Trump Disinvites Haley and Pompeo From His Administration, and That’s Good

On Saturday evening, Donald Trump gave a strong signal of what his second term would be like, writing on Truth Social: “I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation. I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” This was an unusual move that many ascribed to Trump’s personal pique against both, but there was more to it than that.

The New York Post reported Saturday that “since winning Tuesday’s election in a landslide victory against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump and his team have been working behind closed doors at Mar-a-Lago to staff the 47th president’s administration, with loyalty the primary job requirement.” Neither Haley nor Pompeo has been even close to loyal to Trump, and so that may be all there is to the kiss-off they got from the once and future president on Saturday, but the gulf between the incoming commander-in-chief and these two establishment Republicans is wider than a matter of personal loyalty. 

As recently as Oct. 29, Haley, despite professing her support for Trump, criticized his campaign for being “overly masculine.” According to the Daily Beast, “Haley not only said that the bashing of Puerto Rico that occurred at Trump’s rally over the weekend was problematic, but that the campaign also ‘needs to look at how they are talking about women.’”

The “bashing of Puerto Rico” was a major Harris campaign talking point in the waning days of the campaign, as leftists once again proved that they were humorless prigs who couldn’t take even the mildest jest. Why was Haley repeating, endorsing, and amplifying a claim that the Harris campaign was using as a weapon against the candidate she supposedly supported?

Haley added: “This bromance and this masculinity stuff—it borders on edgy to the point that it’s going to make women uncomfortable. You’ve got affiliated PACs that are doing commercials about calling Kamala [Harris] the c-word, or you had speakers at Madison Square Garden referring to her and her ‘pimps.’ That is not the way to win women. That is not the way to win people who are concerned about Trump’s style.” What? Where were commercials running calling Harris “the c-word”? If such a thing existed, what network would even have run it? In any case, Trump has made clear his rejection of trans madness and the left’s related insanities. Why should he bring on board someone who shares the left’s hatred of masculinity?

That wasn’t the first time that Haley had repeated Democrat talking points. Politico reported in Aug. 2020 that Haley had claimed in her memoir to have been “deeply disturbed” when Trump said that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the Charlottesville protest, and still stood by her statements. Old Joe Biden, of course, made the lie that Trump had called National Socialists “fine people” a cornerstone of his 2020 campaign, and repeated this frequently throughout his presidency. Yet Trump in the same remarks in which he said that there had been “fine people” at the Charlottesville rally, also said: “I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.”

Thus the claim that he called Nazis “fine people” was always false, and Haley should have known that. Her tendency to endorse leftist claims without hesitation or due consideration places her in precisely the group Trump is signaling he wants to avoid this time around: Republicans who allow Democrats to set the agenda and even dictate the rules of the game, and simply raise minor objections here and there if they aren’t just rubber-stamping the whole leftist program.

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Iran Denies That It Is Trying to Murder Trump, But…

Now we’ve gone and hurt their feelings. As Rick Moran detailed Friday, the U.S. government has charged three men, including one Iranian, with plotting to assassinate Donald Trump at the behest of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), in revenge for the 2020 killing of IRGC top dog Qasem Soleimani. The Iranians, however, are hotly denying this, claiming that it’s a malicious invention of the Biden-Harris Justice Department. And when it’s a choice between the Iranian mullahs and the regime’s gang of authoritarian prevaricators at the “Justice” department, who are you gonna believe? 

Fox News reported Saturday that “Iran’s Foreign Ministry dismissed a report released by the Department of Justice on Friday stating that it thwarted an Iranian plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump.” A spokesman for the foreign ministry, Esmaeil Baghaei, “categorically dismissed allegations that Iran was involved in attempts to assassinate former and current US officials.” Baghaei thundered that the Justice Department’s report was “completely baseless and rejected,” and even claimed that similar allegations in the past have likewise been “firmly denied and proven false.”

Who does Baghaei think is behind all this lying? Why, the Jews, of course. He said that the American claims of an Iranian assassination plot against Trump were ” a malicious conspiracy orchestrated by Zionist and anti-Iranian circles, aimed at further complicating the issues between the US and Iran.” He assured the world that the Islamic Republic of Iran “remains committed” to using “all legitimate and legal means” to “restore the rights of the Iranian nation.” What rights has the Iranian nation lost? Baghaei didn’t get into that, and with good reason, since the only beef the Iranian regime really has with Israel is that it’s a Jewish state. Israel has never impinged upon Iran’s rights or threatened it in any way.

Trust in the U.S. government is so low these days that Baghaei’s claims found at least one notable taker. Political commentator and “Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams said: “I hate to say it, but I believe Iran over the United States on this topic. It would have been stupid for Iran to be behind it. It is normal for the United States to blame the wrong people.”

Adams may not be aware, however, that while the Iranians are denying it now, but they’ve admitted in the past that they were trying to kill Trump. In Feb. 2023, Fox News reported that Iran had renewed its threats against Trump and the others, and even stated them in Islamic religious terms. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps aerospace force, declared: “God willing, we are looking to kill Trump [and] Pompeo… and military commanders who issued the order should be killed.”

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CNN Analyst: Trump’s Victory Was So Massive He “Broke History”

CNN’s data analyst Harry Enten did a deep dive into the gains president Trump made with specific demographics in the election, highlighting how crushing they were for Democrats.

The numbers are truly astounding, and incredibly bad for the party of ‘joy.’

Enter pointed out that Trump made the greatest improvements over a previous presidential election performance from the same party since 1992.

“When was the last time a party gained in so many different places?” Enten asked, explaining that “You have to go all the way to back to 1992 when Bill Clinton improved on Michael Dukakis’ performance in 49 states, plus the District of Columbia.”

“Donald Trump’s performance on Tuesday was the best for a Republican presidential candidate in exit poll history,” Enten further urged, adding “He literally goes all the way back through history and breaks history.” 

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Trump’s win is a victory for the non-brainwashed Americans

Blowout alert! I guess average Americans don’t like being infantilized. At least Trump trusted them to be able to take a joke, unlike his opponents.

So when’s Liz Cheney’s date with the firing squad already? Are we done yet with the anti-Trump fake news now that the majority of voters see through it? Probably not, huh?

With the exception of those in a handful of states, Americans united to send former US President Donald Trump back to the White House and handed him carte blanche with Republican control of the Senate and likely the House as well. Not bad for a guy the establishment tried to brand as the reincarnation of Hitler. Did Hitler also have giant Israeli flags at his Madison Square Garden rally? Or hang out at the Jewish wall in Israel or with Hebrew-inscribed tablets in a yarmulke? That should have been the Democrats’ first sign that their branding attempt was off. Yet, just like the fitting title of the upcoming Harris biography co-authored by Chelsea Clinton: She Persisted

Maybe next time, instead of persisting with their idiocy, they’ll come up with an actual agenda and a candidate who addresses questions and issues on point rather than punting them in favor of talking points and platitudes that leave voters guessing as to what to even expect if ever elected – beyond the usual establishment status quo, which, of course, sucks. Just ask the overwhelming majority of Americans who say that the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Presumably, the Democrats figured that they could make a whole campaign about abortion rights – against a guy who, frankly, doesn’t actually seem too interested in the topic, which was recently re-opened by the courts. It’s telling that, according to CNN exit polls, Harris won the female vote by five points less than Biden did in 2020 and three points less than even Hillary Clinton did against Trump in 2016, when abortion wasn’t even an issue.

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Tax Cuts Without Spending Cuts Won’t Reduce the Taxpayers’ Burden

As this election cycle has demonstrated yet again, Democrats are not shy about calling for tax increases. In every election cycle they call for more taxes, whether through corporate taxes or through taxes on unrealized capital gains.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, has pledged to cut some taxes. I say “some” because Trump has also pledged to raise taxes on imports.

Nonetheless, Trump ran on the idea that he would reduce the tax burden on Americans if elected.

Unfortunately, Trump has no plans to cut government spending, and this means there is little chance that ordinary taxpayers are going to experience any real tax relief.

This is because tax cuts without spending cuts don’t actually lessen the cost of government. A tax cut without a spending cut simply moves around the tax burden, and often replaces explicit taxation with the stealth tax of price inflation.

Unless accompanied by spending cuts, a tax cut simply increases deficit spending, and taxpayers will pay for deficits one way or another. Typically deficits are paid for using one or more of the following: future taxes, present interest payments, and monetary inflation. Unfortunately for the taxpayers, when it comes to paying off deficit spending, “the future” is already here. In the 2024 fiscal year, the taxpayers had to pay nearly $900 billion in interest on the debt. That huge tax bill exists because federal politicians in the past spent more than they had in revenues.

Forcing the taxpayers to pay off old debts isn’t exactly popular, however. So, federal technocrats have found a way to push down interest rates on government debt. This reduces the amount of interest owed and nominally reduces the cost of government debt.

But this also ends up costing the taxpayers bigtime because the way that technocrats suppress the cost of interest is by having the central bank buy up more federal debt. (By buying government debt, the central bank artificially drives up demand, so the Treasury doesn’t have to pay as much in interest to attract buyers.) And where does the central bank get the money to buy up government debt? It prints the money. That then leads to both monetary inflation and (eventually) price inflation.

So, tax cuts that increase deficits only end up placing new and different burdens on the taxpayers. They’re not a real tax cut at all.

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Will Trump Buckle Again on the JFK Records?

 A fascinating situation has now developed between President-elect Donald Trump and the U.S. national-security establishment with respect to the long-secret JKF-assassination-related records that the CIA has succeeded in keeping secret for more than 60 years. Despite Trump’s campaign vow to release those records, it’s not at all clear how this matter is going to be resolved. I will give my prediction at the end of this article.

There are three major factors at play:

1. During his 2024 campaign, Trump vowed that this time around he is definitely going to order the National Archives to release those 60-year-old secret CIA records. Moreover, as he told Joe Rogan, he is going to do it “immediately.” See “Trump to Rogan: If Elected, I’ll Open Remaining JFK Files ‘Immediately’” by Jefferson Morley.

Let’s place this first factor in a historical context.

The JFK Records Act, which was enacted in 1992, ordered the national-security establishment and all other federal agencies to disclose their JFK-assassination-related records to the public.

However, the law gave federal officials an out. If they claimed that the release of certain records might jeopardize “national security” in various ways, they could keep them secret for another 25 years. Yes, 25 additional years of secrecy, on top of the secrecy from 1963 to the 1990s! Taking advantage of that out, the national-security establishment, especially the CIA, continued keeping thousands of its assassination-related records secret.

That 25-year-period ran out during Trump’s first term as president. At first, Trump declared valiantly that he was going to comply with the law and permit the National Archives to release and disclose the records.

But then just before the deadline arrived, Trump was visited by the CIA, who insisted on continued secrecy of its assassination-related records.

Trump immediately buckled. While allowing some records to be released, he did what the CIA wanted him to do and ordered that thousands of other records continue to be kept secret for another few years.

When the new deadline occurred under President Biden, the CIA convinced Biden to continue the secrecy of the records into perpetuity. Thus, the CIA felt it could now sleep easy, knowing that its long-secret assassination-related records would never see the light of day.

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Kash Patel, Rumored Pick for CIA Chief, Announces Massive Declassification Will Occur Under Trump’s Administration from Epstein Files to ‘Diddy List’ and More

In a recent interview, former Trump administration official Kash Patel announced that under President Donald Trump’s second administration, Americans should brace for unprecedented government transparency.

Patel, reportedly Trump’s likely choice for deputy director of the CIA, stated that “massive declassification” will be among their top priorities, aiming to release troves of information previously shielded from public view.

According to NDTV, during Trump’s first term as U.S. President, he planned to appoint Kash Patel as the CIA’s deputy director in the final weeks of his administration.

In a recent interview with Benny Johnson, Patel revealed that massive declassification will occur in Trump’s administration, including explosive revelations from the infamous Epstein files to the shadowy “Diddy list.”

Patel also hinted at releasing documents that implicate the Department of Justice and FBI in unlawful surveillance of over a quarter-million Americans in a single year.

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Were Peanut and Fred the final straws?

The vicious, unnecessary, malevolent killing of pet squirrel, Peanut, and pet raccoon, Fred, may have been the final two straws that put Trump over the top in such huge numbers. American voters were shocked that the government could come into their homes and unceremoniously murder two harmless long-time pets just because of some obscure law that didn’t apply. Laugh if you want, but I believe these two pet sacrifices put Trump over the top in larger numbers than he would have gotten had the pets not been slaughtered.

Government has been overreaching for a long time. We hated it then; we hate it now. Until the Peanut incident, the government had cover. But when you threaten a person’s beloved pet, you have gone too far. When you kill it just because you can, you have gone too far. People get extremely attached to pets. Children get attached to pets. It’s lose-lose for the government.

As with everything else the totalitarian Left does, it went a bridge too far and the voters punished them mercilessly for it. Certainly, there were other issues that precipitated a Trump victory — immigration, the economy,  DEI, abortion, men in women’s sports, Afghanistan, Iran. But none of those issues allowed the government to waltz into your house and kill your beloved pet.

When Peanut and Fred were slaughtered, it got up close and personal — in your house and in your face. At least when they raided your house for documents, no one was killed. But this time, two precious pets were.

Now voters knew — if they didn’t already know — how far Democrats would go if they won. I like to think Peanut and Fred didn’t die in vain.

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A victory for energy and climate sanity

Now that President Donald Trump has easily defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, Americans who desire freedom of choice and are at their wits’ end with sky-high energy prices can breathe a massive sigh of relief. Moreover, the millions of Americans who are sick and tired of the never-ending climate alarmist narrative courtesy of the federal government can also rest easy.

In a few months, Trump will return to the Oval Office in one of the most spectacular comeback stories in American political history. As he has said on multiple occasions during the campaign, one of his first priorities will be addressing the energy cost crisis created by the Biden-Harris administration.

Since President Biden entered the White House in January 2021, his administration has declared war on American energy independence as well as the fossil fuel industry in general. From killing the Keystone XL pipeline to slow-walking leases for oil and gas exploration on federal lands, Biden has made it abundantly clear that he sides more with climate alarmists than ordinary, hard-working Americans.

On the other hand, Trump’s track record during his first term and what he has outlined that he will do in his second term tells us that he will embrace commonsense energy policies that puts Americans first, regardless of the propaganda spewed by climate radicals and those who benefit greatly from the scam that is known as the green energy transition.

Unlike Biden and Harris, Trump believes in American energy independence. More accurately, Trump is a strong supporter of American energy dominance. Although these terms sound similar, it is important to understand the difference between the two. When we talk about energy independence, we are basically describing a situation in which the United States does not need to import oil and other energy sources from countries like Venezuela or Saudi Arabia. When we talk about energy dominance, we are describing a scenario in which the United States can supply energy to our allies across the world, especially in Europe.

By mid-2020, Trump had achieved American energy independence for the first time in decades. This is a key reason why gasoline prices, and energy prices in general, plummeted under Trump.

It is no great secret how Trump managed to turn the United States into a net energy exporter during his first term; he simply lifted the throttle off of U.S. energy producers. Trump allowed more fracking, opened up more federal lands for exploration, and reduced regulations that have hindered the industry for far too long.

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Powell says he won’t resign for Trump, can’t be fired

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had a clear, direct response when asked during a press conference Thursday if he would step down if asked to do so by President-elect Trump.

“No,” said Powell, whose term as chair ends in 2026.

When asked to elaborate and if he would be legally required to leave, he again said, “No.”

Powell later said it is “not permitted under the law” for the president to fire or demote him or any of the other Fed governors with leadership positions.

Trump appointed Powell during his first term in 2017 but repeatedly and publicly criticized the Fed and its chair for not cutting rates fast enough throughout his tenure.

Powell also said in 2019 that he would not resign if asked by Trump. President Biden reappointed Powell in 2021 — despite objections from progressives who have criticized the chair — saying he has burdened the average American by keeping rates too high for too long.

Trump suggested earlier this year that Powell, a lifelong Republican, was “political” and would cut rates ahead of the 2024 election to help Democrats. While the Fed did cut rates in September by a whopping 50 basis points, Trump handily defeated Vice President Harris this week.

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