“President Biden handed off the best economy to an incoming president since at least the 2001 handoff from Clinton to Bush II. In his last quarter in office, GDP grew at a 2.3 percent annual rate (final demand, which excludes inventory fluctuations, grew at a 3.2 percent rate). That brought the average growth rate for Biden’s presidency to 3.2 percent, the highest since Clinton’s second term. The unemployment rate fell to 4.0 percent in January, keeping it in the narrow band between 4.0 percent and 4.3 percent it has been in since last May. For Biden’s whole term the unemployment rate averaged 4.1 percent, the lowest since Johnson’s last term, more than half a century ago. … but we know that Donald Trump has big plans for the economy. Given his bold pronouncements coming daily, or even hourly, he has many possible routes for ending the boom we have been seeing.” (02/20/25)
“The hard left [sic] of the Democratic Party is trying to force Gov. Kathy Hochul to fire Mayor Eric Adams because it thinks he might help the Trump administration remove illegal [sic] migrant criminals who are menacing New Yorkers. How dare he! Forget that Adams is New York’s democratically elected mayor. Forget that most New Yorkers want illegal [sic] alien gangbangers out of our city. The self-described ‘party of democracy’ wants, yet again, to kill democracy to save it. The mere fact that Adams sat on the curvy couch of ‘Fox & Friends’ with border czar Tom Homan last week sent his Trump-deranged fellow Democrats into a tizzy. They’re apoplectic that he’s agreed to allow ICE to reopen its office on Rikers Island that was closed in 2015 by his despised predecessor, Bill de Blasio.” (02/19/25)
“In a reversal of the Pentagon’s usual ‘unfunded priorities lists’ — annual so-called wish lists Congress uses to fatten up an already bloated U.S. military — the services are now putting together hoped-for ‘defunded priorities lists’ for Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. The Defense Department has been scrambling to put together a list of lambs to sacrifice on DOGE’s altar. Predictably, among the early candidates are weapons the Pentagon doesn’t want, but that have been shoved down their wallet by lawmakers eager to keep defense plants back home churning out military hardware. They include aging drones, armored vehicles, and small Navy warships.” (02/20/25)
Source: Jake Porter’s Analysis & Investigations
by Jake Porter
“Growing up on the Missouri/Iowa border, I remember the 1990s when both states could be described as politically purple. It wasn’t uncommon for both Democrats and Republicans to hold statewide offices at the same time. Both states stayed politically purple up until recently. Today, both have moved far to the right. To get a good picture of how rural America has moved, we can look to Iowa.” (02/20/25)
“With an annual budget rapidly approaching $1 trillion, the Pentagon already gets more discretionary tax dollars than any other agency. Now congressional Republicans are proposing to hike that figure by anywhere from $100 billion to $150 billion, while slashing funding for programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and other programs that help keep Americans on their feet. Lawmakers have it backwards: We need to invest more in those programs and less in the Pentagon, which simply can’t account for how it’s spending our money. We have to curb our endless spending on the military, and put that money back into our real needs, like creating jobs, educating students, protecting our planet, and much more. Late last year, the Pentagon failed its mandatory audit, yet again. This isn’t the first time this has happened, either; in fact, the Pentagon has failed every audit it’s ever undergone.” (02/20/25)
“One of my favorite places on Earth, Greenland, has suddenly become the center of worldwide attention as US President Donald Trump reiterated his 2019 proposal that the US should do whatever it takes to acquire Greenland from Denmark. Trump’s interest stems from Greenland’s strategic location between the US and Russia, its large untapped deposits of oil, uranium, and rare earth minerals, and its control over Arctic trade routes, particularly the Northwest Passage, which is becoming increasingly navigable as Arctic sea ice disappears. … Because of my familiarity with the region, I knew immediately that Trump’s proposal would provoke a strong reaction in Greenland, where political leaders and everyday people alike see independence, not recolonization by the US, as their future.” (02/20/25)
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Anonymous National Guardsman
“I’ve served in the Air National Guard as a full-time Active Guard Reserve (AGR) for over twenty years. I’ve deployed overseas, responded to disasters here at home, and stood ready whenever my state or nation called. But today, I’m writing anonymously — not because I want to hide, but because I have to. You see, despite my decades of service, I’m not allowed to publicly support the Defend the Guard Act without facing potential repercussions. It’s a fine line we AGRs walk—full-time military professionals who are expected to serve quietly, even when policies threaten the very mission we signed up to support. Yet, while I must remain silent, I’ve watched two-star generals stand before legislative committees, in uniform, lobbying for policies that extend endless wars and stretch the Guard beyond its limits. The hypocrisy is staggering.” (02/20/25)
“Look around you. No doubt you see people doing things that don’t make much sense when you think about it. Middle-aged people (like me) talk about wanting to be healthy but then (like me) still too often eat like they’re still in High School. People talk about wanting a job and don’t seek one. People litter. People throw things away that could be recycled. There’s homelessness. Jobs are especially scarce for black teenagers. The world, it seems, doesn’t make sense because it’s filled with fools and knaves. If only we could find the right strong man or woman who can make a plan and make it work … A lot of that, I suspect, is the product of a price structure that rewards what looks like foolishness and knavery. When we get the prices right, however, what looks ‘foolish’ isn’t necessarily foolish, and what looks knavish might be relatively easy to explain.” (02/19/25)
“Last week, the American Conservative published an article by Scott Greer on Nashville as a city showing the way forward beyond wokeness. ‘What might replace woke as the dominant cultural form isn’t some return to tradition. It’s the culture and lifestyle embodied by Nashville,’ Greer writes. ‘Normal Americans just want to focus on the mundane and have a good time. Country serves as the soundtrack and Nashville as the vacation spot.’ Scott makes the all too common mistake of confusing the Nashville MSA with Nashville proper, but superficially, what he identifies as making Nashville palatable to people who want to live here is accurate. On top of the relative stability and lack of political drama, country music gives it a shine absent other places like Dallas, Atlanta, or Charlotte. But what I want to point out is that this arrangement is much more fragile than Greer or others might think.” (02/20/25)
