Trump’s Middle East Strategy Is Ambitious but Also Dangerous

 

President Donald Trump this week had a historic tour of the Gulf monarchies in the Middle East, in general.

He went to Saudi Arabia and he met Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia. And he cut a huge deal, which promised $600 million of Saudi investment in the United States and well over $130 or $140 million in Saudi purchase of American arms. And he sort of reset the relationship that had been tenuous during the Biden administration.

Then he went to Qatar—which is a rival of Saudi Arabia—and he met the emir. And he kind of topped the Saudi investment because they agreed to buy well over 200 Boeing 777 passengers and 787. That purchase alone could be $200 billion, with maybe a trillion dollars of investment.

At the same time, he met the de facto leader who’s emerging out of the disruption and disintegration of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who’s had, unfortunately, he’s had a history of terrorist activity. And he’d been associated with al-Qaeda, ISIS. Kind of a nebulous past.

And the subtext of all of these meetings were: We’re going to replace strife with money. We’re all gonna be profitable. And we have to bring the cause of all of this trouble, Iran, into the fold of the Middle East and drop the hostility to Israel.

Notice, of course, that he didn’t go to Israel, although he was trying to elicit support for the continuation of the Abraham Accords with Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

This is very ambitious but it’s also very dangerous. Donald Trump thinks he can cut a deal with Iran so that they would do essentially three things: They would give up their nuclear program; they would stop the subsidies to the terrorist surrogates of the Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis; and they would liberalize their society and reenter the family of nations.

I don’t think that Shia theocracy feels that is their agenda. I think what they’re probably doing, given their prior history, they’re negotiating, drawing out, and hoping they can outlast the Trump administration while they get closer and closer to 90% enrichment.

And they don’t think that Donald Trump, given the MAGA agenda that frowns on unilateral or optional military engagements, especially in the Middle East, will be willing to sacrifice or endanger what has been a spectacular first 100 days, at least in economic terms.

And so, they feel that they’re going to, I think, string Donald Trump along and wait him out and then, maybe, with a Democratic administration, announce that they’ve reached 90% enrichment and have a few bombs.

So, what am I getting at? There’s a couple of fundamental issues here. One is that the MAGA agenda is kind of a neo-isolationist, that we don’t get involved. But Donald Trump himself—as we saw the first administration and as we saw with the Houthis when he bombed them—has a Jacksonian deterrent and foreign policy. And they’re coming into conflict. MAGA people do not want him to unilaterally stop the nuclear threat in Iran. They would prefer negotiations. But negotiations depend on that threat.

By the same token, he’s going to try to get the Saudis and the Middle East sheikhdoms to pump more oil. Pump more oil to not only bring down the price of oil worldwide but really, to be frank, to hurt Russian President Vladimir Putin’s only source of income. And he feels that these two conflicts may be connected.

If he can peel away the Middle East from China and Russia and bring down the price of oil, then Putin, who, rumors have it, increasingly is short men, manpower, and equipment, and wants to make a deal with Ukraine but doesn’t know how he’s going to explain to the Russian people how he lost over a million dead, wounded, and missing Russians—for what? Very little in return. Can he make that argument to the Russian people?

In conclusion, Donald Trump is facing dichotomies with the MAGA agenda and his Jacksonian foreign policy. He’s trying to get the Arab world to drop their hostility to Israel. At the same time, he’s trying to reason—if that’s the right word—with an unreasonable Iranian regime. And he wants oil to go down. I’m not sure that’s gonna help him in the United States. A lot of the frackers and horizontal drillers are—as the oil has dropped—they’re not at a very big profit margin. And yet, Trump wants them to spend more money and pump more and buy more rigs, etc.

So, there’s a lot of things going on. But one thing that’s not going on is we’re not being estranged from the Arab world. We’re not being estranged from Israel. This is not former President Joe Biden mouthing off about the Saudis or the Israelis. It’s a new type of approach that if everybody will just calm down, there’s a great opportunity to make money and be profitable. And that would include the disarmament, nuclearly, of Iran and the inclusion of Israel in the body politic.

Very ambitious.

The Real First 100 Days

 

Supporters talk of “flooding the zone,” believing President Donald Trump is making so many changes so quickly that his opposition is reduced to deer-in-the-headlights infancy.

They must be right when the nation suffers daily Democrat pottymouth videos, vandalism of Teslas, infantile meltdowns at congressional witnesses, rioting against federal agents to protect illegal alien felons, protesting on behalf of women beaters, M-13 gangbangers, human traffickers, and assaulters, and visa-holding violent students praising Hamas terrorists.

In contrast, opponents either claim that Trump’s first three months are either directionless chaos or a Hitlerian nightmare or both.

But what is really happening?

One, Trump is finally addressing the problems that proverbially “cannot go on forever, and so they won’t go on.”

When, if ever, would the Left have closed the southern border? After 10, 30, 50 million illegal aliens?

How many more criminal illegal entrants was the Biden administration willing to allow into American neighborhoods—500,000? One million? Three million?

How long was the world simply going to ignore the human destruction on the doorstep of Europe?

Would former President Joe Biden or former Vice President Kamala Harris have sought a ceasefire? Or would it have taken another 1.5, 3, or even 5 million more dead, wounded, and missing Ukrainians and Russians?

Nor did past administrations ever seek a solution to the massive national debt, much less the uncontrollable budget and trade deficits.

All prior presidents passed the day of judgment on to some vague future presidency, assured that their money printing would at least not blow up on their watch.

All moaned that China was piling up huge trade surpluses while denying its own population the usual modern safety net. They knew Beijing’s aim was to use the trillions of dollars in trade surpluses to build a new massive military, a greater arsenal of nuclear bombs, and a new imperial Belt and Road overseas empire.

Yet no administration did anything but greenlight American outsourcing and offshoring while ignoring Chinese trade cheating and technology theft.

Indeed, prior presidencies appeased and enriched China on the foolish belief that such indulgence would lead to Chinese prosperity, and with such Western-style affluence, soon a globalized, democratic, and supposedly friendly China.

In sum, we just witnessed all at once a 100-day, 360-degree effort to address all the existential challenges that we knew were unsustainable but were either afraid or incompetent to address.

Second, the administration apparently wants to confront the source of these crises and believes it is the progressive project.

The Left maintains real political power not by grassroots popularity, but rather by unelected institutional clout. The party of democracy uses antidemocratic means to achieve its ends of perpetual control.

It wages lawfare through the weaponization of the state, local, and federal courts.

It exercises executive power through cherry-picked federal district and circuit judges and their state and local counterparts.

The permanent bureaucracies and huge federal workforce are mostly left-wing, unionized, and weaponized by a progressive apparat. Their supreme directive is to amalgamate legislative, judicial, and executive power into the hands of the unelected Anthony Faucis, Jim Comeys, and Lois Lerners of the world—and thus to override or ignore both popular plebiscites and the work of the elected Congress.

Over 90% of the media—legacy, network, social, and state—are left-wing. Their mission is not objectivity but, admittedly, indoctrination.

Academia is the font of the progressive project. Ninety percent of the professoriat are left-wing and activist—explaining why campuses believe they are above the rules and laws of the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the U.S. Congress.

Add into the mix the blue-chip Accela corridor law firms and the globalized corporate and revolving-door political elite.

The net result is clear: Almost everything the vast majority of Americans and their elected representatives did not want—far-left higher education, a Pravda media, biological men destroying women’s sports, an open border, 30 million illegal aliens, massive debt, a weaponized legal system, and a politicized Pentagon—became the new culture of America.

So, Trump is not just confronting unaddressed existential crises but also the root causes of why, when, and how they become inevitable and nearly unsolvable.

His answer is a messy, knock-down-drag-out counterrevolution to reboot the country back to the middle where it once was and where the Founders believed it should remain.

His right and left opponents call such pushback chaotic, disruptive, and out of control.

But the counterrevolution appears disorderly and upsetting, mostly to those who originally birthed the chaos; it certainly does not to the majority of Americans who finally wanted an end to the madness.

Biden’s Enablers Never Told Us Why They Did It

 

Let’s look at the border. President Joe Biden over four years destroyed it. He defanged Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He stopped the congressionally approved wall. The result was 12 million people came in. They entered illegally. They resided illegally. And we have 500,000 of them suspected of criminal backgrounds. And almost every day there is a murder/rape.

But here’s the question. Everybody knows he did it but nobody asked why did he do it? Why did you do the most nihilistic thing in the history of the modern presidency?

I think we’re gonna live with this problem for 50 years. But why did he do it? Why did he say, “You can come in without a COVID-19 vaccination but we are gonna get rid of 8,500 of our U.S. citizens in the military who don’t want to be vaccinated”? Why did he say that you need a Real ID but you don’t if you’re in illegally? Why?

Was it that he wanted new constituents because the agenda didn’t appeal to 51% of the population? Did he think that under early and mail-in voting protocols inaugurated in 2020 that he was gonna be able to have these people vote very quickly? Did he want to grow government and then have a bigger entitlement? Higher taxes? Did he not believe in borders? Was he a globalist?

It was so nihilistic. It was so destructive that we need to know why. Just tell us why you did it. Was it just because you hated half the country and you wanted to destroy it? You hated MAGA? The garbage, semi-fascists? Is that it?

The same existential is why do all these reporters say now, “We were in on the deal, we covered up for Biden”? “The Biden staff did it.” “No, the media did it.” But they all agreed that he was non compos mentis. He was cognitively challenged when he was nominated, when they cleared the nomination field out. They got rid of Pete Buttigeig. They got rid of Sen. Elizabeth Warren. They got rid of Sen. Bernie Sanders. They all disappeared quickly. And then they used this waxen effigy as a veneer.

But why? That was very risky to do that. They all tell us they did it, but they don’t tell us why. Was the idea that good old Joe Biden from Scranton had some conservative remnant vestigial aura about him? And then they could use him and they could tell Jill, Joe, “You get to be president but we’re gonna run it.”

Or was it even worse than that? They thought, “This is what we’ve always been waiting for. This is what Barack Obama said when he wanted a third term and he could phone in a left-wing agenda from his basement without appearing in public.”

In other words, it wasn’t that they were stuck. They saw this as a wonderful opportunity. Use Joe Biden and just have him come in three days a week, stumble through stuff, and then push through the most left-wing, nihilistic, destructive, socialist agenda in history.

It really was, if you look at the border and crime and Afghanistan and two theater wars and the hyperinflation and the $7 trillion that he borrowed. Was that the reason why? Or were they just incompetent, they just didn’t know? They were just, “I don’t know. Who are we gonna nominate? Oh, Joe.” They didn’t think he was that bad.

But please, don’t tell us that you covered it up and think that’s a confession sufficient for the American people. Tell us why you did it. They never tell us why.

So, we had all these polls. They were wrong in 2016. They were wrong in 2020. They lost credibility. And then in 2024, they did it again. As I said earlier, the NPR/PBS poll of then-Vice President Kamala Harris had her winning four points on the night of the election. She lost by a point and a half. They were five and a half points off.

David Plouffe, one of the insiders of the Harris campaign, said he was kind of amazed that all the polls had her ahead when their internal polls—that have to be accurate because you work from them in your campaign strategy and you pay for—not one had her ahead.

So, why would they risk their reputation and lie again in 2024 and be discredited again and give Rasmussen, Insider Advantage, and Trafalgar more and more credibility as the accurate poll? I don’t have that answer.

Was it because they wanted to gin up momentum? They knew she was gonna lose. They thought if they lied, if the Des Moines Register said she was really winning when she lost by 12 points, they’d get more funding. People would say, “Gee-whiz, Trump’s gonna lose. I don’t wanna vote.” Is that the idea?

What was it? Why do they continue to lie? They have to tell us why. It’s not enough just to say, “Politics. We want power.”

What was the strategy to make you do something so egregious? So egregious to destroy the border and cause so much misery. So egregious to foist somebody who was not in control of his own cognitive powers as president with nuclear codes. So destructive to try to influence a campaign by repeatedly lying that the losing candidate—who was losing the whole time—was going to win. We just want to know why.

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Canada Missed Out on a Huge Opportunity

 

This week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who was newly elected as the prime minister with a majority of seats in the Canadian Parliament, is visiting Washington.

As I speak, he’s been holding sessions with President Donald Trump about the so-called trade war and Trump’s trolling of him about being a 51st state. Let me just address that first.

Donald Trump did not like former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who did not like Donald Trump. And he was so frustrated by the surpluses that Canada kept racking up and their unwillingness to spend the required NATO 2% of gross domestic product investment in munitions that he would troll Canada and say, “We’re the same language, the same people. We could do a lot better job than this guy.”

And of course, he took that very seriously. And then there was an election. Trudeau was a failure. Pierre Poilievre, the conservative candidate, had a 20-point lead. He lost it partly because Carney was the champion of Canadian nationalism and said, “We’re never gonna make a 51st state. Donald Trump has no business doing—”

It’s kind of like what Trump did with Panama and Greenland. It’s a way of “Art of the Deal.” We got China to the—we kind of made it a little bit more irrelevant in Panama. We’ve got some reforms going on. Same with Greenland. We were never going to invade either one.

We’re never gonna make Canada a 51st state. You need a majority vote of the Congress. The Congress is never going to vote to admit Canada because the Left would feel it was an infringement upon their sovereignty. We were imperialists, colonialists. The Right said, “Why do we want another New York or Colorado to screw up the country?”

So, it’s not gonna happen. And Carney knew that, but he ran on it. And he whipped up nationalism. And that was fine. That’s what politicians do. But now he’s in a conundrum. He’s got to come to the White House. Trump knows what he did. So, Trump is reminding him about the 51st state. But there’s two issues and they don’t look good for Canada.

No. 1 is, in 2014, all the NATO countries promised to spend 2% of GDP. And under Trump’s prodding during the first term and then the Ukraine war during President Joe Biden’s term, it has frightened most of them. And there’s only 8 of the 32 nations, about, that have not met their 2% obligation. Canada’s one of them. But it’s one of the least cooperative of the 32 nations.

In other words, it only spends 1.37% of its GDP on defense. It won’t kick in another $40 billion to help arm it. And you could make the argument that it depends on the United States. It looks that if there’s any hostile activity, cartels, they’re down there in Mexico with the United States between them. And nobody is going to proverbially mess with Canada when the United States has it under its nuclear shield, Alaska early warnings, you name it.

So, they know that. And they do not want to spend the money. And they’re shorting their other NATO partners. And they’re derelict and they’re culpable.

The other thing is, they’re running up $63 billion with their trade surplus with their partner. And most of it is because they have a thick, sulfurous crude oil that’s in the middle of the country. And it’s very convenient for them to go right across the border and sell it to us. And we like it. And we can refine it. We have the refineries that can deal with that type of difficult crude.

It’d be very difficult for them to send it all the way to their east or west ports and make the same profit. Ninety-five percent of their oil comes to us. We’re a good customer, in other words. Why would they not then say, “We’ll try to import more poultry, cheese, agricultural products. We can’t get down to zero but let’s—we can cut the trade surplus by $20 or $30 billion. You’re our neighbor”?

But they didn’t do that. And so, he instead whipped up—it was very successful to whip up Canadian nationalism. Very successful to win that election. But then where do you go from that? You go and see Donald Trump and you want to just say, “We’re not gonna be a 51 state. We’re not gonna be a 51 state”?

Does he really believe that the majority of people in Congress are gonna vote to admit Canada? Nobody wants to do that.

So, what am I getting at? He could have had a statesmanlike message both during the election and when he saw Trump. He could have said this: ”Donald Trump is trolling us. We’re friends with the United States. He’s trying to needle us so that we spend more money on NATO and we lower our surplus, which is growing very big. And we’re gonna do that. We’re gonna negotiate. Don’t take him serious. He’s just doing this like he did to Panama. We’re good friends. He kids us. We kid him.”

But he didn’t do that. He tried to whip it up. And it was successful. But once you whip it up and you get that hostility, then you’ve gotta go deal with him. And then you’ve gotta tell him, “I’m not gonna spend $40 billion on our defense. We’re going to subsidize you on defense. And we’re not gonna lower that.”

That’s not gonna work. It’s not gonna work. And so, I think that he can say, he’ll leave the meeting and say, “I told him we’re not gonna be a 51st.” That was an irrelevant misadventure. It was going nowhere and he knew it.

But the two issues that he knew were important—that they should man up and pay their 2% and help defend not only NATO but the North American continent, which they had done brilliantly in the past—he didn’t want to talk about. Or he’d say they’d do it in five years. “Five years, we’ll do it.” No, you’ve already been derelict for 11 years.

Or he could have said, “We don’t run up big surpluses with our friends. We’re not Mexico. We’re much closer to you. And we’re gonna work on this. And we’re gonna try to import. We’ll work it down. This is”—no. No.

He created his nationalist paradigm. It got him elected. And now he owns it. And it’s not gonna work with Donald Trump. I wish it would but it’s not because if you want to alienate the United States and you want to take seriously the “Art of the Deal” trolling and sort of laugh it off or, better yet, the Panamanians knew what they were doing. They were getting too close to China. They were surrendering partial sovereignty. And they backed off. And it’s going to be a beautiful relationship with us.

But Canada just couldn’t do that. And I think they will eventually.

Death of a Video Game Console: How Each Generation Said Goodbye

 

Nintendo closes out the end of an era in 2025 with the introduction of the Nintendo Switch 2 and gradual sunsetting of the original Nintendo Switch. This shift in focus to the new console won’t be overnight, of course, and rarely is whenever console publishers transition to a fresh generation. The first Switch generation was an especially prosperous one for Nintendo, with over 150 million units shipped worldwide and counting, making it Nintendo’s best-selling home console of all-time and second only to the PlayStation 2 as the best-selling home console overall.

With a player base that large, Nintendo has to be tactful how it eventually phases out its support for the Switch and maintains continued interest in its overarching brand. That makes us nostalgic too for how previous major home consoles eventually made their respective final bows, wrapping up fondly remembered eras. Here’s a look back on how each major console from the past several decades ended their fan-favorite runs.

Nintendo Entertainment System

The NES not only revived the video game industry in North America after its cataclysmic crash in 1983, but completely dominated it into the early ‘90s. By 1990 the NES—along with its Japanese counterpart, the Famicom—was the best-selling console ever at that time with more American households having the console than PCs. As such, Nintendo’s support for the NES continued long after the launch of the Super Nintendo, with Japan going as far as to continue manufacturing Famicoms for its domestic market until September 2003.

Many of the last games released in the twilight years for the NES were ports of Super Nintendo titles with a significantly less intensive technical presentation. These include NES ports of Mario’s Time Machine, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters, and Wario’s Woods, all released in 1994 and the last of which being the final game released for the console in North America. Over 30 years later, the NES’ tenure remains one of the longest-running and most triumphant generations for any console.

Sega Genesis/Mega Drive

Also known as the Mega Drive outside of the U.S., the Sega Genesis was the console that gave Sega a prominent foothold in the North American market. In trying to gain a technical edge against its competitors, Sega began producing console peripherals for the Genesis, most notably the Sega CD in 1991 and Sega 32X in 1994, each with their own game libraries. Though Sega continued to produce games for the base Genesis, it saw the 32X as a stopgap effort until the Sega Saturn could be launched in 1994 in Japan and ‘95 in the U.S.

Unfortunately for Sega, savvy gamers already knew that the Saturn was coming. So when combined with the high price point for the 32X peripheral, they discreetly avoided it. This meant the library of 32X games released in the Genesis’ final months, which included early 3D Sega games like Virtua Fighter and Star Wars Trilogy Arcade, went largely ignored. The final 32X game was 1996’s The Amazing Spider-Man: Web of Fire while 1997’s NHL 98 closed out the Genesis on a whimper.

Super Nintendo

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System reaffirmed Nintendo’s place atop the worldwide video game industry, even as it faced stiff competition from Sega and Sony. Even as the Nintendo 64’s 1996 launch loomed, Nintendo continued to support the SNES in its final years. Indeed, some of the most beloved SNES games were originally released in 1996 and 1997, giving the console the fond farewell that cemented its vaunted place in gaming history.

Among the memorable games released in the final stretch for the SNES were Super Mario RPG, Donkey Country 3, Harvest Moon, and The Lost Vikings 2. The last licensed game ever released for the SNES was a 1998 port of Frogger, almost as an afterthought for the console. As far as endings go, the Super Nintendo, like the SNES before it, had a great conclusion to its best-selling run.

Sega Saturn

Between the original success of the Genesis and loving reappraisal of the Dreamcast, the Sega Saturn remains something of the overlooked middle child. This is in no small part because of how badly Sega handled the console’s rollout for the North American market, from a surprise announcement that caught developers outside of Japan off-guard, an uncompetitive price point in comparison to the original PlayStation, and Sega of America deciding not to localize hundreds of games created by Japanese developers. With that in mind, the Saturn generation lasted four years, as Sega rushed to replace it with its successor, the Dreamcast.

This fast-tracked decision effectively hobbled the Saturn in its final year when news about the Dreamcast’s development leaked while Sega was still nominally supporting the Saturn in public. Console and game sales in North America cratered with only seven Saturn games released in the territory for the entirety of 1998, the last being a localization of Magic Knight Rayearth. Given the Saturn’s greater success in Japan than overseas markets, Sega continued to support the Saturn after the Dreamcast’s November 1998 launch, primarily through third-party titles and boxed sets, with the last game released for the console in Japan being 2000’s Final Fight Revenge by Capcom.

PlayStation

The PlayStation, later rebranded as the PSX and then PS1, marked Sony’s triumphant entry into the home console industry in 1994. Buoyed by its games published on compact discs, as opposed to expensive cartridges, and strong third-party developer support, PS1 became the bestselling console of its generation and the bestselling overall for its time. The PS1 continued to sell well into the subsequent generation, even well into the lifespan of its 2001 successor, the PlayStation 2.

Given the sheer number of its player base and continued flourishing third-party support, the PS1 saw multiplatform sports and licensed titles published for it through 2006, though the last North American title was published for it in 2004. The last major title for the console was arguably 2002’s Final Fantasy Origins, which was just a compiled remaster of the first two mainline games in the series. Sony officially ended support for the PS1 in 2006, the same year it launched the PlayStation 3.

Nintendo 64

Though the Nintendo 64 launched strongly and revolutionized the gaming industry in shifting to 3D games, it also saw Nintendo lose its global top spot in the console wars. Surpassed commercially by PlayStation, Nintendo spent the final years of the N64 focusing on development of the GameCube while extending the life and power of the N64 through its crimson Expansion Pak peripheral. This upgrade in technical performance led to some of the most impressive N64 or console games in its final years on the market.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Perfect Dark, and Banjo-Tooie were all released in 2000, each taking advantage of the Expansion Pak boost in their own way. By 2001 Nintendo completely reprioritized its strategy to support the launch of the Game Boy Advance and GameCube, but still put out bonafide bangers like Mario Party 3 and Conker’s Bad Fur Day. By 2002 Nintendo officially pulled the plug on the N64, releasing a handful of sports titles to close out the generation.

Dreamcast

Sega’s final home console came out the gate swinging with a launch window that included Power Stone, Sonic Adventure, Soulcalibur, The House of the Dead 2, and NFL Blitz 2000. However, the Dreamcast faced continued stiff competition from the original PlayStation along with news about development on the upcoming PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and something Microsoft was calling Xbox. With the incoming generation of home consoles reputedly more powerful than the Dreamcast, support for Sega continued to waver, with a remodeled, cheaper PS1 outselling the Dreamcast during the 2000 holiday season as a final nail in Sega’s console coffin.

Sega ceased releasing new Dreamcast games in North America by February 2002, closing out its support for the market with NHL 2K2 almost as an afterthought. Like the Saturn, the Dreamcast saw longer support in its native Japan, with March 2004’s puzzle party game Puyo Puyo Fever closing out the generation for good. By December 2001, Sega began developing games for its former competitors, signaling a significant shift to focus on software development rather than hardware, releasing both Sonic Advance for the Game Boy Advance and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle for the GameCube that month.

Xbox

Though Microsoft’s first foray into the home console industry was off to a shaky start with a hilariously oversized controller and weak launch library, it eventually outsold the GameCube. That said, the console also stands as the shortest generation to date from Microsoft, with the company rushing out its successor, the Xbox 360, almost exactly four years after the original Xbox’s November 2001 launch. That means games initially intended for the Xbox were reconfigured as 360 titles, sometimes late in development, to bolster the next console’s launch library.

2004 saw the strongest first-party games released for the original Xbox, including Halo 2, Fable, and Ninja Gaiden Black before Microsoft shifted its priorities. The majority of games released for the original Xbox after 2005 were multiplatform sports titles, with only three games released for the console in the entirety of 2007 and only Madden NFL 09 released for it in 2008. The original Xbox was, comparatively, a flash in the pan, with Microsoft quickly looking ahead to the future.

GameCube

The GameCube era was a dark one for Nintendo as the company slid behind Sony and Microsoft in the home console industry in terms of units shipped. This decline, coupled with difficulties in developing games for hardware, meant the console saw dwindling third-party support. As Nintendo readied to launch the motion sensor-oriented Wii in the 2006 holiday season, it repurposed games originally planned for the GameCube for its successor instead.

One highlight in the GameCube’s closing window was Resident Evil 4, released at the beginning of 2005 as a GameCube-exclusive before Capcom decided to port it to the PlayStation 2 by the year’s end. A handful of movie tie-in games, like Ratatouille and TMNT, along with the usual multiplatform sports games, filled the gap. As the Wii quickly gained momentum following its breathtakingly successful launch, Nintendo quietly pulled the plug on the GameCube by 2007. However, one major highlight was The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, a fan favorite developed as GameCube’s swan song in 2006… before being delayed so it could simultaneously release as a launch title on the Wii.

PlayStation 2

Still the best-selling home console of all time, the PlayStation 2 significantly outsold its immediate competition and helped push Sega out of the hardware console industry for good. This success was also in small part due to the console featuring a built-in DVD drive and being priced competitively compared to other DVD players on the market at the time. Like its predecessor, the PS2 had an especially long lifespan, one that endured through the eventual launch of the PlayStation 4.

Leading up to the PS3 launch in late 2006, the PS2 saw the release of some of its most acclaimed games, including its port of Resident Evil 4, Shadow of the Colossus, Gran Turismo 4, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Guitar Hero, Ōkami, Devil May Cry 3, and Final Fantasy XII. The last game ever released for the PS2 was Pro Evolution Soccer 2014, released in 2013. Sony ended post-release support for the PS2 in Japan in 2018, closing out its most successful era to date.

Wii

After losing industry dominance in its previous two generations, Nintendo catapulted itself back on top with the Wii, which replaced the GameCube as its main home console in late 2006. With its intuitive motion controls and a robust library of games, many of the most acclaimed being console exclusives, the Wii became Nintendo’s bestselling console at the time. By 2013, one year after the launch of the Wii U, Nintendo began ceasing production on new Wii consoles and cutting back online services, with the last major services discontinued in 2019.

The Wii’s last real banner year was 2011, which saw the release of Kirby’s Return to Dream Land and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, the latter of which being the last major console exclusive. That said, Nintendo was really focused on launching its last handheld console, the Nintendo 3DS, that year and preparing for the Wii U. Amusingly, the Wii kept receiving third-party support and new installments of Just Dance from Ubisoft until 2019.

Xbox 360

The most successful Xbox console to date is Microsoft’s sophomore effort, the Xbox 360, which launched a full year ahead of its generational counterparts in 2005. Though outsold by the Wii, the 360 closed the gap between Microsoft and Sony—even as it was also ultimately outsold by the PS3. What the 360 revolutionized was a digital marketplace for games, allowing players to purchase and download titles straight to their consoles, a feature that became an industry standard.

In the years and months leading up to the launch of the Xbox One, the 360 saw its firmware updated to match Microsoft’s other user interfaces while the console began incorporating its own motion sensor gameplay. Branded the Kinect, the peripheral was launched in 2010 to lukewarm response for many of its titles. Though Microsoft continued to support the 360’s online capabilities until 2024, the last two major games for the console were 2012’s Halo 4 and 2013’s Gears of War: Judgment.

PlayStation 3

The PlayStation 3 stumbled at its 2006 launch with its significantly higher price point than the competition and complex hardware architecture, making development for the console particularly difficult. Though price cuts and cheaper models of the PS3 improved its standing, it never got close to catching up with Nintendo’s highly successful Wii. As a result, Sony ended its support for the PS3 faster than it had the PS2 or PS1, shifting its focus to the PlayStation 4.

Despite Sony quickly reprioritizing itself for the PS4’s 2013 launch, the PS3 saw some of its most iconic titles released in its final years. The Last of Us, Journey, and multiplatform titles like Mass Effect 3 and Grand Theft Auto V closed out the PS3 era. By 2017 Sony ceased hardware production on the PS3 and, while planning to close the PlayStation Store for the platform in 2021, fan outcry led Sony to reverse this decision, leaving online support running.

Trump Slams Big Pharma Over $1,300 'Fat Shot': Says Americans Are Getting Ripped Off

 

President Donald Trump exposed another example of how Americans are being ripped off by Big Pharma, recalling how a wealthy, "neurotic" friend received a discounted weight-loss injection—what he called a “fat shot”—while traveling overseas. According to Trump, the incident pushed a top drug company executive into admitting that Americans are being outrageously overcharged for medications that cost far less abroad.

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On Monday, Trump recounted a story from an unnamed friend who received a weight-loss injection while abroad for just $88—a sharp contrast to the $1,300 price tag the same shot would carry in the United States.

“A friend of mine who’s a businessman, very, very, very top guy, most of you would have heard of him, a highly neurotic, brilliant businessman, seriously overweight, and he takes the fat shot,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

“And he called me up … he’s a rough guy, smart guy, very successful, very rich … ‘Mr. President, could I ask you a question? I’m in London, and I just paid for this damn fat drug I take,’” Trump continued. 

Trump jokingly told his friend, “It’s not working,” before pointing out that pharmaceutical companies have been exploiting American consumers.

“He said, ‘I just paid $88, and in New York, I pay $1,300. What the hell is going on?’ He said, ‘So I checked, and it’s the same box made in the same plant by the same company. It’s the identical pill that I buy in New York. And here I’m paying $88 in London, and New York, I’m paying $1,300,” Trump said. 

The president said that during a discussion with a drug company representative, the two debated the high cost of medications in the U.S. compared to abroad. After only about 30 minutes, the representative admitted they couldn't justify the price difference and conceded the point. 

“[Pharmaceutical companies] been justifying this crap for years,” the president added. 

Trump said that drug companies claimed high prices were due to research and development costs, but he argued that other countries should share those costs too, since they benefit from the medications as well.

This comes as Trump announced an Executive Order on Monday that will require federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid to pay the same rates as other developed countries.

Why Did China Ignore Previous Trade Obligations? Bessent Reveals What the Chinese Delegation Told Him.

 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that near the end of President Trump’s first term, there was an “excellent” trade agreement in place with China but once President Biden took office, Beijing simply ignored it.

“In January 2020, President Trump produced a template—we had an excellent trade agreement with China—and the Biden administration chose not to enforce it," Bessent said during a news conference. "The Chinese delegation basically told us that once President Biden came into office, they just ignored their obligation, so we already have a large framework."

On Jan. 15, 2020, the U.S. and China signed an enforceable Phase One trade deal that required “structural reforms and other changes to China’s economic and trade regime.”

"Today, we take a momentous step — one that has never been taken before with China — toward a future of fair and reciprocal trade, as we sign phase one of the historic trade deal between the United States and China," Trump said at the time. "Together, we are righting the wrongs of the past and delivering a future of economic justice and security for American workers, farmers, and families."

On Monday, the U.S. and China reached an agreement to significantly roll back tariffs for an initial 90-day period. 

Following a weekend of marathon trade negotiations in Switzerland, the U.S. agreed to slash its overall tariffs on Chinese goods to 30 percent while Beijing lowered its tariffs on American imports to 10 percent. 

“We concluded that we have a shared interest,” Bessent said. “The consensus from both delegations is that neither side wanted a decoupling.”

 

Trump Deserves Nobel Prize As World's Champion Peacemaker

 

Four Presidents of the United States were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, most recently Barack Obama in 2009. He won for “his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation.”

Incredibly, Barack Obama was nominated for the award just a few days after his inauguration and before he attained any significant achievements. He was given the award for promising what he would achieve as President.

Unfortunately, Obama did not fulfill the lofty expectations of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. When he left office in 2017, the world was more dangerous than at the start of his presidency.

During Obama’s tenure, the war in Afghanistan continued, ISIS terrorists became empowered, and Libya transformed into a violent hellhole, as demonstrated by the Benghazi attack.

The promise of the “Arab Spring” culminated in more bloodshed and tyrannical regimes taking power. During Obama’s second term, Russia invaded Crimea, and North Korea became the biggest threat to humanity.

Upon taking office, Obama warned newly elected President Donald Trump about the dangers North Korea presented to the world. Unlike Obama, who refused to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, Trump met with “Little Rocket Man” three times. These summits helped lessen tensions and improve relations between the two countries.

In this first term as President, Trump also brokered the historic Abraham Accords, which established diplomatic relations between Israel and four Arab nations:  the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. He also negotiated a historic economic agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, two countries on the verge of war.

In Trump’s first term in office, the United States did not begin wars. He destroyed ISIS and ended their caliphate dreams. Trump placed economic sanctions on Iran, the world’s primary terrorist benefactor. Consequently, terror organizations like Hamas were prevented from launching significant strikes due to limited funding.

In addition, Trump began removing all American military forces from Afghanistan. He would have completed the withdrawal with dignity and honor, but instead, President Joe Biden directed a disastrous operation that resulted in the death of thirteen American military service members. At the end of the chaotic departure of our forces from Afghanistan, the Taliban, radical jihadists, controlled our massive Bagram Airfield and billions of dollars in our military equipment.

Despite Trump’s impressive achievements and several nominations, he did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Sadly, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has a strong leftwing bias. For example, President Ronald Reagan was not given the award despite his historic accomplishments.

Reagan secured massive arms control deals with the Soviet Union, reducing real fears of nuclear war. Eventually, his massive investments in our military forces bankrupted the Soviet Union, which was unable to compete economically and eventually collapsed.

Thus, “without firing a shot,” Reagan ended the “Evil Empire” and freed millions of people in Eastern Europe from the clutches of communism. It was Reagan’s policies that brought down the “Iron Curtain” and the Berlin Wall, fulfilling the famous demand he made in his 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate.

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Instead of honoring Reagan for advancing world peace, the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave the prize to the final communist dictator of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gorbachev is not the only communist to be given the award, as North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, a “revolutionist” and member of the party’s politburo, was also honored. In 1994, in one of the committee’s most controversial decisions, Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat was given the Nobel Peace Prize.

The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureates will be announced on October 10. This year, 338 nominations have been received. Surely, one of the nominees is President Trump, once more. If Trump is overlooked again, it will be another outrage that will only diminish the prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Upon taking office on January 20, 2025, President Trump inherited a world with multiple wars raging. The war in Ukraine started during the last administration, but President Trump is trying to end it with a serious diplomatic effort involving both the Ukrainian and Russian governments. Before President Trump, there was no serious diplomatic attempt to end the war in Ukraine. He deserves credit for at least starting the negotiations. 

During the last administration, Hamas invaded Israel, starting the war in Gaza. Trump’s serious diplomatic efforts have included both sides and have resulted in the release of hostages and the hope that all held in captivity will be home soon. 

The Trump administration has also held hopeful talks with Iranian government officials. Due to President Trump’s strong military response, the Houthi rebels in Yemen have pledged to end their missile strikes on shipping. In response, President Trump has committed to ending our military campaign in Yemen.

The President’s latest achievement occurred on Saturday morning when he announced, “India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE.” Thereafter, he promised to “increase trade, substantially” with both countries.

The announcement followed intense diplomacy involving leaders from both countries, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance. Rubio posted on X.com that both India and Pakistan agreed to “start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site.”

The latest episode in this longstanding conflict started on April 22 when twenty-six civilians were killed in the Indian regions of Jammu and Kashmir. India claimed that Hindus were targeted by Pakistan, which denied involvement. Afterwards, “small arms fire” attacks were launched by both sides across the border, and India struck nine “terrorist” sites that Pakistan claimed “hit civilian areas and killed numerous children.” 

If this ceasefire holds, it will be a monumental triumph for a President tirelessly working to end multiple wars simultaneously. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif appreciates Trump’s efforts. He posted on X.com, “We thank President Trump for his leadership and proactive role for peace in the region.”

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Clearly, there is one champion peacemaker in the world, Donald Trump—it's time for the Norwegian Nobel Committee to acknowledge reality.

The Trump-Iran Deal, Explained

 

Just recently, the Houthis, that is the terrorist organization that controls half of Yemen and has been hit hard by the United States for its interruption of maritime commerce in the Red Sea and its serial attacks on Israel, has been—I guess you would say—neutered.

Its port facilities, its airport, a lot of its missile depots, its command and control have all been neutralized. But yet, here they are with a vestigial force. They just sent a missile, not just into Israel, but into Israel’s international Ben Gurion Airport. It almost hit one of the terminals. Didn’t kill anybody. But it made a huge crater right on the periphery of the airport grounds. And for some reason it was not intercepted by Israel’s tripartite missile defense system.

Let me add another incident. Just recently, almost at the same time, four more terrorists were arrested in the United Kingdom for organizing Iranian-inspired terror against citizens of Britain. And of course, we remember that Iran was involved in an effort to assassinate President Donald Trump.

What am I getting at is, we’re right in the middle of negotiations with Iran. Donald Trump feels that they are historically vulnerable. The Assad regime, their lifeline to the Arab world, is gone. Kaput. Vanished. They can’t use the Damascus airport to airlift weapons for Hezbollah. Hezbollah has been reduced dramatically in its effectiveness. Hamas is—I don’t know what you’d call Hamas. It’s living underground among the rubble of Gaza. And then, of course, the Houthis, as I mentioned, have been attacked.

Israel has demonstrated that it can penetrate, at will, the supposedly formidable air defenses of Iran. The United States, in addition, is building up its strategic bombing force—in Diego Garcia and in areas that can reach Iran—with the capability of dropping these 20,000 to 30,000-pound bunker busters. We have two carriers that will soon be assembled near there.

What am I getting at again? The pressure is all on Iran. Militarily. Diplomatically. Economically. Socially. Culturally. What do I mean by that? Culturally, there is about 30% to 40% of the country are non-Farsi Persian speakers. And they’re very restive, angry. Power outages. The regime is unpopular. It’s diverted billions of dollars to these terrorist appendages that now didn’t pay off, that they’re defunct.

And so, Donald Trump thinks that he, with this maximum pressure, putting this crushing oil embargo—which by the way, former President Joe Biden lifted—that he can bring them to negotiations one last time. Personally, I don’t think he can. Nothing that that regime has ever said is accurate. Nobody in the MAGA movement wants an optional war in the Middle East. But they will have nuclear weapons, perhaps in a year.

So, what is the likely scenario? The likely scenario is they will lose face if they negotiate away their nuclear weapons. That is the only lever they have over Western powers now that their terrorist children are all gone. So, I don’t think they’re gonna make a deal. They’re gonna delay, delay, delay; lie, lie, lie; use the Houthis.

And they are playing with fire because once Donald Trump gives them an opportunity for a peaceful way out of their dilemma—that is they can negotiate an end to their nuclear program. They don’t need nuclear power. They have the fourth-largest fossil fuel reserves in the world. They have enough energy for themselves and for export for an endless amount of time. And yet they still are working on this nuclear project, not for peaceful energy generation, but to have a nuclear deterrent.

And so, what we should look for in the next few months is that an exasperated Trump administration will finally throw up its hands and say, “You can’t deal with these people, but they’re not gonna get a nuclear weapon.”

At that point, one of two things will happen—I should say one of three things. Israel will hit back because of the Houthis’ attack on its airport. And that could come sooner or later. Or the United States will intervene. I don’t think it’ll intervene on its own. Or there’ll be a joint Israeli-American operation.

But by the end of the year, I don’t think Iran will have a nuclear deterrent. And then we’re gonna be watching a mystery unfold.

If it should be hit, and if it should lose its nuclear potential, what will be the reaction of the Iranian people? Will they be angry that their national sovereignty has been attacked? Or will they be delighted that this 50-year hated regime is now gone and they don’t have to spend money on these Arab terrorist groups that have brought them no profit?

That’ll be something to see. And I think we’ll see it at the end of the year.

How Pollsters Rig the Numbers Against Trump

 

We’ve touched on polls before, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite as egregious in pollsters’ bias as recently when they apparently or supposedly or purportedly surveyed the first 100 days of President Donald Trump and the public reaction.

Almost immediately headlines blared, “Worst First 100 Days in History.” “Trump Drops From 52 to 42.”

Everybody was confounded because the economic news was pretty good. Job growth was just spectacular. Over 170,000 jobs. Inflation was down. Energy prices were down. Corporate profits were up. There was a movement on the trade question. Ukraine still—there was no bad news except the controversy and chaos of a counterrevolution.

So, what were the pollsters trying to tell us? Or were they trying to manipulate us? And I think it’s the latter.

Larry Kudlow, for example, the Fox, former Fox Business—I think he still is at Fox. He pointed out that when he examined The New York Times and The Washington Post polls, they were deliberately not counting people who surveyed that they were Trump voters in 2024. That was half the country. They were only polling about a third. Think of that. A third of the people that said they voted for Trump they polled. Not half. So, of course, their results were going to be disputed or suspect.

But here’s another thing. There were analyses after each of the 2016, the 2020, and the 2024 elections about the accuracy of polls, post facto, of the election. And we learned that they were way off in 2016. They said they had learned their lessons. They were way off in 2020. They said they learned their lesson. And they were way off in 2024.

And why are they way off? Because liberal pollsters—and that’s the majority of people who do these surveys—believe that if they create artificial leads for their Democratic candidates, it creates greater fundraising and momentum. Kind of the herd mentality. “Oh, Trump is down by six. I don’t wanna vote for him. Then he won’t win.” That’s the type of thing that they want to create.

I’ll give you one example. The most egregious. The most egregious of all these polls was the NPR/PBS/Marist poll. They have Donald Trump just very unpopular after 100 days. Very unpopular. This is the now-defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting, that umbrella organization from which this poll was funded and conducted.

Do we remember that poll? It was the one poll that came out the night before the 2024 election. They said that then-Vice President Kamala Harris would win by four points. And they said it was beyond the margin of error. And one of the pollsters said, “It’s her race to lose.” She lost by a point and a half. They were five and a half points. Did they apologize? No. Here they are again.

And David Plouffe, one of the directors of the Harris campaign, just recently came out and said, “Well, we had all these inside polls we never disclosed. But not one of them—not one of them—had Harris ever ahead of Trump.”

Inside polls don’t lie because you pay somebody to tell you the truth. Nothing will get you fired and lose income quicker than to lie about a poll so that your candidate will be happy and rely on your false information. People don’t pay for that kind of stuff.

So, in other words, they knew the whole time—the Harris campaign—that 15 of those 20 polls, 19 polls that all had Harris winning the election, they were all false. Of course, they never said anything.

And so, here’s my point. If you look at the polls that were the most accurate—Mark Penn was very accurate. He’s a Democratic pollster. But especially, the Rasmussen poll and the Insider Advantage and the Trafalgar poll. They joined together and they had a 100-day survey. Rasmussen—each day of the 100-day period that he’s issued a poll. And guess what? They have Trump ahead by anywhere from two to three points after 100 days. And they were the most accurate.

And yet, what do these news outlets say that Trump—it’s a disaster. That he’s polling—no. He’s polling very well. Things are going very well.

The pollsters that indicate that people support him are the only pollsters that have any reputation after this decade-long polling disaster in which their prejudices, their biases, and their hatred of Donald Trump affected their results. And they were effectively in league with the Democratic candidate to create momentum rather than to adhere to a spirit of professionalism and honor.

Germany’s Drift Toward ‘National Suicide’

 

Recently, the German government announced that it is going to label or maybe relabel the Alternative für Deutschland—the Alternative for Germany—the conservative party that has an antithetical agenda both to the German government of both liberal and conservative factions, but also to the EU in general.

Anyway, it is announced that it will classify it as a dangerous far-right organization. And that will cement this aura that no government, under their parliamentary democracy system, will ask them to join to form a majority government. So, the process of ostracism and demonization of this party continues.

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And what is the party advocating? The party is advocating an alternative for the way that Germany is going. And very briefly, we’ve talked about this, but if you look at what has become of Germany, it has had two years of essentially no growth or negative growth. Only recently, last year, did it finally, after 30 years, invest a measly 2% of its gross domestic product as it had promised in 2014. It had not met that goal. It just barely did it.

It’s had a systematic decommission of its nuclear power plants. And how anybody could rely on solar power in Germany—but yet the German government invested heavily in it. And the result is that German power, electricity—heating, cooling, and industrial use—is about four times what the average power cost is in the United States. And you can see what that’s gonna do to German investment.

They had been also sort of noncommittal about Chinese mercantilism. Because Germany—remember 10 years ago, eight years ago—started to get massive exportation to China for things like cars, especially electric vehicles, and solar panels and industrial equipment.

And they didn’t quite think that China was going to do to them what China had done to us a decade earlier. And that is invite in a country to supply them with quality goods and plants in China and be very profitable as the Chinese mastered that craft, mastered that industry, both this material side of production and the bureaucratic and corporate management.

And when China did that, they began to create German-like EVs, German-like solar panels at a much less cost and then started to export it and ruin much of Germany’s export market.

What am I getting at? Germany, in terms of power, in terms of a border that has been open, in terms of about 16% to 18% of the population that was not born in Germany and is not fully assimilated—these are refugees. Or I don’t think they’re refugees—they’re illegal immigrants from the volatile Middle East. Most of them are Muslim. Most of them do not have an intention of assimilating, intermarrying, and integrating fully in German society.

And you add all this up—and I’m not being critical. It’s very tragic because for years Germany was the powerhouse, the cohesive economic power that kept the EU together. And during the Cold War it fielded one of the best NATO armies, West Germany. Well over 400,000 troops. It’s almost literally disarmed. It cannot fulfill even its meager commitments to help Ukraine. And out of this tension, if it was a normal democratic society, you would have a variety of vocal opponents, proponents, give and take, yin and yang, and there would be a lively mix-up.

And they would come to a consensus that these were the masters of nuclear power. Twenty years ago, German physicists were the top in the world—nuclear physicists. They would start investing again in nuclear power. They would start up natural gas generation. Wind and solar would be integral, but a small part, because they would need reliable, cheap energy to compete on the world market. They would join the United States and look at China and say, “This is intolerable, this system of mercantilism.” They would close their borders. They would go to an assimilationist model and require immigrants that came legally to fully become Germans. They would do all of that.

But instead, when one party is advocating much of what I just talked about, they demonize it because it’s out of the norm. And the norm, unfortunately, in Germany today is national suicide.

Unfortunately, this is not going to end well for Germany. And it’s not gonna end well for us. We need a powerful, friendly Germany. And we wish it well. But the reaction to needed reform—economic, political, social, cultural, military, diplomatic—is not to essentially ban a political party’s freedom of expression. That shows weakness and fear rather than confidence in the future.

Would the Left Finally Explain the Inexplicable?

 

Somewhere between 10 million and 12 million illegal aliens were invited into the United States by the Biden administration.

As far as logistics go, former President Joe Biden could not flee Afghanistan without getting 13 Marines killed and abandoning to the terrorist Taliban $50 billion in munitions, a billion-dollar embassy, and a $300 million retrofitted huge airbase.

But Biden and his handlers proved far more logistically capable when their target was fellow Americans.

After all, they somehow managed to stop the congressionally approved continuance of the border wall, to subvert federal immigration law, to emasculate the Border Patrol, and to ensure that millions of people around the world could simply walk into the U.S. illegally, unaudited and with impunity.

But why did Biden or his puppeteers do something so anarchic, so injurious to their fellow Americans?

Why cost the nation hundreds of billions of dollars in massive new entitlements? Why swamp the social services of our own poor citizens?

Why turn loose half a million criminal aliens and gang members to prey on our own weak and defenseless?

Was the idea to alter the demography in one fell swoop? To grow the dependent class, thereby expanding government?

Was it pure spite born of hatred of half the country?

Was it to ensure future constituencies, given that the Democratic agenda no longer appeals to most Americans?

Was it a globalist gambit to demonstrate borders are anachronistic?

Was it to fast-track new voters under the laxity of post-2020 early- and mail-in voting protocols?

Those who perpetrated the greatest ruse in American presidential history by staging the Biden presidency will never tell us what their ultimate agenda was.

They knowingly fixed the 2020 primaries to ensure a non-compos-Biden would be nominated. Under the cover of the COVID-19 lockdowns, they kept him in his basement while operatives radically altered the voting laws in the key swing states.

For the next four years, they put their waxen effigy in a hermetically sealed cocoon—one of avoidance of the press, three-day workweeks, and four-hour workdays.

Yet Biden could still not read huge-font, teleprompted scripts. He could not finish a simple call for unity without snarling, screaming, and damning his opposition as “semi-fascists,” “ultra-MAGA,” and “garbage.”

Was the point to salvage the Democratic Party for one last hurrah before “the squad” and the Bernie Sanders socialists inevitably took over and destroyed it?

Was that the idea behind clearing the primary field and anointing a decrepit “good ol’ Joe Biden from Scranton” veneer?

Or was it more sinister still in the sense that a debilitated Biden facade was a godsend for the Left? Did his pseudo-centrist cover ensure that his handlers—the Obama crowd, the diversity, equity, and inclusion chauvinists, and the Sanders socialists—could enact from the shadows the most radical agenda since 1933?

Will anyone ever tell us why they endangered and nearly ruined the country with a zombie president?

Why did the Left break every prior pretense of legality and of fair play in trying to wreck an entire legal system just to destroy Donald Trump?

Why did the so-called stewards of jurisprudence coordinate four local, state, and federal prosecutions to cook up 93 indictments—the vast majority of them ridiculous contortions that will never be charged against any other American?

What was behind the disastrous effort to de-ballot Trump in most of the blue states? To “save” democracy by destroying it?

Why did they twice impeach a president and then try him as a private citizen?

Why did SWAT teams swarm an ex-president’s home to carry off over 10,000 documents in order to find 102 classified files?

Why did the FBI bring their own pre-prepared classification labels? Why scatter photo files on the floor?

Had Trump destroyed subpoenaed evidence like Hillary Clinton’s emails?

Had Trump stored the files, Biden-style, at four different locations?

Had Trump earlier just flunked rather than aced the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, would special counsel Jack Smith—as did Robert Hur in the Biden file case—have dropped all the charges against Trump on the grounds he was “an elderly man with a poor memory?”

So, what was behind the four years of trying to blow up and discredit our legal and law enforcement system just to destroy Trump?

Was their goad his accent, his bombast, or his tan that so drove the elite Left into insanity?

Were they convinced they could never beat him in another election?

Did they hate him because, in his first term, he had secured the border, grown the economy, and had no wars abroad?

Or was it an unstoppable fixation, a destructive addiction?

In sum, the more he mocked them, the more they sought to destroy him—and all the more they ensured he would be president again.

Canada Missed Out on a Huge Opportunity

 

This week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who was newly elected as the prime minister with a majority of seats in the Canadian Parliament, is visiting Washington.

As I speak, he’s been holding sessions with President Donald Trump about the so-called trade war and Trump’s trolling of him about being a 51st state. Let me just address that first.

Donald Trump did not like former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who did not like Donald Trump. And he was so frustrated by the surpluses that Canada kept racking up and their unwillingness to spend the required NATO 2% of gross domestic product investment in munitions that he would troll Canada and say, “We’re the same language, the same people. We could do a lot better job than this guy.”

And of course, he took that very seriously. And then there was an election. Trudeau was a failure. Pierre Poilievre, the conservative candidate, had a 20-point lead. He lost it partly because Carney was the champion of Canadian nationalism and said, “We’re never gonna make a 51st state. Donald Trump has no business doing—”

It’s kind of like what Trump did with Panama and Greenland. It’s a way of “Art of the Deal.” We got China to the—we kind of made it a little bit more irrelevant in Panama. We’ve got some reforms going on. Same with Greenland. We were never going to invade either one.

We’re never gonna make Canada a 51st state. You need a majority vote of the Congress. The Congress is never going to vote to admit Canada because the Left would feel it was an infringement upon their sovereignty. We were imperialists, colonialists. The Right said, “Why do we want another New York or Colorado to screw up the country?”

So, it’s not gonna happen. And Carney knew that, but he ran on it. And he whipped up nationalism. And that was fine. That’s what politicians do. But now he’s in a conundrum. He’s got to come to the White House. Trump knows what he did. So, Trump is reminding him about the 51st state. But there’s two issues and they don’t look good for Canada.

No. 1 is, in 2014, all the NATO countries promised to spend 2% of GDP. And under Trump’s prodding during the first term and then the Ukraine war during President Joe Biden’s term, it has frightened most of them. And there’s only 8 of the 32 nations, about, that have not met their 2% obligation. Canada’s one of them. But it’s one of the least cooperative of the 32 nations.

In other words, it only spends 1.37% of its GDP on defense. It won’t kick in another $40 billion to help arm it. And you could make the argument that it depends on the United States. It looks that if there’s any hostile activity, cartels, they’re down there in Mexico with the United States between them. And nobody is going to proverbially mess with Canada when the United States has it under its nuclear shield, Alaska early warnings, you name it.

So, they know that. And they do not want to spend the money. And they’re shorting their other NATO partners. And they’re derelict and they’re culpable.

The other thing is, they’re running up $63 billion with their trade surplus with their partner. And most of it is because they have a thick, sulfurous crude oil that’s in the middle of the country. And it’s very convenient for them to go right across the border and sell it to us. And we like it. And we can refine it. We have the refineries that can deal with that type of difficult crude.

It’d be very difficult for them to send it all the way to their east or west ports and make the same profit. Ninety-five percent of their oil comes to us. We’re a good customer, in other words. Why would they not then say, “We’ll try to import more poultry, cheese, agricultural products. We can’t get down to zero but let’s—we can cut the trade surplus by $20 or $30 billion. You’re our neighbor”?

But they didn’t do that. And so, he instead whipped up—it was very successful to whip up Canadian nationalism. Very successful to win that election. But then where do you go from that? You go and see Donald Trump and you want to just say, “We’re not gonna be a 51 state. We’re not gonna be a 51 state”?

Does he really believe that the majority of people in Congress are gonna vote to admit Canada? Nobody wants to do that.

So, what am I getting at? He could have had a statesmanlike message both during the election and when he saw Trump. He could have said this: ”Donald Trump is trolling us. We’re friends with the United States. He’s trying to needle us so that we spend more money on NATO and we lower our surplus, which is growing very big. And we’re gonna do that. We’re gonna negotiate. Don’t take him serious. He’s just doing this like he did to Panama. We’re good friends. He kids us. We kid him.”

But he didn’t do that. He tried to whip it up. And it was successful. But once you whip it up and you get that hostility, then you’ve gotta go deal with him. And then you’ve gotta tell him, “I’m not gonna spend $40 billion on our defense. We’re going to subsidize you on defense. And we’re not gonna lower that.”

That’s not gonna work. It’s not gonna work. And so, I think that he can say, he’ll leave the meeting and say, “I told him we’re not gonna be a 51st.” That was an irrelevant misadventure. It was going nowhere and he knew it.

But the two issues that he knew were important—that they should man up and pay their 2% and help defend not only NATO but the North American continent, which they had done brilliantly in the past—he didn’t want to talk about. Or he’d say they’d do it in five years. “Five years, we’ll do it.” No, you’ve already been derelict for 11 years.

Or he could have said, “We don’t run up big surpluses with our friends. We’re not Mexico. We’re much closer to you. And we’re gonna work on this. And we’re gonna try to import. We’ll work it down. This is”—no. No.

He created his nationalist paradigm. It got him elected. And now he owns it. And it’s not gonna work with Donald Trump. I wish it would but it’s not because if you want to alienate the United States and you want to take seriously the “Art of the Deal” trolling and sort of laugh it off or, better yet, the Panamanians knew what they were doing. They were getting too close to China. They were surrendering partial sovereignty. And they backed off. And it’s going to be a beautiful relationship with us.

But Canada just couldn’t do that. And I think they will eventually.

Yes, Republicans Should Absolutely Raise Taxes On The Rich

 

Democrats don’t have a lot of talking points that resonate with a majority of Americans anymore. Oddly enough, ‘We’re going to trans your kids’ doesn’t quite ring the same to ordinary parents as it does to the blue hairs. People care about the environment, but going back to the Stone Age, when China and India kept polluting the planet on a massive scale, it seems a bit much. And while most people don’t want to make every abortion in every situation illegal, late-term and partial birth procedures seem a bit murdery for most anyone except the most committed Commies.

But one consistent talking point they do have, and have had for decades, is the contention that rich people should pay more taxes. The other issues, even if emotionally charged on the surface, are pretty easy to counter with facts and evidence. This one, however, is a different animal altogether, and it hearkens to the class warfare that’s been successfully employed by Marxists since the 19th century.

An important point many on our side miss is that just because the bad guys use an argument doesn’t mean it’s not valid on some level. For example, the working class had it pretty rough back then, and like it or not, we’ve largely got unions and government to thank for the posh working conditions we all enjoy today. Can they and have they gone too far? Of course, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t tackling real problems that needed addressing. My grandfather, who worked in a southwest Virginia coal mine, participated in many of the coal strikes of the mid-20th century, and died at 64, partially from the black lung disease he developed after decades of exposure, would doubtless agree if he were alive today.

Still, it’s one thing to force job creators to treat their workers with some baseline of fairness when it comes to pay, safety, and overall working conditions. It’s quite another to tax them at a level that not only makes it difficult to accumulate the generational wealth most of us dream of being able to obtain someday, but also stifles the kind of economic activity, from job creation to luxury consumption, that keeps the middle and lower classes functioning.

It’s hard to believe there was a time in the United States when the top marginal tax rate was 94%, but it’s true. Sure, there were deductions, and the threshold was pretty high to reach that level. Still, the fact that there was a point where taxes became virtually confiscatory had to have stifled economic activity among the super wealthy. After all, what’s the point of making a ton of money if the government is just going to take it from you?

In truth, tax rates for the richest Americans were absurdly high from the 30’s to the Reagan era, when they finally got slashed to something more similar to what we have today. But we still have a graduated system, with a standard deduction and a lower rate for initial tiers of income. And while the top 1% no longer suffer from confiscatory taxes, they also pay more than 40% of all income taxes collected.

The point I’m trying to make here is that there’s a balance. Many conservatives are conditioned to bristle at the slightest notion that the political Left might have a valid point on something, but we do that at our own peril. No, taxes on the rich shouldn’t be confiscatory, and yes, every income earner should in some way contribute to the tax system. Still, there’s also nothing wrong with taxing the people who can easily afford it at a higher rate than working-class Americans who live paycheck to paycheck.

In truth, the kind of class warfare that brought down the 19th-century robber barons is actually exacerbated by doing the opposite. If you want to see another Communist Revolution, go back to the kinds of policies that made the first one possible and see what happens. Sadly, jealousy is a human foible that will never be eradicated. We like to pick on the left for refusing to acknowledge human nature, but sometimes our side can do it too. Going too far in one direction on that pendulum is the mistake the Marxists made, but refusing to acknowledge it altogether is the kind of mistake that only gives them momentum.

This brings us to that key Democratic point of taxing the rich. We may not like it, but people like Bernie and AOC are striking a chord here that resonates with voters, particularly young ones, and we ignore it at our peril. When Republican senators actually balk at the prospect of allowing the top marginal rate to go from 37% back to the 39.6% it was before the original Trump tax cuts, ‘out of touch’ doesn’t begin to cover it. This doesn’t strike most Americans as confiscatory; it strikes them as fair.

The Republican Party, especially this Populist iteration, should NEVER, EVER again be the party of cutting taxes for the richest Americans. It’s tone deaf, dumb, and self-defeating. We can be balanced on this without going too far, and we can neuter the Dems simultaneously. Somehow, ‘We want to raise taxes on the rich more than they do’ doesn’t quite resonate the way ‘They want to cut taxes for their billionaire friends’ does. Perhaps it’s time to remove that play from their playbook and keep winning elections.

Oh, the Latest News Out of Antarctica Is a Huge Blow to the Global Warming Crowd

 

In high school, the doomsday scenarios regarding global warming were endless. Back in 2007, the climate change cult said the Arctic Ice Cap would vanish. It didn’t. When 2013 hit, it gained about 530,000 square miles of ice. Still, the con is on with the Green Left, who claims they were on the verge of total destruction. 

In the 1970s, global cooling and North American re-glaciation would imperil humanity. They were wrong then, and they’re wrong now. The Green Movement has been exposed as a backdoor communist push, spearheaded by the wealthy and the elites to further screw over working Americans via intentional economic sabotage. These folks can soak up the costs, and a great many love to hobnob at these exclusive global warming retreats, which also gives them an opportunity to fire up those private jets. 

Well, the doomsday global warming cult’s agenda of making us poorer to protect us against something that doesn’t exist took another body blow this week. Antarctica gained a ton of ice (via KTVU): 

A study published this week in Science China Earth Sciences finds that the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) experienced a record-breaking mass gain between 2021 and 2023, largely due to anomalous increases in precipitation. The rebound is especially significant in East Antarctica, where four major glacier basins had previously shown signs of destabilization. 

[…] 

Big picture view: Researchers from Tongji University and other institutions analyzed satellite gravimetry data from the GRACE and GRACE-FO missions, which measure variations in Earth’s gravity to detect changes in ice mass. 

They found that between 2011 and 2020, the AIS was losing ice at a rate of 142 gigatons per year. But between 2021 and 2023, the trend reversed, with the ice sheet gaining approximately 108 gigatons per year — a historic turnaround. 

[…] 

The most notable gains were in East Antarctica’s Wilkes Land and Queen Mary Land region, including the Totten, Denman, Moscow University, and Vincennes Bay glacier basins. These glaciers had been losing mass at an accelerating rate from 2011 to 2020 — driven by surface melting and faster ice discharge into the ocean — but now appear to have partially recovered.

Scientists warn, however, that this shift doesn’t mean the climate crisis is over. The gains were linked to unusual precipitation patterns, which may be temporary.\

The last part kills me: it’s only temporary. Yeah, that is what we have been saying for years. It’s cyclical. It’s natural. We’ve never been more industrialized as a civilization, and the ‘ice is melting’ narrative from said economic activity caused Antarctica to gain ice

The Anti-Trump Media Is Awfully Quiet About This Story Now

 

They said I would be homeless, begging for soup, and regretting my vote for Donald Trump. That latest bit of fake news has imploded like the OceanGate submersible, and the media would like you to forget they were the top manufacturers of this economic panic porn.

In April, they were cranking out these stories about how this would be the worst market period since 1932. Why? President Trump initiated his tariff policy to reset the market, protect American workers, and rebuild stateside high-skill manufacturing sectors. 

It’s not like the 1950s regarding some sectors, but the elites and Wall Street tried to turn the public against Trump, inducing an artificial sell-off that sent markets tumbling. A market adjustment was coming, as Joe Biden’s inflationary spending levels weren’t sustainable. This cabal increased the level of pain to scare people. Liberals were rejoicing at the temporary downturn because they're traitors and un-American, but Trump voters did not flee, nor did they regret their vote. 

Why? Because Trump voters are loyal. Those in the market lost more under Biden than Trump, and they’re not stupid. You ride it out. The level of trust is astounding, and it’s paid off. The markets didn’t crash. Everyone held firm, and the elites lost again. The rebound is now a historic winning streak (via CNBC): 

A turbulent period for stocks around new tariff policies from the White House has remarkably given way to Wall Street’s longest winning streak in 20 years.

The S&P 500 rose again on Friday, notching a ninth straight positive session for the first time Nov. 5, 2004. 

The index also traded above its April 2 close for the first time since the major tariff announcement a month ago. 

[…] 

Not to be outdone, the Dow Jones Industrial Average also cashed a ninth straight winning day, its longest streak in more than a year.  In London, the winning streak for the FTSE 100 index hit a record of 15 consecutive days. 

The rally doesn’t appear to be a weak one either, at least according to technical experts. Mary Ann Bartels, chief investment strategist at Sanctuary Wealth, said Friday on CNBC’s ” Money Movers ” that the S&P 500′s winning streak seems to be repairing some technical damage caused in early April. “The breadth of the market has been really strong, and a number of my breadth indicators are giving buy signals. 

Volume is not bad, but it’s decent enough, and if we can go up and test resistance near the 200-day moving average near 5,745, or even get above it around 5,800, there’s a chance we don’t have to go down and test those awful lows at 4,835,” Bartels said.

As we’ve noted, Trump plays these games with the media, Democrats, and his political enemies like it’s a best-of-seven series. It’s not over after one game, whereas his detractors act like the clowns who think winning the season's first game means they’re championship-bound. Trump’s enemies have had their best-laid plans at every turn, and narratives get burned to ash. 

This one is no different. My only criticism of the tariff policy is one that Larry Kudlow relayed weeks ago: It should have come second to Congress passing the budget reconciliation package. But that’s all. Trump obviously went another direction, and while it was a bumpy start, Liberation Day dividends are pouring in.

We Needed a New President, Not ‘Comprehensive Immigration Reform’

 

At the end of the 90-day period, where are we on the immigration issue? And there’s good news and there’s bad news. It’s sort of like the
trade and tariff issue. It’s sort of like the Iran denuclearization
effort. It’s sort of like the Ukraine war. There’s a lot of good
indicators, but there’s not realization or finalization.

And that is important because President Donald Trump is polling in
the RealClear—average is about 44%, 45%. He has gone down some. I think
the polls on the Left are trying to exaggerate that average downward.
But nevertheless, that reflects that everything is in suspension. And
let’s look at how that applies to the border.

The good news is that we’ve gone from 10,000 people entering
illegally to zero. And we’ve got the highest morale ever in Immigration
and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. People are ecstatic at the work they’ve done. Mexico is no longer cooperating with the forces of illegal immigration. They’re scared to. The wall will be continued all the way to the gulf in some form or the other.It’s a big success. And guess what? There was no comprehensive
immigration reform. Remember that kind of bogeyman? “We need
comprehensive”—no, we didn’t. We just needed to enforce the laws on the
books. And we’ve done that.Now, here’s the other part. We don’t know how many people were let in under former President Joe Biden.
It may have been 10, 11, 12 million. It’s hard to know whether an
illegal entry always stayed here or not. But they did chart, roughly,
how many people came in. It was somewhere between 10 and 12 million,
maybe 400,000 or 500,000 aliens.But here’s the principle that the Left has adopted. And I can’t
believe it. Maybe you can. It’s surreal. It’s Orwellian. And it’s been
reified by the district courts, in some cases, the circuit courts, and
de facto by the Supreme Court because they haven’t acted. And the
principle is this. It was legal de facto for the prior administration to
systematically and unashamedly break the law by destroying the border
and allowing these 10 to 12 million people to come in illegally and to
reside illegally.The courts did not entertain any objection to that. In other words,
there was a blatant destruction of the law by the chief executive. However, the corollary to that is even more disturbing. The incoming
administration who wants to rectify that abuse—in other words, it wants
to enforce the law and say that you came in illegally and you shouldn’t
have because of the prior laxity of this government. Now, you’ve gotta
leave because you’re still breaking the law. And they’re stopping these
deportations, for the most part. So, the principle is it is lawful to be unlawful if you’re Joe
Biden—according to the courts—but it is unlawful to be lawful if you’re Donald Trump.
And the result is that we’ve got these 10 to 12 million people. Are we
going to have an immigration hearing for each one of them? Or are we
just going to pick people?Now, Kilmar Abrego Garcia had two administrative hearings with
immigration judges. And he was said to be deportable. The third one
said, “Well, if we deport him, he might be in danger by gangs.” Now, I
don’t think there’s much of an MS-13 gang in El Salvador anymore because
they’re all in that huge prison. So, that should be nullified.They didn’t say he couldn’t be deported. He just said he didn’t think
he could be deported to El Salvador. They should bring him back and
then deport him somewhere else. Deport him to Mexico, if you want. But
nobody would want him because, unlike our Left, they believe that he was
a gang member. And by the way, we’ve had new information
that when he was pulled over in Tennessee with eight illegal aliens
with him—and I don’t know why he wasn’t cited—he was speeding at a high
speed without a valid license. Anybody listening, right now, if you get in a car and you have eight
people with no identification and it looks like you’re trafficking and
you have no valid driver’s license and you’re breaking the speed law,
you’re gonna go to jail. But not if you’re an illegal alien trafficker.But here’s the new information. The car that Abrego Garcia was
driving—who said he was just bringing construction workers from Texas to
Maryland—it was registered under the name of a known human trafficker
who had been arrested for that. In other words, he was, Abrego Garcia, a
trafficker.So, now we have this situation where you cannot deport somebody who
beat his partner, who trafficked to smuggle people in, who has gang
activity and gang markings on his body and his attire, and is a citizen
of El Salvador and is here illegally. If you can’t deport him, I don’t
know who you can deport who was here illegally. So, that’s where we are right now. Great news on the border. But a
manipulation, a distortion, a warping of the law in a very surreal
fashion that somebody who is trying to enforce the law is considered
unlawful and someone who completely made a mockery of it was considered
lawful