all to rig the election. Then Obama has the nerve to lecture about “democracy” and “norms”?
No apology. No sympathy for the victims. Just more gaslighting.
This is why trust in institutions collapsed. Americans watched the Russia hoax, IRS abuse, two impeachments, and lawfare circus in real time — and they rejected it.
Trump survived it all and won anyway. The American people saw through the weaponization of justice.
Share this far and wide. The hypocrisy needs to be called out every single time. No more pretending. 🇺🇸
Ro Khanna really is a bit of a dimwit. At max a midwit.
Just after the fourth time the Dems, urged on by Ro, Dem representative for California district 17, failed in their attempt to stop Donald Trump prosecuting the war in Iran, our man Ro somehow got onto the dreary topic of Joe Biden. Said Ro “Joe Biden was a great statesman”.
Really? I thought. What comes to mind. Let’s put aside the 125 years he spent in the senate before he finally crawled into the presidency and relaxed.
Let’s concentrate on his alleged “great statesmanship” during his presidency.
What do I recall? Just going on memory. No AI.
Afghanistan: the pull out, a disaster, according even to the mainstream media.
Russia: To threats of invation of Ukraine, by Putin, Joe says: "Don't". But also, afterthought: "if you only take a bit of it, I won't do anything ". So that's what Putin does. Takes a bit; aiming at it all.
Iran: Deliver $15 Billion in cash to the tyrannical theocrats. On pallets, that's eight 737 jets full of cash money. Which gets given to terrorists in Gaza, in Southern Lebanon, in Yemen. And around the world. And is stolen by their leaders, who become billionaires themselves living in Qatar. Well done, Joe.
NATO: plays soft. Makes European NATO feel softy and squishy. Happy that they're going to be looked after, defence-wise, by Ameica, so they can go on funding their comfortable welfare states.
All that? That's "great statesmanship"? Pull the other one, Ro.
1. No one rioted about prior administrations' deportations.
2. Hundreds of thousands of the illegal immigrants arrested by ICE have criminal convictions in the US (74% of the public supports deporting them).
3. None of this would be necessary if the border hadn't been wide open. (See below).
Regardless of how you feel about ICE, you can logically admit that this is a masterclass in propaganda The legacy media has focused entirely on ICE, rather than four years of a totally open border; or on the insanity of "Sanctuary" policies in Blue administrations. Which strike me as being against the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, though that discussion is for another day.
**************
Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama... All of them thought that illegal immigrants should be deported. Obama was known -- fondly! -- as the "Deporter-in-Chief":
These are direct quotes. Taken from confirmed videos of each of these saying these things, repeatedly over the years
All of the fuss and drama and injuries and deaths, happening mainly in Minnesota, but increasingly in other Blue States, are the direct result of Joe Biden letting in millions of immigrants, undocumented (aka: "Illegal"), without any vetting of who they were, where they were from, what sort of criminal history they had.
Shame on Biden and his enabler-in-chief, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who, by the way, consistently lied about the huge numbers swarming over the border.
Just look at that chart! What Biden did, while all the time denying it...
And shame today on the citizens of Blue cities -- principal among them Minneapolis -- making ICE the Bad Guys. Harrassing them. Attacking them. Spitting on them. Calling them the gestapo. They are the ones causing chaos; not Trump who is merely trying to carry out a promise he made consistently on the campaign trail. They are the ones that are getting people killed by interfering with lawful activities of law enforcement officers.
One could argue, either Dem or Rep, along the lines of "we agree that there should be deporations, but not like this!". They don't like the look of the ways it's being done. But that's only that way in the cities that are resisting ICE activities. In the Red States, where there no "Sancturies", the process is safe and straight forward. It's only because these Blue "Sanctuaries" are resisting every action of ICE that we have the troubles. Which the Left then labels as "chaos". It's only chaos because of them!
ICE are just trying to carry out lawful activity. An activity that Democrats in the past were keen to do. Democrates are OG Hypocrites.
Crime rates amongst Illegals is at about twice the rate of US citizens:
Illegals or "Undocumented" immigrants in the United States are about 3% of the population, but commit about 6% of the violent crimes.
This puts paid to the Democrat talking point that "undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes than ordinary Americans". First: not true. Second: even if it were, so what? They are crimes that would not have been committed had they not been in the country illegally in the first place.
Brandon Lehman is a smart young YouTuber who I’ve followed for years. He usually has knowledgeable take on world affairs, from a conservative perspective.
You want the Left perspective, go to any of the legacy media, CNN, MSNBC, BBC…
In the vid above Brandon reckons the Dems are going to lose Hispanic support for refusing to recognise that Venezuelans themselves, in Venezuela, in the United States, around the world are ecstatic that Maduro the dictator has been arrested. They “praise the Lord” and thank the United States… and even Donald Trump.
While they are lectured and hectored by white inner-city wokesters on how wrong they are. Let’s see how that plays out in the elections.
Notes:
Most countries did NOT recognise Nicolas Maduro’s 2024 election.* At the time every Democrat denounced him and his grab of power.
Most countries recognised the opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzales. The Biden administration even set a bounty of $25 million (later $50 million) on his head. A bounty means a guy is presumed criminal, not a legitimate president. A legitimate target for bounty hunters; in this case the US Armed forces.
Brandon features Dem Senator Chris Van Hollen in full-blown hypocrisy mode. Condemning Maduro when Biden was in power, slamming Trump when he does something about Maduro.
The rest of the Dems I’ve seen quoted since the capture and arrest of Maduro, are venting their hypocrisy in exactly the same way. Amazing. I mean the shamelessness of it!
Meantime: What’s happening to the “Rules Based Order?” by Carl Benjamin. Carl mentions that the Venezuela economy has fallen 80% since Maduro came to power in 2015. That’s EIGHTY! Percent! I Fact checked that and it’s correct, according to the IMF, the World Bank and Council on Foreign Relations.
Since Maduro, 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country, for safety and money reasons.That’s the largest single emigration from any single country, ever.
And this is the man we now see Democrats in the United States marching on the streets in support!? A man they reviled less than two years ago!?
=======================
* Countries that did recognise Maduro. The Usual Suspects, the “dodgy disreputables”:
- Russia
- China
- Iran
- Cuba
- Nicaragua
- Bolivia
- Honduras
- North Korea
And these are the ones that Dems want to hitch their wagon to?!
Well... not quite. But surprising numbers and names on the Left are saying nice things about president Donald J. Trump, post the Gaza Peace Deal.
Hillary Clinton: Wow! Surely numero uno. This is the woman that Trump destroyed. He absolutely ruined her life. She's beein in tatters since 2016. She's not said a single nice thing about Trump since 2016. Until now. When she praised him for the deal.
Abby Phillip,Anderson Cooper, James Longman, Wolf Blitzer and some others on CNN. Saying nice things about the Gaza Peace Deal. The first nice thing said about Trump by these people who otherwise have deep TDS.
Bill Maher host of HBO's Real Time and his own podcast, where he agrees with his guest, actor William H. Macy that "you've got to recognise success". (Here, at 9:50)
Charlamagne Tha God: host of the lefty "Breakfast Club", big Biden fan. Praises Trump.
Stephen A. Smith: a left-wing mostly sports commentator, clearly not a fan of Trump, but gives him props for the Deal.
Sam Harris: there's a surprise. Sam had a long talk early on after the 2016 Trump win with Scott Adams, that showed just how deep his TDS was. He told the guys on Triggernometry that he didn't care if Hunter Biden had corpses of young children in his basement, he'd still vote for Joe Biden. Now he admits that it was "only Trump" that could have got this Peace Deal over the line. And certainly not Kamala Harris.
Chuck Rocha Senior Adviser to Bernie Sanders, admiring Trump's answer on Heaven, on Air Force One.
By contrast, Barack Obama is roasted, including by his own side, by luminaries like Abby Phillip for posting on X some banalities about the Gaza Peace Deal, without mentioning Trump even in passing.
"On the Stoop" channel, from the delightfully named Larone Koonce. Who I've never heard of before today.
He strikes me as a thoughtful man, careful in speech and fair with his comments.
I learn that he's a "happily retired Corrections Officer". A retired prison guard. He wrote a book aimed at helping new CO's manage their jobs better. I can't imagine being a CO. But we need prisons, so we need prison guards. Better to have them be good at their jobs, to be decent human beings for themselves and for the prisoners.
I'm sure that most -- not all, but most -- of my friends and relatives, here and around the world, are anti-Trump. They probably see me as the "crazy daddy", the "crazy uncle" who lives in Hong Kong and has gone loop-the-loop bananas.
Because I prefer a Quixotic Donald Trump to a Cackling Kamala Harris. Because I'd vote for a provenly competent Trump (viz: T45) to a manifestly incompetent Kamala (viz: her CA record and her campaign).
So I have the same issue Larone has in the vid above. How do deal with your dear ones who have Trump Derangement Syndrome?
The way I play it is pretty much to say nothing. Which is how a lot of the commenters at "On the Stoop" play it too.
Larone says he plays it different ways depending on the person. With some, he just ignores the issue. With others, he might touch lightly on it, if raised. And with others he goes "all-in". Which is also a good approach.
It's also true that: "you can't use logic to talk someone out of position they reached without logic". Which, tbf, is how many got to their TDS states in the first place. By their feelings. Not liking the man and his rude tweets, for example. By believing every ipse dixit claim that he's a "racist" (he's not), or a rapist (he's not), or a felon (which is one of those things that's factually correct, but not true... ).
In my own case, I'm far from a "Always Trumper". But I'm not a "Never Trumper" and most certainly no TDS.
In 2016, had I had the vote in America, I would have voted for Hillary. May god forgive me. But by the time of the 2024 elections, it was a no contest. I'd seen Kamala Harris for some years. It was clear to me that as a prosecutor in California she was ineffective. As an Attorney General for the whole state, she left it in worse shape than she found it. As Vice President, she caused no harm because she did nothing. Sent by Biden to deal with the border, she sat on her hands. Asked about it on CNN, she admitted she'd not even been to the border and countered with ".. and I haven't been to Europe either". Huh?
Her book is "107 days", the length of her campaign. The suggestion is that had her campaign been longer, she'd have done better. The opposite is the case. The more we saw of her, the more we were turned off.
As long as all we saw of her was rushing the Veep jet to the Veep limo, ear glued to her iPhone, rushing from Veep limo to her next scripted event, ear still glued to her phone, as long as that was all we saw, then all was well. Sort of. But as soon as she was in front of the cameras, she fell apart. Or served us her infamous "Word Salads". Remember her disastrous interviews with CNN, together with her companion dog, Tampon Tim. Or her disastrous 60 Minutes appearance. Where they had to massage her response so much it was successfully litigated by Trump. Or her time on The View, where she couldn't even handle Sonny Hostin's softball question "what would you do differently", and Kamala answered "Ahhh.... Nothing". An appearance so disastrous it pretty much sank her candidacy on the spot.
Meantime, remember Trump. Going on all shows, Left or Right, answering all questions, talking to podcasters for hours at a time, going into hostile town hall events, tearing up the hustings. The man was everywhere all at once, everywhere giving the same message, one the people clearly liked.
I'll summarise Trump's campaign message as A,B,C,D,E:
A is for America First. Not a "fascist dog whistle" as the Dems claimed, but a slogan first used by the Democratic president Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Meaning no starting wars and no boots on the ground. Which after Vietnam, Iraq, and so on, you'd think most people would be signed onto.
B is for Border. As in Border security. Which Trump achieved in lightening record time. There are now the fewest illegal crossings on the southern border in American history.
C is for Crime. As in needs control. Which we see now playing out on the strets of DC.
D is for Deportations. Which is happening and has the support of 70-80% of the American public, whatever the legal injunctions the Dems keep throwing up, via their "Lawfare V 2.0".
E is for the Economy, which is a strong focus. As it was in Trump 45. Tariffs are controversial, but their ultimate effect is still to be played out. E is also for Energy, as in take steps to make sure that Americans and American industry has the cheapest energy in the world.
Stack that clear message up against the Kamala message. Which was ... what, exactly? "Joy"?? "Brat"?? Vote for me coz Opera likes me? Vote for me coz George Clooney likes me? Hells Bells, vote for me coz the Whole of Hollywood goes gooey over me? Or... vote for me coz I demand government-funded trans operations to any imprisoned illegal immigrants who want it? Coz I want the US to play weak and feckless on the international stage? Coz I plan to keep allowing in millions of unvetted illegals to enter the country?
Those messages? I mean, just stack one up against the other. It's common sense vs..... I dunno, hopes and wishes and fairy tales. "You too can vote like your Hollywood Heros and Honeys".
In the end, come November 2024, I thought the choice between a Trump who we knew from 2016, and who'd been pretty good the first time around, and a Kamala who was feckless and unconvincing, was pretty easy. Trump all the way. But of course, not so for all those with TDS.
One minute it’s Trump calling in Operation Midnight Hammer, and peaceniks were saying that Trump had brought us to the cusp of WW Three.
Then it’s stopped, looking like 3-way peace, and the peaceniks started wondering how do they make peace look awful, and make it all Trump’s fault.
Like try to impeach him. A silly pursuit. Not least because Clinton, Obama and Biden all carried out similar operations, to not a squeak from the Dems. On the Dems side, it's only ever wrong if the Republicans do it.
Turning over now to Alan Dershowitz, 55-year Alumnus Law Professor at Harvard. Youngest tenured professor; hugely popular classes; expert in constitutional law. A life-time Democrat, but non-partisan about The Law.
He has a take on the Ceasefire. Ceasefire being a thing I don't like. Because of Gaza. Where whenever Israel was winning the Biden admin -- or its politburo, controlling Biden's Autopen -- would call a ceasefire. Which allowed Hamas to regroup.
And now we have the same in Iran. Where the Ceasefire may be best for Iran, allowing them to regroup.
What got me going was this clip from the ex Obama boys at Pod Save America, one of the most leftie of left wing podcasts.
Look at the bit I've highlighted in red. I gasped. Imagine being so in a bubble that you actually believe you're the party of "truth, facts and science, while the Republicans are the party of spin, lies and authoritarian delusion". Imagine!
I mean, this is the party that dreamed up the Steele Dossier, Crossfire Hurricane and the whole Russia Collusion thing, which their own man, Robert Mueller comprehensively debunked.... but which they nonetheless still cling on to. Russia delusion.
This was the party that believed that Donald Trump had said Nazis were "fine people", when he said the exact opposite: ".... I'm not referring to Neo-nazis and white supremacists, who must be condemned absolutely", he said in Charlottesville. Yet Joe Biden told us that that was the reason he entered the race for the presidency. On the basis of a lie.
This was the party that spun and lied about the Hunter Biden laptop and decided to believe -- whether or not they did -- that 51 intelligence officials had said it was "Russian disinformation", when we know and knew then that the laptop was real and had disturbing info about Hunter and his dad's dodgy dealings with dodgy governments.
That's the party that claims the moral high ground? Somehow I'd assumed that behind closed doors they knew something, at least, about the facts. The truth. But no, apparently. They were the ones in a delusion.
The Democrats used to believe in controlling immigration. You have to secure the borders. You need to vet who's coming into the country. Because if you don't you harm the interests of our working class.
The Dems had empathy for their own citizens. The ones who would be most impacted by unrestrained, uncontrolled, immigration. That was their virtue signal. Then.
And it was right. Any country is right to have more empathy for its own people. Especially if the ones you have empathy for are the poorest in your society.
Then things changed. I'm not sure when.
But for sure, by the time Joe Biden was in the White House, the Democrats -- not necessarily Joe himself, who was suffering from brain meltdown, as we on the Right knew all along, but now even the Democrats know from books like "Original Sin" -- had decided that they really, really, wanted Open Borders.
All while the legacy media paid no attention. So the only people that knew about it were on the Right.
The question is: why did they do this? Why did they abandon their policy of controlling immigration, a policy that luminaries like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had followed?
I've come down to three answers:
1. The Indentured Servants reason.
2. The John Lennon "Imagine" reason.
3. The Make America California reason.
The "indentured servants" reason is this: that we need our illegal immigrants (aka "undocumented migrants") to come mow our lawns. To trim our hedges. To serve our tequilas. To cater our cocktail parties.
There's a thing called "they said the quiet part out loud". And boy was that the case with Bishop Miiam Edgar Budde, who spoke at Trump's inauguration. She told herself she was going to Speak Truth to Power, I guess. But in reality gave us the best example of “saying the quiet part out loud”.
. "Who's going to pick our crops", she asked the new president, who sat glowering in his seat. "Who will clean our offices?". "Who will labour in our poultry farms, and our meat packing plants?". "Who will wash our dishes and pick our blueberries?". Who will do the nightshifts at our hospitals?". Yes, she said all that! The noble pastor, this woman of God. All apart from: Who gonna pick our cotton?
The answer to these questions is: resident working class Americans will do the jobs if we just pay them well enough. That is, increase their real wages, which have been flat for decades. And which used to be an aim of the Democrats before they decided to shift their empathy from fellow citizens to illegal non-citizens.
The John Lennon “Imagine” reason comes down to the line “imagine there’s no borders… it’s very easy to do”. There’s a whole lotta people out there who genuinely believe the world would be a better place with no borders. OK. Then fight an election over it! You’d be up against the 80% of people — around the western world — who don’t agree with you. What you can’t do -- at least, what you shouldn't do --is pretend you’re for national borders, as Biden did in the campaign — and then have the radical open-borders wing of the administration, the Bernie’s, the Ilhan Omar’s, hijack the policy and promptly open the borders.
The making America into California reason. This is the Democrats' idea that bringing in vast numbers of illegal immigrants will strengthen their electoral base. The ultimate aim being “Californication” of America. A state, a country, so Blue, so Democrat that Republicans can’t ever win again. A One Party State. We then have a monopoly of the Left.
How do we know this is one of the Democrats’ aims? Because they tell us, again and again. Democrat luminaries like Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, AOC, Ayanna Pressley… all tell us. Gleefully so, when the border is wide open, as it was during the whole of the Biden administration.
Anyway, that’s my summary. Any others you think of, let me know.
Happens that 80% of folks are against open borders and unchecked illegal immigration. Folks want a secure border, as Dems used to stand for. But elites today don’t care. For they are, they see themselves, as Thomas Sowell has pointed out, as “The Anointed”.
"I respect the hell out of that woman", says Stephen A. Smith, talking of Megyn Kelly giving it hard to Jake Tapper, over his book "Original Sin", which covers the declining mental cognitive abilities of Joe Biden.
"She does not play. She does not pull punches".
"She lives and dies by the facts". He says. True 'dat. If you want to know what's going on in the pol sphere, and you only have one choice, that's gotta be MK.
George Clooney. What a cool guy. Aging so well. I've loved him in so many films, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, The Three Kings, Ocean's Twelve. Mr Suave and Mr composed. A wonderful, natural actor. And cool. Did I say he's cool?
But a shocking politician. A shocking would-be journalist. Give it a break Georgie!
The only thing he's been good at there is hypocrisy and duplicity. I remember everything of that night when Joe Biden had to be led off the stage by Barack Obama that Ben and Megyn talk about above. And the rest is history.
This 60-Minutes gig is Georgie trying to rewrite history. He'd be better off just staying cool.
Megyn Kelly and Ben Shapiro tell it like it is. Like it or not. Love George or not.
====================
ADDED: Georgie mentions "Profiles in Cowardice", and he as a man "brought up to always tell the truth". Unlike the rest of his cult in the Dem party who were clearly cowards.
What Georgie is subtly (or not) referring to here is the famous book by president Kennedy, "Profiles in Courage", which I read when I was a kid, in the 1960s, just after we'd arrived in New York. It's a real page-turner. No, I mean it! It's good. At least as I recall it. A tale of JFK's dramatic times in the Pacific war, fighting the Japanese in small gunboats. A war in which my father also fought the Japanese, in his case on the Kokoda Trail in New Guinea (a whole 'nother story).
So, I guess what Georgie is kind of trying to get in people's minds here is that he's the John F. Kennedy figure in all this. He's the courageous one; he's the hero in the whole dog's-breakfast mess of the Biden debate meltdown and shoehorning Kackling Kamala in as the replacement. Georgie was a prime player in that! But... according to his narrative, according to Georgie's tale, it's the rest of the Democratic party who are the Cowards.
I'm sorry Georgie. You were balls-deep in the cowardice; you were balls deep in that steaming cow-pat of hypocrisy. You were balls-deep in it all.
Laura Ingraham is a lawyer herself, of some note. Eg, she clerked for Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court.
Hers is a conservative take. For a liberal take, head over to CNN, MSNBC, ABC… or indeed pretty much any of legacy media. 90% anti-Trump stories. So there's plenty. Just not so much on the Other Side.
Above a good analysis of Lawfare 2.0. The first version being that during the campaign, when the courts were weaponised to try to take Trump off the ballot. When that didn’t work, they went all-in with novel charges against Trump, charges stretched beyond credulity, but aimed to put Trump behind bars for, like, 300 years.
And now we have a blizzard of injunctions against all of Trump’s agenda. To try to drag it out to the mid terms so that they can then claim “chaos” and “look how little he did”. Biden did have a few injunctions against him. But most he simply ignored — like the one to stop the forgiving of student debt, a regressive policy. Biden simply ignored the injunctions and even the subsequent SCOTUS decision against it. IOW, double standards, much?
It will all end up in the Supreme Court. Until that happens all the kerfuffle right now is argument, not “constitutional crisis”.
Note, by the way, that Trump EOs always say —all the ones I’ve read, anyway — “to the extent permitted by law”, and the administration is following every injunction, no matter how inane. So the whole thing of “unlawful” Trump is nonsense. Which we’ve heard from every senior Dem, every single one. Chuck Schumer, AOC, Bernie Sanders, Ayanna Pressley, Jasmine Crockett, Ilhan Omar....
Many of these last-mentioned above are going much further than “Robed Resistance”. They're calling for harm on Elon Musk and now Ted Cruz. They're preaching violence. The atmosphere is febrile. I’ve not seen it like this, ever. No, not even during the anti-Vietnam war days. Not even then by a long way.
This is hyper split, hyper divided, hyper manic, hysterical, hypocritical, threatening, violent.
Which means "to deliberately mislead or mischaracterise a video to show a false picture". Comes from Aaron Rupar, the leftie Vox reporter, famous for putting out the video of Trump saying "There are fine people on both sides", after the Charlottesville troubles back around 2018.
Trump was talking about people on "both sides" of the debate over whether some famous statues of Confederate Generals should be removed from a local park, or let stay in place. He was not talking about the neo-Nazis who were marching that same weekend. Indeed he specifically said "I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and White Supremacists, who should be condemned totally".
But Rupar put out a video in which he cut out Trump's clarification (underlined above), making it seem that Trump was in fact talking about the neo-Nazis. So that it came out just as "there are fine people on both sides", one of those sides being the neo-Nazis.
This was very damaging to Trump for years. Biden said that it was for that "very fine people" statement that he went into the presidential race in the first place.
"Rupar" became a word for this sort of deceptive editing of videos.
And now we have another case of Ruparing.
In the wake of the February 28th Trump-Zelensky meeting in the White House, most channels put out only the final few minutes of the talk. Which made it look like Trump and Vance had bushwacked Zelensky. I was caught up in the Rupar myself.
But if you watch the whole video, which is about 50 minutes long, it's a very, very different picture. For the first 40+ minutes the talks in the Oval Office are friendly and cordial. Then it becomes clear that it was Zelensky who goaded first Vance, then Trump. At one point he claimed Trump's comments on destroyed Ukrainian cities were just Putin propaganda, as if the president didn't have other sources of intelligence on what's what in the country.
I've now watched the whole video twice. Once the whole vid, and another time with a body language expert. And here's more from the Blackbelt Barrister, which is specifically on this point I'm making: namely that the early clips misrepresented the way the meeting actually went.
You must have a look at the whole video before buying into any narrative, either the left or the right. It's certainly more complicated that just "Trump and Vance ambushed Zelensky".
Then we see Zelensky visit UK PM Keir Starmer in the UK. Starmer said that the "whole of the British people stands with Ukraine whatever it takes". The whole of the UK parliament is behind you, Starmer assured Zelensky.
But the people don't. Polls show steadily declining support for a "whatever it takes" stand. Most people want a negotiated settlement. That is, the Trump approach. According to both YouGov polls and GBNews polls, 63% to 73% of the British people do NOT support the idea that they stand with Ukraine "whatever it takes".
Grok again:
The December 2024 YouGov poll reveals a clear trend: while support for Ukraine remains, the appetite for a drawn-out conflict is fading across these seven countries. Sweden and Denmark retain the strongest backing for Ukraine’s victory (50% and 40%), while Italy and Spain lead in favoring negotiation (55% and 46%).
The UK, France, and Germany fall in the middle, with growing support for a settlement (38-45%) outpacing the desire for a decisive win (25-36%). This shift suggests that, as of late 2024, Western European publics are increasingly prioritizing peace over victory, a sentiment likely shaped by war fatigue, economic pressures, and battlefield realities.
United Kingdom: 36% backed Ukraine winning outright, down from 50% in January 2024, indicating a significant shift away from prolonged engagement.
Whatever the hysteria on the Left over Trump's warp-speed moves to implement what he said he'd do -- all their talk of "illegal", or "anti-constitutional" or "non-transparent", of "chaos" -- the policies, as they are being implemented, are popular. In some cases up to 81% support, which is basically everyone.
The results are from a Harvard Harris poll carried out last week, results above. These are his top ten policies. Every single one is substantially popular.
ADDED: There's another figure not above: 58% of respondents say that Trump is doing better at this time, than was Biden at the same time. That's a huge lead.
Note the popularity of closing borders and sending back illegal immigrants who have committed a crime. This is something that's popular in all countries -- in Europe, the U.K., Australia, Canada. They all have over 75% support. The problem in Europe, as we just found out from the German elections, is that you have proportional representation and you can't get a clear result as you do in the U.S. and the U.K. In those countries, at least you can get a clear change. In Germany and across Europe, you end up with a squidgy smudge, of a mix of politicians. Even if most Germans would like something more conservative -- and tough on illigal immigration -- as the AfD.
ADDED:
Here's the chart of illegal U.S. southern border crossings, since Trump.
Remember how Kamala used to say that it was difficult to control the entries, how she blamed the Republicans for not supporting Biden's Immigration Bill, which was nothing more than a bill to usher in more immigrants and call them "legal", excuses after excuses. And when challenged why couldn't she issue Executive Orders to shut down illegal immigration, replied with a fog of nonsense and deflection.
Illegal immigration to 29/1/25. Numbers remain 93% down, up to today
Turns out it just took some Executive Orders to bring order back to the border. Order at the Border.
I didn't know Lindy Li until this video. I'd only heard that she was a Terrible Person, from Democrats upset that she, a major Democrat fund raiser, had criticised the Harris-Walz campaign for being directionless (it was) and for wasting the donations (it did).
In this video above Lindy Li gives names of who it was running the Biden administration. Actual names. Mostly of people we hadn’t heard of, other than Jill and Hunter.
Spoiler: It was not Biden.
Lindy Li, is a former campaign advisor and prominent commentator on U.S. politics who’s made significant contributions to the political landscape. After moving from China to America at the age of five, she eventually attended Princeton University where she became the first woman to serve as class president for all four years.
Her early career included roles as a financial analyst at Merck and Morgan Stanley before pivoting to politics, where she served as the Women's Co-Chair and Mid-Atlantic Regional Chair at the Democratic National Committee. She was also involved in the Asian American outreach team for Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign.
Li has recently transitioned from her Democratic roots to align with conservative politics, citing a toxic culture within her former party as one of many reasons for her departure. She has been vocal in criticising both President Biden and Vice President Harris, claiming that their leadership has stifled dissent within the party.
She currently co-chairs the Justice Unites Us Super PAC, focusing on increasing Asian-American voter turnout, and has been recognized as one of Pennsylvania's most powerful women. In January 2025, she was appointed to President-elect Donald Trump's inaugural fundraising committee, marking a significant shift in her political affiliations.
This is all about race politics in the U.S. and as an old straight white dude, I'm not allowed a view. Or, if I did express one, I'd be complicit in white privilege, if not outright White Supremacy.
So, I let Greg Foreman do the talking here, above. Where he hammers the hypocrisy of the Left, in hammering J.D. Vance over a recent DOGE-related issue. All explained in the video above.
The short story is one of the super-young DOGE guys, who goes by the handle "Big Balls" made some racist comments on X. No-one denies they were racist. He got a lot of flack, because a Congressman, Ro Khanna, himself an Indian-American (in that horrid way Americans have of being hyphenated), attacked him for the racist X post which was anti Indian-Americans. Veep J.D. Vance came to the defence of Big Balls, not on the racism of the X post, but on the principle that one should have the grace of forgiveness. Relevant here is that J.D. Vance is himself married to an Indian-American woman.
I leave the rest to Greg, above.
As an aside, I note this: that Ro Khanna says "I'm proud that Usha Vance, the Second Lady of the United States is an Indian-American woman".
I ask: why is he proud? What exactly did he contribute to her becoming the second lady? Apart from some, presumably, similar ethnic genes? Biden regularly boasts that he's "Irish-American" because his granddaddy was Irish. Well, my granddaddy was Irish too. Should I be proud of that? Be proud of a connection to the American president? On what grounds? I'm Australian. I'm happy when Australia wins the Ashes cricket series. But proud? What have I done, me personally, to achieve the win? Other than share a passport.
If Ro Khanna is "proud" of the Indian bit of Indian-American, is he then ashamed when India does something horrible? How does he feel that India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, unleashed his Hindu hordes on the Muslim minority in Gujarat, when he was governor there, leading to the massacre of 2,000 Muslims? Does Khanna have shame? If not why not? I mean, consistency, right? You can't only be "proud" but never "ashamed".
Click above for video. You've got to watch Fox, because no way will this be covered on CNN or MSNBC.
This video report is interesting on several fronts.
First there's Trump, sitting in the Oval Office, quite comfy and cosy, signing a couple more Executive Orders, as he riffs off their subject, then answering a whole bunch of questions, one after another, one subject after another, quite unflustered by any question.
Then there's the contrast of him, with Sleepy Joe. Joe Biden never took questions on the fly, like this. It was always a scripted presser, the questions were pre-screened, limited, the journos were pre-chosen to ask them, and when his handlers thought that he'd done enough, Joe would say "well, I'm told I have to go now". And then wander off, as often as not in the wrong direction. Imagine Donald Trump doing the same! Never. He's the boss, and it shows.
And consider the range of questions, all on the fly: Illegal immigration, the United Nations, Iran, China, Russia-Ukraine, Canada, Gaza, Israel (meeting Netanyahu), DOGE, Musk, Fraud found by Musk, Musk's super-young team of assistants, the craziness of the Fast Train in California, Crime, Fentanyl smuggling, Education and how to improve choice... phew. Have I missed anything? Probably. This is a huge contrast with how the Biden admin did things. This Trump admin is super transparent. But it's driving the Dems crazy.
I call it "The Return of Competence".
Also: note his desk and photos behind it. The desk has an in-tray and an out-tray. Both are empty. The only things on his desk are three phones. He operates by voice. The photos seem to be of his mum, of him and Melania and him and Byron. Then there's the portrait of Lincoln and the Soccer World Cup -- what's that all about?
Part of the "Return of Competence" is Marco Rubio, the new Secretary of State. Look at him here. And Trump's new Spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt. See her at her first presser, or on illegal immigrants.
Below is what Homan has achieved in controlling the southern border, since Trump took office. This being an issue that by polls over 70% of Americans care deeply about. Note that this was done by Executive Order. No need for the Legislation that the Dems kept banging on about:
Robert Kennedy Jnr is the candidate for the job of Secretary of Health and Human Services. He's being attacked, loudly and sometimes hysterically, by Senators on the Dems side of the House. They especially hate him because he went from being with the Dems to being with Trump. But he never would have left if Biden & Co had not driven him out. While Trump welcomed him into the Big Tent.
I've thought my whole life that RJK Jr was an "anti-vaxxer". Because that's what I was told. Then I thought, there's lies aplenty about the Russia Collusion hoax, the Hunter Laptop being Russian disinformation, and so on, that maybe they've been lying about him as well. Turns out they had.
For he is not an "anti-vaxxer". I've read his writings, and followed his career since converting over to Team Trump.
RJK Jr says quite clearly, "I'm pro vaccines". He is vaccinated. His children are vaccinated. What he wants is more testing, of all medicines, including vaccines, to make sure of their safety. He wants more science in the management of drugs. He wants is to make America healthier again. He wants more control of Big Pharma. For this, he gets hammered in the hearings, by the Dems who used to all stand for these very same things. They just don't now, because it's Trump's candidate that says them.
I did not know that Robert Kennedy Jr had a lifelong love of Falconry, and ancient sport. I only learned this because his cousin, Caroline Kennedy, slammed him for being a "predator", because he kept predatory birds. Snarky.
But his love of Falconry makes him a better man. Makes him a lover of nature. Makes him a lover of animals. A lover of the intertwining of man and animal.
I went falconing myself, with Alistair the Falconer, when I was working as a Butler's Assistant, at Glenfiddich Lodge, in August 1973. Where we looked after the posh folks for the grouse shooting season. Here some old photos of yours truly age 23, in Scotland.
Yes, Glenfiddich Lodge was and is the source of the Glenfiddich Stream, which is the water used for the famous -- famous even then -- single malt whisky. Which I also drink to this day. In the high upper reaches of the stream, when it's barely a trickle, there's a small plaque, hard to find now, carved in slate, telling us that Queen Victoria had passed by, and rested on this rock.
