*** An Anniversary ***

One year ago today Donald John Trump was (re) inaugurated as our 47th president. It has been a whirlwind first year, and I am certain he has been having the time of his life. The adrenaline high he's on has to be amazing.

Since he was a young tycoon developing real estate in NYC, Trump has had fairly clear ideas about how this world should be run and has said as much to a variety of interviewers on-camera. He tried to operate within the system during his first term, and fell far short of his goals.

During the first year of his second term, we learned he had put the intervening years to good use, planning for his return. Once back in the Oval Office, he seemingly hasn't let a single day go by without moving his agenda forward. If he doesn't work 24 hours a day, he for sure works seven days a week, regardless of where he is.

While I've not loved everything he's done this past year, nobody bats 1000. I have liked most of it a lot, and look forward to another great year of winning and libtard breakdowns.

Monday Snark

Image courtesy of Lucianne.com, 1/20/26.

Meet Waifu Amelia

If you are an Anglophile, and enjoy things British, go see the new poster girl for Brits who want to preserve their culture and limit immigration. Her name is Amelia, sometimes known as Waifu Amelia.

"Waifu" by the way is "wife" pronounced with a Japanese accent, as the character is drawn in an anime style. The term's meaning:

Waifu is a term used to refer to a fictional female character toward whom one feels romantic or sexual attraction.

Hot Air has a nice, long column describing the phenomenon, and its ties to Reform and Brit nationalism. I particularly like her hugging Paddington Bear.

Over-the-Top Trans

An article at American Thinker deals with a television program I actually have viewed. It is a segment of Landman on Paramount+ in which the main character's air-head daughter goes off to college and gets saddled with a trans roommate who is a total wacko. 

What puzzles the column's author is that the person playing the non-binary roommate - actor Bobbi Salvor Menuez - is an actual trans person, playing to type. The "type" being an absolute self-centered jerk, the proverbial "roommate from hell." Did 'she' realize the character was a putdown of trans? 

Landman is a good yarn, full of bigger-than-life Texans, played by an excellent cast, set in the West Texas "oil patch." It is raw in places, and the language often appropriately crude. Growing up maybe 10 miles from an oil field in SoCal, I went to school with oil workers' kids, who could be less than genteel.

Imperial Dreams

My current favorite foreign policy analyst - George Friedman - writes about Trump's actions vis-a-vis Greenland, admitting he is puzzled thereby.

I must confess that I do not understand the reasons or forces behind Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on European countries that are not willing to cede Greenland to the United States.

He explains in detail why the US can have all the access to Greenland it could want without having actual ownership, and his analysis seems spot on. But Trump's motives elude his decoding.

I have a hunch why Trump is acting in a punitive fashion toward NATO allies. I'm guessing he has long felt that, since they recovered from World War II, the allies have treated us shabbily, believed our generosity was their due, and have not tugged the forelock while doing it. 

In medieval terms, they are satraps who show insufficient deference to their emperor, and he's letting them know he has noticed their insolence, and is punishing it.

Understand, I am not defending his punitive tariffs, merely guessing at his motive therefore. I can imagine future historians viewing NATO as an empire of sorts, with the US being the imperial nation. It isn't much of stretch to see it this way, and you have to think it's a view that appeals to Trump's grandiose streak.

Sunday Snark

Images courtesy of According to Hoyt's

Waiting for the Other Memes to Drop.

AWFUL

Tyler Durden writing at his Zero Hedge website identifies the latest acronym for the women leading the fight against ICE in Minnesota and, to substantial degree, elsewhere. The acronym for these individuals is AWFUL, standing for Affluent White Female Urban Liberal. 

I must say I find it rather descriptive. Of course it is also deeply pejorative, a large part of its charm.

I've been seeing it as AWFL, but the addition of Urban makes it both more descriptive and more accurate. Not a lot of rural women among the protestors, I'll warrant. Countrywomen have productive things to do with their time.

Saturday Snark

IYKYK

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

A Modest Proposal re Greenland

Trump has said Greenland would be valuable to the US, and he’d like to acquire it. Denmark, the current owner has said “no.” Several authors have noted the way the US has mostly acquired territory has been by buying it.

Instead of bullying NATO and Denmark, I suggest an approach to the voters of Denmark, over the heads of their government. Greenland is currently a drag on Denmark’s economy, which Danes pay taxes to cover. 

Offer to relieve them of that burden plus a cash purchase price paid individually to each Danish citizen. There are roughly 6 million Danes. If Greenland is worth $6 billion, that would be $1000 each. If it is worth $60 billion, the payout would be  $10,000 each. For a couple with one child, $30k could be a car, a home down payment, or seed money for a start-up.

It is likely that offer might attract interest among the many Danes who have little interest in the rarely visited and very lightly populated, ice-coated colony. In brief, make the Danes a offer they won’t want their government to refuse.

Looking North ...

It is widely reported that Canadian PM Carney has snuggled up to China’s Xi, trying to get even with Trump for past slights. This wasn’t wise. The U.S. cannot have a Chinese ally across our mutual 5500 mile undefended border. 

I’d think this recent action has moved the notion of a U.S. invasion of Canada from “inconceivable” to “remotely possible.” Further Canadian involvement with China conceivably could make it "likely," as Ukraine discovered.

I wonder if Carney's notion is for Trump to experience empathy with how Putin felt about Ukraine, before invading.

Closer to home, imagine how Canada's Hong Kong Chinese immigrants feel about their new government making nice with the CCP, the tender mercies of which they fled. Might they choose to vote Conservative?

Later ... Trump, at least on the surface, says he has no problem with Canada's China deal. The Hill quotes him thus,

That’s OK. That’s what he should be doing. I mean, it’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal. If you can get a deal with China, you should do that.

One possibility: Carney did what he did to p*ss off Trump, and Trump was robbing him of that pleasure by not showing irritation. 

The alternative is that Trump deals with China, and feels other national leaders should do the same. That Carney praised Xi is no more than what Trump does when two meet to deal.

It's in DJT's negotiating style to praise the other party in a negotiation, he appears to believe it nets him better terms and he may be correct. Perhaps he views Carney's praise of Xi in that highly transactional (i.e., insincere) light.

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Images courtesy of Real Clear Politics'

Cartoons of the Week.

Self Defense

We all know CBS News historically leaned left, favored Democrats. Since Bari Weiss took it over, there has been some shift towards the center. For example, CBS posted the following on X today, according to Revolver.

BREAKING: The ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials briefed on his medical condition.

That puts paid to the idea the ICE agent misread the situation. Good's car hit Ross hard. In a confrontational situation he was attacked with a deadly weapon and responded appropriately.

----------

Did Good get what she had coming, you might ask? Quoting actor Ian Richardson playing the stylish villain Sir Francis Urquhart in the British House of Cards, "You might very well think that, I couldn't possibly comment."

Ignoring Antecedents

Bill Scher writes a long column comparing the world view of Trump insider Stephen Miller to that of the film Starship Troopers. For all I know (or care), he might be correct about Miller. 

Scher goes on to explain how the film is a misunderstood anti-war piece. Ironically, he never mentions it is based on a 1959 science fiction novel of the same name by Robert Heinlein who, when he wrote it, wasn’t being anti-war at all. 

Heinlein was a graduate of the Naval Academy and served for several years, achieving the rank of lieutenant, the equivalent of an army captain. Medically retired, he served the Navy as a civilian employee during World War II. Along with Asimov and Clarke, Heinlein is one of the “big three” of English language science fiction.

Reason Enough

Michael Goodwin writes for the New York Post, normally I agree with him. Today he write a column entitled, “Using the military for regime change in Iran would be a gamble — don’t turn it into another Iraq.” Actually, that outcome might not be so bad.

As presently governed Iran has been a pain in the rear for everyone in the Middle East and beyond. It has fostered and supported Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and nearly every sh*t-stirring Islamic radical group in the region.

Post-invasion Iraq, while internally a mess, has been a threat to none of its neighbors. Suppose a post-revolution Iran was similarly messy inside, but stopped fostering unrest in the balance of the region. How would that not be a huge improvement for the region?

I argue removing Iran as a regional fomenter of Islamic radicalism could be sufficient justification to act against its mullah-ridden regime. 

Wisdom of a Credit Lid ... Questioned

President  Trump has asked credit card issuers to hold interest rates down to 10% for a year, His motives are completely political. 

He wants the economy to boom long enough to get through the fall midterm elections without losing control of Congress. Let me be clear, I share his goal of a GOP-controlled Congress.

I'm not certain his chosen method will work, however. High interest rates enable credit card companies to offer credit cards to people who do not have outstanding credit ratings. Who pose a risk for default.

If firms do hold interest rates down to 10%, there is a good chance they will cancel the cards of people with a less-than-stellar credit history. Such people get driven into the hands of the payday loan sharks which are as expensive and more punitive. Not an improvement in their lives.

Lacking credit, individuals will consequently purchase less and the economy can suffer thereby. A soft economy can lead people to vote for change.

In other words, holding card balance interest rates down can be counter-productive for Trump's goal of reelecting Republican senators and representatives.

Good News

Fox News reports DHS Sec. Noem has issued a statement revoking the protected status of two thousand  plus Somalis now in the country, roughly 600 of whom live in MN. They will be required to leave by March 17.

Temporary means temporary. Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status.

I presume most will ignore the deadline and wait to be picked up by ICE. Even better news is that DHS is looking into denaturalizing and deporting any foreign born convicted fraudsters who have gotten naturalized.

Inconsistency

Substack commenter Kevin Bass X’s the following pithy comment, echoed at Instapundit.

Democrats hate when law enforcement arrests immigrants for being here illegally.

But they loved when law enforcement arrested ordinary Americans for not wearing masks.

Let's be clear.

Democrats do not hate law enforcement or authoritarianism.

They hate ordinary Americans.

Harassing ICE Is No LARP

On Friday I noted that the woman shot by ICE in Minneapolis - Renee Good - was cosplaying a revolutionary. Meanwhile the ICE agents she encountered were operating in the dangerous real world where criminals are apprehended and separated from society.

Now Ed Driscoll at Instapundit has a long post dealing with this interpretation. In particular he notes the victim’s ‘wife’ complaining that the ICE agent “had real bullets.” What bizarro world does she live in?

Ms. Good had a real auto (i.e., weapon) even if she imagined she was acting in a LARP. More than a few people have been shot by police who saw them holding gun replicas and, in what appeared to be life-and-death situations, reacted appropriately. Her situation was similar.

Building a New World

Statecraft maven Walter Russell Mead writes for the Wall Street Journal that President Trump has captivated the globe. It is a dramatic claim which he goes on to substantiate. The column is behind a semi-paywall which makes reading it possible but tiresome.

If Mr. Trump fails, his successors will struggle to clean up the mess he leaves behind. If he succeeds, he will have built a new world. In the moment of maximum drama and uncertainty in which we now live, nobody knows what the outcome will be.

Whatever the outcome, Mead concludes, “it won’t be boring.”

Offense vs. Defense

The evolving technology of war is the seesaw battle between offense and defense, sometimes one dominates, sometimes the other.

Time was when armored knights on massive war horses dominated combat. Then, the offense technology of war evolved. Archers and, later, gunpowder-propelled bullets made suits of armor mostly obsolete. Vestiges of body armor still persist in helmets and ballistic vests.

Mechanized armor, particularly the tank, is the armored knight of today’s battlefield. Sure enough, the offensive technology of war, via drones, loitering munitions, etc., are having that same effect, defeating the defense that is mechanized armor.  

Defensive technology is scrambling now to find affordable ways to defeat cheap suicide drones and loitering munitions, without bankrupting the defender. The battlefield envisioned in the early Terminator films isn’t too far away.

Consequently, this piece on our new tank prototype feels somewhat obsolete.