Trump’s Iran Betrayal: From ‘Help Is on the Way’ To Handing The Regime $300 Billion

Originally posted at American Thinker on June 19

In 1979 the Shah of Iran was overthrown and Ayatollah Khomeini came to power. Later that year students took over the American Embassy and took 52 hostages. Thus began one of the most transformative moments in American history.  Americans became glued to their television sets like never before. It birthed Nightline as Ted Koppel came into our homes nightly and told us how many days they’d been held. It became a nightly ritual from coast to coast.  And that’s where the ubiquitous yellow ribbons started.

America had watched television en masse before, during moments of the Vietnam War (Tet) or during the moon landing, but nothing like this. It’s no coincidence that CNN’s Headline News launched in June 1980, right in the middle of this. And thus began America’s captivation with always on news. 

The transformative effects of that revolution were not just on American television viewing habits. More importantly, it was likely the deciding factor in Ronald Reagan’s election. While Carter had other problems, the Nightline count was a hurdle he couldn’t overcome. The hostages survived and were released after 444 days, in the middle of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration speech. 

The Iranian revolution was similar to the Cuban revolution. Both were led by charismatic leaders who lied their way into power. Both hid their true agendas while promising freedom, independence and justice against a tyrannical government. Once in power, both stepped from behind the curtain and began a tyranny that far outstripped that of their predecessors in both scope and brutality and became enemies of America.

Khomeini’s brutality hit America in 1983 when Iranian backed fighters bombed the American Embassy in Beirut in April, killing 63 people and then the US Marine Barracks in October, killing 241. Sadly, in one of his few mistakes in office, Reagan, listening to the advice of Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, chose not to respond.

And thus began decades of Iranian backed terrorist attacks on Americans that would strike everywhere from Saudi Arabia to Tanzania to Yemen. What’s more, during the Iraq war at least 500 American troops were killed by Iranian backed fighters.

During much of this time, the regime was seeking to develop nuclear weapons despite claiming their ambitions were peaceful. By 2013 the Iranians were seen as being close to creating one.  The Obama administration led negotiations to head it off and in 2015 signed a deal… that basically let Iran pursue nuclear power, just more slowly, with practically no real verification. And it did nothing about Iranian support for terror via its proxies, which continued, including the Hamas attacks on Israel of Oct 8th, 2023.  But, it did do something about Tehran’s financial challenge.  It loosened sanctions and gave them $100 billion. 

Donald Trump was not impressed with the deal, calling it “the worst deal ever". In 2018 he pulled out of it, stating: “It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement...”

Now fast forward to February 2026 and Trump announces Operation Epic Fury, a mission to keep the Iranians from getting nuclear weapons, to destroy their ballistic missile capabilities “And finally, we’re ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.”

Four months later we have peace! Well… a Memorandum of Understanding, basically a 60-day ceasefire deal where the US and Iran talk about a final deal. 

Among the highlights: 

“Iran will conduct dialog with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz” So, despite the Strait being international waters, Iran now is given some ability to administer it?

“America undertakes with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least USD $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The administration has said that the money will not come from American taxpayers, but money, like oil, is fungible, so we’ll see about that. 

“Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.” And we believe them because they’ve always abided by their agreements…

“America undertakes to make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets of Iran.”  And: “America and Iran and their allies in the current war, by signing this MOU, declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” Peace in the middle east!  Sure. The same day MOU was signed, Iran was promising Hezbollah new funding. 

All of this to say, WTF is Trump doing?  All he had to do was sit back and deport the 50 million illegals and get the SAVE America Act passed and he would have gone up on Mt. Rushmore.  That’s it.  That’s all he needed to do.

But no, instead of doing either of those things that Americans really want, he began a war with Iran.  (Now the president has more information than I, so maybe they were on the cusp of nuclear power… I can’t say.) But what I can say is that this deal is a travesty.  The regime in Tehran has been funding terrorism against America for decades.  And pursuing nuclear weapons most of that time. 

By signing this MOU with the regime Trump is doing nothing but kicking the can down the road so that someone else will have to deal with the exact problem in a few years. Before the war, he said: “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!... HELP IS ON ITS WAY,”  They did. Thousands were killed, more arrested.  And now Trump is making peace with the regime responsible.

It’s not America’s job to solve every problem and change every regime that’s hostile to us. But when Trump engaged Iran, he should have been smart enough to recognize that the only way to eliminate the threat of terrorism and a continued pursuit of nuclear weapons is by eliminating the regime that’s been doing both for half a century. And that doesn’t mean the US had to do it.  The Iranians want to do it. In 2009 they launched the Green Revolution, but it was brutally put down and failed in the face of Obama’s tepid response, something he admitted was a mistake.  At the same time, surveys regularly put opposition to the regime at between 70 & 80 percent. The Iranians were willing to take on the regime themselves and needed some help.  Donald Trump told them help was on the way, but stopped far short of finishing the job. Sure, he took out a number of their leaders, but they’re quickly replaced.

At the end of the day, America is not and should not play policeman to the world.  But this MOU feels more like a political move than a military or strategic one. Sure, falling oil prices will help Americans at the pump over the summer, and sure, maybe Jared and Steve Witkoff’s companies and friends can make billions off the rebuilding of Iran – Note: most of what was destroyed was military, meaning plenty of money left over for malls & hotels – but where does that leave anything resembling peace in the middle east? Where does that leave potential victims of the next wave of terror funded by an emboldened Iranian regime? Not in a good place at all, and no amount of spinning by the president will change that. 

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From Soft Justice To Generational Welfare: Why America’s Moral Collapse Can Only Be Fixed With Brutal Common Sense

 Last year when Iryna Zarutska was murdered on the train by DeCarlos Brown Jr., I (and countless others) wrote about the scourge of violent criminals being released to prey on innocent civilians.  But I recently started looking at it from a different angle, particularly when I saw the contrast between the way the Knicks fans behaved after their team won and the Japanese did after their team’s game.  It occurred to me that something bigger is going on.  Not that the scourge of violent crime isn’t real, because it is and we see it play itself out on our screens every day.

No, I started to look at it differently in that this whole soft on the bad guys problem is a symptom, not the cause, per se.  It’s like focusing on the rope or the gun someone uses to commit suicide rather than recognizing that a lot went on before they ever got to that point.  As such, the problem is much deeper than a broken justice system.  America is in the middle of a moral crisis.

We see it every day, almost everywhere.  In Minnesota, we see immigrants defrauding taxpayers out of millions via fake childcare and healthcare scams.  After the Karmelo Anthony verdict, black supporters were saying that the “poor boy” should be set free while others were calling for the murder of whites.  Across the country we see “teens” ruin stores, community activities, and sporting events with virtual impunity.  In LA we saw an election be stolen with everyone watching.  In cities from Baltimore to Chicago and beyond, we see schools that graduate kids who can’t even read.

I could go on with an encyclopedia length list of examples of moral problems showing themselves in America every day.

It’s one thing to have a moral crisis as an individual.  You handle that by going to see your priest, talking with friends or family, or finding a support group.  But what does a nation do when it has such a crisis?  Sadly, usually nothing.  But not always, as we’ve seen in El Salvador.

From a third of Americans on the government dole to drunk drivers with multiple arrests to the owners of vicious dogs getting slaps on the wrist when their dogs attack, the signs of the moral crisis are seemingly everywhere.

The reality is, in America in 2026, we have a crisis of responsibility.  More precisely, we have a crisis of consequences.  Simply put, almost no one is ever held responsible for anything and most feel like they have the right to… everything and anything.  In a country of 350 million people, there are over 100 million of them living off the taxes of others.  From welfare to food stamps to housing assistance and more, America has become a place where not working and living off taxpayers is not only normal, but a right.  There are families who have lived on welfare for generations, and no one feels any responsibility to work to provide for their family.

America could easily become the vanguard of Western civilization once again by simply acting morally, with common sense:  Make America a place where people are forced to take responsibility for their actions again.

But politically, the challenge with that is… women.  Not to put a too-fine point on it, but much of what’s wrong with America began when women gained the right to vote… and even before:  Who do you think began the Prohibition movement?  Where do you think gold stars in schools and participation trophies come from?  Women are naturally empathetic to a far higher degree than men.  How many times have you seen when a brute attacks a couple and the man, defending them, begins to beat the hell out of the bad guy, only for the woman to try to restrain her man, and as a consequence, they both get beaten to a pulp?  Think of that on a civilizational scale.  It’s no wonder that three women, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, and Ursula von der Leyen, are most responsible for the West being overrun by third-world invaders.

Whether it’s women (and to be honest, it’s really liberal women…) or eunuchs or professional victims, the reality is, America’s moral compass is off.  The traditional nuclear family is disappearing.  Individual responsibility is a quaint footnote in history.  The notion of working hard to take care of your family is disappearing.

So what would a moral America run with common sense look like?  The first thing would be a justice system that worked to protect citizens.  An across the board 3-strikes you’re out rule for violent criminals. (1% of the criminals are responsible for 63% of the violent crime.)  Employ the death penalty for crimes which are appropriate, like murder and the rape of children.  Drunk drivers should spend a minimum of a decade in prison and if they kill someone, they should get the death penalty. If a vicious dog kills a person and the owner is responsible, they should spend decades in prison.

For “teens” involved in street takeovers and rampaging through stores, not only should they be arrested and jailed, but their parents should also be held responsible.  Eliminate any welfare benefits they’re receiving.  Arrest them for multiple infractions.

For those involved in fleecing taxpayers, while capital punishment may be a bridge too far, their sentences should number in decades, not just years.

But it’s not just the justice system.  It’s more than that.  The government should not be in the income redistribution business at all.  Individual responsibility starts in the home, and that starts with working to support a family.  With a job.  To be clear, much of this problem was created when government programs made fathers expendable.  The cancer of unwed motherhood is very much at the core of America’s responsibility problem, particularly in black America.

The government should phase out all welfare programs and should simultaneously roll back regulations and taxes so that entrepreneurship can rescue the country.

Eliminate NGOs.  It’s not that private organizations shouldn’t help.  They should.  It’s just that the tax system should not be used to create fake charities that fund leftist agendas and rarely help anyone.

Eviscerate DEI.  No organization that receives $1 of taxpayers money should have DEI as any element of its program.  This is particularly true of schools.  Schools should admit and grade on one metric, merit.  Merit is the measure that gives a person dignity and is the basis for pride of accomplishment, both of which are lacking tremendously.

Deport every illegal.  With upwards of 50 million illegals in the United States, from jobs to homes to hospital beds, Americans find themselves underpaid and overcharged for practically everything in the economy.  It’s a lot easier to get a job and work for a paycheck to support your family when there aren’t millions of illegals able to work for lower wages.

Draconian, maybe, but big problems require big solutions.  You can suggest this is pie in the sky thinking, and that may indeed be true.  What’s the likelihood of all of these things and more in the same vein coming to pass?  A snowball’s chance in Hell I’d say.  Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean they don’t need to be said. Movements start out with ideas, even if they take a while.  And besides, government can sometimes fix things, even its mistakes. See the 21st Amendment.

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From Crassus and Caesar to BLM and ‘Gays for Palestine’: How History Shows The Left’s Alliance Will Fail

Roman history can be quite illuminating.  The First Triumvirate lasted from 60 BC to approximately 53 BC. It was an informal — and largely secret — agreement between Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Marcus Licinius Crassus to basically run the Roman Republic.  Although ostensibly a Triumvirate, it was, for all intents and purposes, a duopoly between the two great generals.  Crassus, by far the richest man in Rome, was mostly indulged because of his wealth.  Among other things, he became rich by forming a band of firefighters who would show up at a burning house and offer to buy it for pennies on the dollar.  If the owner refused, they’d just leave, while if he agreed, they’d go ahead and put out the fire. Nice guy.

Caesar and Pompey were adversaries but their partnership in the Triumvirate was sealed when Caesar forced his 17-year-old daughter Julia to marry the 47-year-old Pompey.  The marriage was reportedly a happy one, but when Julia died in childbirth in 54 BC, it was the beginning of the end of the Triumvirate.  The final stake came with the death of Crassus in 53.  The collapse of the pact led to years of civil war which ended with a triumphant Caesar being appointed dictator for life in February 44 BC.  And we all know how that turned out.

Caesar’s murder was followed by the Second Triumvirate with Mark Antony, Lepidus and Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son.  Once again, made up of adversaries and relatives, this Triumvirate had a similar trajectory and again ended with a Caesar in total control.

But you might ask… what does this have to do with America in the 21st century?  Well, let me tell you.  Both of the Triumvirates were a circumstance where men who basically disliked/hated one another worked together to defeat a common enemy, and then turned on one another.

I can’t but help thinking about this when I see images of leftists holding up signs that say “Gays for Palestine” or blue hair white liberals holding up BLM signs.  Don’t these people know that they basically hate one another and once they defeat “The Man” they’re not going to usher in some paradise with Kumbaya playing over the loudspeaker?

The left is made up of factions that, if left to their own devices, wouldn’t have anything to do with one another, or worse, would be at one another’s throats.

LGBTQXYZ and Muslims.  Hispanics and blacks.  Jews and blacks.  Feminists and Muslims. Liberal Jews and Muslims….  They are taking the adage “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” to the extreme.

This is of course the entire constituency of the Democrat party.  The funny thing, or not so funny, about all of this is that these “victim” groups are only able to work together to fight against white/Christian/heterosexual/capitalist oppression because they live in a country that was largely built by whites, Christians, heterosexuals, and capitalists. Remove those and you have absolute chaos and an utter lack of freedom with which to speak one’s mind.  Remove them and you have a lack of prosperity that allows one to focus on being a professional victim.  Remove them and you have a tyranny ruled by whoever has the biggest stick or least amount of morals.

Nonetheless, that’s where Democrats are, holding hands and singing Kumbaya, certain that they are going to overthrow the system.  But they’re wrong.  They’re not going to.

Caesar, Pompey, Mark Antony et al. could, because they held all the power.  Between them they basically controlled or were aligned with every legion in the Roman Republic. They weren’t really fighting the power.  They were the power.  They were fighting against one another to split the Republic they already controlled.

Democrats don’t have such control.  Sure, they have some statehouses and sometimes the White House or Congress, but they don’t have a coherent message that would allow them to cobble together an actual ruling coalition.

But let’s imagine this coalition of victims did somehow triumph over the white, Christian, heterosexual, capitalist patriarchy, what would come next?

Who would be in charge?  How would they decide?  Would Muslims and women and gays rule equally together?  Would Jews and blacks come together to create a prosperous multicultural nation of freedom and equal opportunity?  Would blacks and Hispanics and Asians decide that they should have a society based on merit or color?  If color, whose would dominate?

None of those things are particularly likely, because the Western civilization (America) the left hates so much is the only one in history where they could have formed their coalition.  Indeed, in an Islamic civilization, gays would be far more likely to be thrown from buildings than be marching in gay pride parades.  This Democrat coalition is a paper tiger.

But here’s the thing the Democrats never want to admit, every one of those groups of victims that make up the party, blacks, Hispanics, Jews, LBGTQ blah, blah, blah, feminists, etc., have lives filled with more freedom, more opportunity, and more prosperity here in America than their compatriots have any place in the world.  Not sure?  Ask yourself, is there a Muslim nation where a Muslim could have more freedom, opportunity and prosperity than here?  Blacks in Africa?  Hispanics in a central or South American nation?  Gays anywhere?  Feminists anywhere?  No, of course not.

So somehow these geniuses have gotten it into their heads that they can somehow align themselves in a coalition to try and take down the white, Christian, heterosexual, capitalist patriarchy and create something even better.

They can’t.  But then they don’t really care about that.  With their tunnel vision, all they can see is the clan of victimization that binds them.  Democrats have no realistic vision for what a world will look like when they’ve destroyed the single most free and prosperous nation in human history.  Well, the Muslim wing of their coalition does, but that’s a different story.

And that is the hallmark of the left.  They create nothing.  They build nothing.  All they do is destroy things that others built.  From Marx to today, the left has never built a successful nation that values freedom and prosperity.  They have however cost the lives of tens of millions and kept billions more in abject poverty, in most cases with little or no freedom along the way.  When the left comes to power, it’s always the same… tyranny and a police state.

We almost had that under Biden, remember the Disinformation Governance Board and the J6 persecutions?  Say what you will about the Republicans, and there’s a lot to be said, but for the most part they don’t seek to destroy America for their own narrow self-interests.  They might want to change some things, but they generally don’t want to “fundamentally transform America” into a Victimization Industrial Complex.

Democrats, for all their focus on issues of victimization, never have a plan for fixing the country that doesn’t involve destroying or taking what others have built.  And that’s how you know the Democrats aren’t a serious party.  The only thing that unifies them is the hatred for the white/Christian/heterosexual/capitalists of the patriarchy. They have nothing else to offer.  Republicans should start shining a light on that truth now that we’re in the run up to November.

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Trump Should Make Senators Lives A Living Hell Until They Pass The Save America Act

It’s not often life showcases a problem in real time. It is now in the form of California and the Senate.

It’s become clear that California voting is designed to give Democrats the ability to cheat.  Aside from Ranked Choice Voting scam and a universal mail-out of ballots, the state allows 30 days for votes to be counted, a fraud facilitator if ever there was one.

We’re seeing it play itself out very much in real time.  Two weeks ago in Los Angeles in the battle for Mayor, at one point after an update of 24,000 votes, Spencer Pratt, a guy with 30% support, did not gain a single vote. I asked Grok for the odds and it was somewhere over 1 over infinity... basically, zero. In a city where only 43% of students can read, believing those vote totals would require you to think that when half the voters are practically illiterate, not a single one accidentally voted for Pratt. And now thanks to mail in voting, Pratt has lost the lead for qualifying for the runoff to someone who was polling 4 points behind him when voting started.

All of this makes me think of a quote by Elena Gorokhova when characterizing life in the Soviet Union: “The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.”  The Russians even have a word for it: Vranyo, a lie that everyone knows is a lie but pretends otherwise.

That’s exactly what’s been going on in America for decades. The Democrats have been using mail-in ballots, voting machines, and endless “recounts” to steal elections right in front of us.  It’s the theft that everyone is supposed to pretend is not happening. Christine Gregoire in 2004. Al Franken in 2008.  Joe Biden in 2020.

Then there’s the Senate. The same week the Senate took a shot at the SAVE America Act and it was defeated.  Voting with the Democrats were the four most despicable vermin in the Senate, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell, and Thom Tillis. Even if they had voted with the GOP, it would have failed because the TDS afflicted John Thune refuses to get rid of the filibuster.

Congress’s failure to provide for secure elections has been a disaster for Republicans and the Republic. Not only is California an economic and cultural trainwreck, but a Republican hasn’t won a statewide race in 20 years — the year Democrat-in-RINO-clothing Arnold Schwarzenegger won reelection. But at least they have 7 House seats, out of 52 in a state with 25% GOP electorate. In New England the GOP’s 24% of the electorate gets them exactly zero of the region’s 21 House seats, and the one Senator out of twelve is another Democrat-in-RINO-clothing, Susan Collins.  She has a Liberty Score of 20, which is even with AOC and below Ilhan Omar at 22!  (That’s out of 100… while Thomas Massie had a 96!)

This failure is at the core of everything that is going wrong in America right now.  There is literally nothing more important in 2026 than getting the SAVE America Act passed. Donald Trump came to power promising to take on the establishment. In his first term he played by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, and much of his agenda was stonewalled.  Then the election was what it was, and Joe Biden rolled back most of the little he did accomplish.

Then in 2024 Trump ran again, and we expected that after years of being targeted, both literally and figuratively, he would take a wrecking ball to the Swamp.  But he hasn’t. Deficits have continued to grow, it’s practically impossible to eliminate even the most egregious of programs, and federal judges usurp Executive powers like kids in a candy store. From deportations to Pentagon decisions to the 1776 Fund, there’s barely an initiative that some leftist judge hasn’t stopped.  In the Senate, Republicans have actively stopped him from making recess appointments by gaveling in faux sessions so they never technically go on recess.  That’s never happened before. No president has ever had recess appointments blocked by a Senate controlled by his own party.

All of this is happening because Congress has shirked its constitutional responsibility.  Fair and free elections are not speed limits or property taxes or any of the other things that are constitutionally in the purview of states. Fair and free elections are core to the rights of every single American regardless of where they live. Yet we have 14 states, representing almost 40% of the population with no Voter ID, representing 73% of the Electoral College votes necessary to win the White House.  Add in the issues with voting rolls, machines, and chain of custody, and it’s clear cheating is the rule of the day when it comes to voting in Democrat cities and states.

The Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution reads:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

This is not Congress spending billions on redistribution because someone discovered the power to do so hidden in the penumbra of the General Welfare Clause. This is not Congress deciding out of thin air that they could legislate “right turn on red” nationally because they controlled highway funds. No, this is explicitly in the Constitution and Congress has failed to utilize its power to provide Americans with free, fair, and timely elections.  All of the other problems in America today stem from that.

President Trump, if he wants to have even a chance of a successful legacy, needs to knock out the Swamp with the SAVE America Act. Force Congress’s hand. He needs to make a speech to the nation and perhaps do a modern version of FDR’s Fireside Chats chronicling its progress. He needs to name names of Senators obstructing it.  He needs to use every legal tool available to pressure those intransigent grifters to support it. How? By sending JD Vance to preside over the Senate and firing the Parliamentarian. By refusing to sign another bill until SAVE is on his desk. By influencing where the GOP spends its campaign cash. By deciding where the next military logistics depot goes. By calling Congress into special session every single time they seek to go home for a holiday or campaign for reelection. He should make their lives a living hell until they do what 85% of the American people want and which the Constitution empowers them to do, which is nothing more than force free and fair elections.

This is not business as usual. We’re at a tipping point and honest elections are the only peaceful way to fix it. Americans have historically used the ballot box to guide government. The last time that was taken away was in 1774 when Parliament passed the Massachusetts Government Act.  That didn’t end well for the tyrants in London, and it won’t end well for the Swamp in Washington. Americans — or at least 85% of them — demand their votes count, and want their elections to be honest. Standing in the way of the SAVE America Act while states openly manipulate their elections and lie while doing so is simply a step too far.  The Russians have a word for that too:  Poslednyaya kaplya. The last straw.

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Paris in 1853 Provides A Lesson For Trump in 2026

In 1853, Paris was far different from what it is today. While it had the Louvre, Notre Dame, and the Arc de Triomphe, it also had virtually no sanitation and was congested, rife with disease, and regularly struck by fires that consumed whole blocks at a time. It was also overcrowded, with narrow crooked streets that were often little more than bogs of mud and waste, both human and animal.

Another part of the problem was the revolutionaries. Since the French Revolution in 1789, Paris has experienced in no fewer than half a dozen revolutions/uprisings, during which protesters/rebels easily blocked streets by strategically setting fire to a few barrels and carts. The then-Emperor, Napoleon III, who had been elected after one such coup in 1848, understood that to fend off uprisings, troops needed to be able to go wherever they were needed, via robust roads that could not easily be barricaded.

Thus, in 1853, Napoleon III gave Georges-Eugène Haussmann carte blanche to remake the city from the existing dysfunctional chaos. Haussmann would spend the next 17 years doing exactly that, razing over 20,000 buildings and building 30,000 others. Entire neighborhoods were flattened, and thousands of families had to abandon the city for the suburbs. Simultaneously, he built the world’s most sophisticated sewer and sanitation system. The entire city was a giant construction zone for almost 20 years straight.

Haussmann didn’t actually build any of it. He wasn’t an architect or an engineer; rather, he studied law and music. But he was the architect who got it done, despite constant outrage and conflict.

The result of Haussmann’s work was simply extraordinary. Parks, grand boulevards, state-of-the-art buildings, and a sanitation system unlike any other. Go there today, and you’ll see signs of his influence on virtually every street and around every corner. Despite what we see in the news, the city remains one of the most beautiful in the world.

But here’s the thing: the Paris of 1853 would never have become the Paris of today had Haussmann not taken a wrecking ball to it.

Well, America in 2026 needs just such a wrecking ball.

Our country is fundamentally broken. There are an estimated 40 million illegal aliens living among us (if one is honest about the numbers), with taxpayers forced to finance them. From nullification-minded juries to woke prosecutors, we are failing innocents. We have out-of-control government debt, a majority of which is likely fueled by fraud. We have half the federal judges thinking that they, rather than the President, run the country.

We have a stultifying level of government regulation that’s strangling productivity and innovation while, at the same time, Big Brother harnesses technology to spy on and destroy the few vestiges of freedom that remain. Even more insidiously, we have schools, governments, and regulatory organizations actively seeking to destroy the basic merit system that has historically been the foundation of success in America.

 

And perhaps most infuriating of all is the fact that our “democratic” form of government is anything but. The truth is, Democrats have been stealing elections for decades, with 1960 and 2020 being the two most obvious examples. What’s worse, a handful of Democrats in RINO clothing—i.e., Thune, Collins, Murkowski, et al.—are working with Democrats to allow it to continue.

Together, these problems spell the end of the United States. They spell the end of freedom, capitalism, prosperity, and ultimately, the Republic. The reality is, Congress is a worthless yoke on the necks of the American body politic. Blue city and state governments across the country are a cancer within. An activist judiciary undermines the very purpose of an independent judiciary.

If only we had an Emperor Napoleon III and his architect Haussmann. Sadly, we don’t. Leftists call Donald Trump a tyrant or a fascist, but he’s neither. No, Donald Trump doesn’t act like a tyrant, but then he doesn’t act like a man on a mission either...but he should.

He should take a page from Teddy Roosevelt, circa 1907. Roosevelt wanted to send the Great White Fleet on a global goodwill and power-projection tour, but Congress didn’t want to pay for it. Roosevelt sent it anyway, saying he had the money to send it halfway around the world, and Congress could leave it there or pay for the return.

The challenges America faces today cannot be solved by timid governance. They require bold moves. President Trump should act like a leader and help save the country rather than allowing the judiciary, Congress, and the bureaucracy to barricade his every move like revolutionaries blocking the streets of 19th-century Paris.

First, he should send the Vice President to take the reins as the President of the Senate. Vance should use every tool at his disposal to eliminate the filibuster and pass the SAVE America Act. The reality is, when a handful of Senators can stifle the longstanding desires of 85% of the population on the most important issue in generations, they’re risking becoming illegitimate…and that’s dangerous.

Next, Trump should ignore federal judges who think they run the country. Force Congress or the Supreme Court to do their jobs and rein them in.

He should immediately curtail all federal spending going to any state or city that acts as a sanctuary for illegal aliens or provides benefits to such individuals. He should arrest, for treason, any government official who carries out sanctuary policies and should put deportations on turbo.

He should sign an executive order nationalizing the notion of “three strikes, you’re out.” Using the Justice Department’s civil rights powers, the president should declare that all criminals convicted of three violent felonies are to be locked up for life.

Finally, Trump should shutter the Education Department. He doesn’t have to wait for Congress to act. He can simply stop spending a single dollar on the department. Leftist institutions, particularly schools, are where most of America’s problems began, and stopping federal involvement is a first step in fixing that.

American society is splintering between the left and…well…patriots, and Donald Trump doesn’t have much time to leave his mark on history. Thus far, he’s talked a good game, but accomplished relatively little because he’s allowed the entrenched powers to handicap him every step of the way.

Most Americans recognize that the Democrats are destroying the country and everything that made it great in the first place. They’ve literally voted for a man who promised to turn back that tide three times in a row. But sadly, very little has happened because the legislature, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, and their media/NGO allies have circled the wagons to keep an interloper from threatening their grift.

Fixing problems hurts. Haussmann may have been hated in his time, but Paris and the world are better because he had the stones to do what needed to be done. Similarly, Donald Trump needs to stop being a wimp and become the hero who takes a wrecking ball to America’s leftist cancer.

If he truly wants to be the man to Make America Great Again, he’s going to have to stop allowing those who literally and figuratively want him dead to twist the rules and run out his clock. He won’t get another chance. And if he doesn’t succeed, America likely won’t either.

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DHS says it costs $18,000 to deport an illegal. That's a crime, but worth every penny.

I saw a video a few weeks ago of Markwayne Mullin, the new DHS Secretary on Laura Ingraham’s show. He stated that it cost more than $18,000 per deportee to remove an illegal from the United States.  If you’re thinking that’s because we’re giving them swag bags and first class tickets home, you’d be wrong. At least that would be fast.  No, the $18,000 is what it costs to navigate an illegal through the justice system because of the labyrinth of laws and the hoops judicial activist “judges’ make the government jump through.

Mullins encourages us to imagine the cost of doing that to the twenty million illegals allowed in during the Biden administration.  That would be $360 billion!  And there would still be another 30 million illegals in the country.

All of this reminded me of a conversation I was having with a young person recently about the cost of illegals to the country.  In this case we were talking about housing.  I mentioned that one of the reasons that housing was so expensive is because there are 50 million illegals in the United States, and despite California’s insane Homeless Industrial Complex, most of them are not living on the streets, there or anywhere else.  They are living in homes. 

The population of the United States is approximately 350 million people, living in approximately 148 million housing units. That is an average of 2.4 people living in each house / apartment. Immigrants typically have a larger number of people living in their homes, according to Pew, 3.5.  Using that number, the 50 million illegal aliens in the United States live in 14 million homes / apartments. If those 50 million illegals were not here, the housing stock available for American citizens and other legal residents would increase by almost 10%.  To put that in perspective, on average the net number of new homes / apartments to hit the market each year is about 1.5 million. 

Needless to say, if an inventory of 14 million units was freed up over a 3-5 year period, the cost of housing across America would drop significantly.  There would of course, be consequences to that given that real estate is a key element of so many Americans’ net worth, particularly older individuals.  But it would be only one of the effects of removing 50 million illegals.

Others include education, healthcare, welfare and of course criminal justice and jobs. 

Let’s take education. Schools spend on average $16,500 per pupil educating their charges. There are approximately five million children of illegals living in the United States and going to school. Five million students times $16,500 equals $80 billion for education.  That number is actually conservative because the majority of illegals live in urban areas, where governments spend far more than average on schooling.

FAIR, the Foundation for American Immigration Reform, a relatively anti-illegal immigration organization estimates that the United States spent $41 billion in 2023 on healthcare for illegal aliens and their children. For some unknown reason that number is based on the laughably low 15 million illegals.  But we’ll keep it to give them the benefit of the doubt.

According to CIS, the Center for Immigration Studies, the average number of immigrant families receiving welfare is extraordinary. For perspective, 27% of the US born households receive some sort of welfare spending.  Among immigrants it’s… slightly higher.  Among Afghan families it’s 87%, Dominican Republic families 78%, Guatemala 77%, El Salvador 75%, Honduras 75%, Ecuador 70%, Mexico, 67%, etc.  As bad as these numbers are, in reality they understate the problem. Ostensibly illegal aliens are not supposed to receive benefits, but they do, and do so at higher rates than legal immigrant families, which are included in the above numbers.  As such, the above numbers are averages of both and therefore are lower than the percentages of illegal alien families on welfare. CIS estimates that taken together, illegal aliens cost American taxpayers $42 billion annually. 

Then there’s crime.  Not even thinking about the psychological and physical harm / damage violent crime does to victims, both individuals and businesses, illegals cost Americans tens of billions of dollars per year.  FAIR – again using their laughably low illegals numbers – estimates that at the federal level alone Americans spend $25 billion a year dealing with illegals in the justice system. Elsewhere they assert that states spend an additional $22 billion per year dealing with illegal aliens in their respective justice systems. 

All of that taken together, $80 billion for education, $41 billion for healthcare, $42 billion for welfare, $47 billion on justice equates to $210 billion per year spent on illegals by American taxpayers. 

All of the above are explicitly government expenditures. But there are also billions of dollars of additional NGO spending on illegals. Although no doubt with significant overlap as many NGOs are funded by the government. Then there are caveats, of course.  Some illegal aliens work and pay taxes, which would reduce that number.  Schools would be operating in most  places even if there were no illegal aliens, so that might reduce that number.  At the same time, most organizations and government agencies have a vested interest in keeping the reported number of illegals far below the actual number.  Plus, of course, the tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars of additional housing costs Americans face because there are 50 million illegals competing for the same housing stock.

Assuming that we stick with just the $210 billion number and divide it by 50 million illegal aliens in America, that would work out to about $4,200 per illegal per year. Compared to Mullin’s $18,000 per illegal deported, it sounds like we would save money by letting them stay.  But we wouldn’t, of course. And we shouldn’t.  Given that April 15^th was just a few days ago, all of this resonates as one is sitting down to write the IRS a check.  And if we had to include in that the impact of illegals on the housing market and wages, it no doubt would be much bigger. 

But illegal immigration isn’t just about money.  It’s about right and wrong and whether Americans are in control of our country and whether our laws mean anything.  If we allow some groups to get away with breaking the law with impunity, (and getting subsidized once they arrive) what message does that send to the rest of the people in America, and more importantly, what message does it send to the rest of the world, particularly the 3^rd world where most illegals come from?

Mullins is right to point out the cost associated with sending illegal home because it’s always helpful for people to visualize where their tax dollars are going and how the out of control judicial system is making it worse.

But, at the end of the day illegal immigration is far bigger than just dollars. It’s justice. It’s safety. It’s right and wrong. And sadly, it’s control of Congress! As grifters like Maria Salazar try to pass amnesty by calling it “Dignity”, we shouldn’t let them. She and other Democrats in RINO clothing would replicate Reagan’s worst mistake, on steroids. Although far too high, that $18,000 is worth every single penny. 

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