Braveheart Circa 2026, This Time In The United States Congress

Braveheart is great entertainment, if less than perfect history. Mel Gibson plays the hero, William Wallace, who battles to deliver the Scots from the hated English, who had brutally murdered his father, brother, and wife. Wallace attracts a growing following as he begins to defeat the English in several skirmishes and battles. Following the Battle of Stirling Bridge, where his heavily outmatched and outnumbered troops defeat the English, Wallace becomes something of a legend and demands that the nobility join him in the fight.

The nobles, who have holdings in both Scotland and England, while not enthusiastic about English occupation, want nothing to do with the peasant rebellion. After a tense meeting, Wallace gains a promise of noble support for the upcoming battle from their ostensible leader, Robert the Bruce.

Wallace carefully plans the battle (the Battle of Falkirk) but is dispirited when he calls for the noble cavalry to take the field, only to watch as they turn and abandon the fight. Betrayed, the English are victorious. An injured Wallace goes after the English King, only to have one of the king’s defenders intercept him. The defender unhorses Wallace, but when he approaches the Scotsman, Wallace disarms him and discovers that his opponent is none other than Robert the Bruce.

A conflicted Bruce then helps Wallace escape, and the now-mythic figure takes a cathartic vengeance on the nobles. He is then betrayed a second time and ends up dying on the rack with “Freedom” his final utterance.

Anyone who’s ever seen the movie can remember the visceral reaction they had when the nobles turn and leave Wallace in the lurch. It’s been thirty years, but I remember it as if was yesterday. But the funny thing is, the reason I even thought of it is that I feel the exact same way today, but towards a different set of nobles.

What nobles, you ask? Why congressional Republicans, of course.

The GOP in Congress has left Donald Trump and America out to dry just as much as the nobles did to Wallace and the Scots. And the betrayals aren’t just one battle; there are countless ways the GOP is shivving the American people.

First and foremost is the lack of election reform. The argument that the 2020 election was a coup is now an established fact. From Georgia to Arizona to Minnesota and beyond, election fraud seems to have been the norm rather than the exception. Add to that the simple existence of a lack of voter ID in so many blue states, and it makes one wonder when America’s last honest election was.

Yet somehow, the Republicans in the Senate have refused to pass the SAVE Act. Ensuring honest elections is the single most important thing on their plate, but somehow they can’t seem to get it done.

Another thing the Senate GOP can’t seem to get done is abolishing the filibuster. We constantly hear that it’s a check on the other party if they return to power, but the reality is, it’s not, as Harry Reid demonstrated in 2013.

Having failed to eliminate it in 2024 because of holdouts by “independents” Manchin and Sinema, you can be certain that Democrats will eliminate the 60-vote threshold the next time they can muster 51 votes. So, instead of eliminating it now and doing good things for the American people while the GOP holds both chambers and the White House, the eunuch John Thune and the rest of the RINO grifters in the upper chamber apparently have better things to do, like give $5.7 billion to immigrants.

But of course, it’s not just voting. Across the country, activist, traitorous federal judges are seeking to usurp President Trump’s powers, yet Congress does nothing about it. Congress literally controls the federal judiciary; it’s right there in the Constitution, yet the GOP’s elected members do nothing and allow judges to exercise a stranglehold over the Executive Branch.

There’s Obamacare, too, which has been a disaster from day one but has been a fundraising bonanza for Republicans. Not only can’t Republicans repeal it, but they also can’t even keep their members in line, as 17 Republicans in the House just voted to extend the subsidies for the hated program.

Then there’s fraud. Last year, in the wake of the hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud identified by DOGE, the Senate voted not to codify the DOGE cuts, with three Republicans joining Democrats to help protect the waste.

But honestly, it’s not just Congress, it’s the White House as well. The reality is, the FBI and the Justice Department have yet to indict anyone for practically anything. 2020 election fraud? J6 persecutions? Russiagate? COVID? And more. This is in stark contrast to the Biden administration arresting practically everyone associated with Donald Trump, up to and including Trump himself.

Also at the top of the list of GOP failures is immigration. Across the country, we have states, cities, and citizens actively, sometimes violently, seeking to thwart the federal government from executing its immigration powers, to the point where governors, mayors, and police are threatening to arrest ICE personnel for simply doing their constitutional duty.

The reality is, every one of those officials is obstructing justice and should be arrested. And the professional activists who are assaulting ICE agents across the country should be as well. As America learned in 1968 and 2020, if you allow leftist mobs to obstruct lawful business or commit crimes, you get more of both.

With at least 10% of the population made up of illegal aliens and a cabal of billionaire leftists funding the protests and violence, this problem is not going away. Indeed, if Republicans don’t do something soon, the summer of ‘26 is going to make the 2020’s summer of love look like a little girl’s tea party.

But somehow, the people funding the insurrection haven’t been arrested, and few people on the ground have been arrested. Congress and the White House shirk their responsibility here at their own peril. They could easily utilize National Guard troops to control the violence. They could cut off all monies going to states, cities, or NGOs that are assisting illegals or obstructing ICE. They could cut every single dollar going to illegal immigrants via any program. But thus far, they haven’t.

The GOP is flirting with disaster, at Donald Trump’s, and ultimately America’s expense. While they’re busy faking vacations and being confused about what war is, the clock is ticking to the midterms, and much hinges on that outcome. This is particularly true as it relates to voting integrity.

Congressional Republicans see Democrats trying to destroy the country, and yet they do nothing to stop it. At some point, voters will tell themselves, what’s the point of voting for Republicans if they never fix anything?

They think they’ll be safe when the left comes back to power because they see themselves as modern-day Mr. Smith Goes to Washington characters in an Americana that is long past. Besides, they’re above power politics. They clearly haven’t been paying attention. Power politics is all the left does, and they’re willing to lie, cheat, and steal their way to victory in their goal to destroy America. Everyone sees that. But the swamp weasel RINOs pretend it’s beneath them.

The reality is, America is the last best hope for Western civilization, and voters gave Republicans the opportunity to protect it, but the Republicans are too busy doing interviews and trading stocks to bother. Their treachery is just as vile as that of the nobles who betrayed William Wallace, only worse. Voters see that and will likely respond accordingly at the polls in November.

Follow me on X at @ImperfectUSA

Will Trump's Deportation Betrayal be his Waterloo?

I wrote this yesterday... submitted it about 2:00 PM and it was set for publication today... Sometime last night the administration reversed this insane policy.  Sadly, as it's now moot the piece is not being published so it's here nonetheless!

Just south of Paris is the royal chateau of Fontainebleau. Housed within its walls is a museum which chronicles exploits of one of the greatest military minds in human history, Napoleon Bonaparte.  One of the most fascinating elements of the museum is a hall that features busts and paintings of his various siblings and their spouses. The hall is more than just a 3D family portrait, it’s a timeline. 

Over the course of just over a decade, Napoleon would expand French power across Europe, creating an empire that stretched from Spain to the borders of Russia. Seeking to leave people he could trust to in control of the places he conquered, Napoleon would appoint one of his many siblings as the king or ruler.  He made his older brother Joseph the King of Naples and then of Spain while he made his stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais, the Viceroy of Italy.  These and others are in the museum.

Napoleon took power in 1799 and crowned himself Emperor in 1804 and by 1811, after almost nonstop war, Napoleon had most of Europe under his control. But it wouldn’t last.

Why? Hubris. With Europe essentially at his feet, rather than regrouping and reinforcing his gains, Napoleon instead chose to annex the Duchy of Oldenburg, an area in today’s Germany. That annexation was the proximate cause of a new conflict with Russia and in late 1812 Napoleon would head to Moscow at the head of 600,000 troops.

To say it would go badly is something of an understatement.  The Russians, understanding history and Russian winters, would implement a tactical retreat strategy coupled with a scorched earth policy that would see them set fire to Moscow once Napoleon arrived.  This strategy made it impossible for Napoleon’s men to survive off the land as they pursued their prey. 

As such, tired, hungry, frozen and demoralized, Napoleon’s troops would retreat after only six weeks. Eventually Napoleon would abandon his 75,000 remaining troops and return to Paris.  As his enemies gained momentum the French empire crumbled over the next 18 months and a defeated Napoleon would abdicate on April 6, 1814. 

He was imprisoned on Elba Island, off the coast of Italy.  Undeterred, he would escape and as soon as he landed back in France he would quickly win over the regiment sent to arrest him. The new king, Louis XVIII, fled Paris and Napoleon took control of the government and immediately raised an army.

It would all be for naught as Napoleon would misread the retreat of his Prussian enemy early in the battle at Waterloo and as a result the British Duke of Wellington would go down in history as the man who finally defeated Napoleon. 

While Waterloo was the final nail in his coffin, the reality is it was Moscow where Napoleon wasted the lives of half a million of his own men and set the course of his destruction. He had Europe in his grip, and rather than strengthen his position, he let hubris get the best of him and it destroyed him. 

Sound like anyone we know?

I’m of course talking about Donald Trump.  He came into office the second time with a strong wind at his back. Having endured 8 years of abuse at the hands of the anti-American Democrats and their swamp weasel comrades, he persevered and won a third election to the White House.  The GOP took back the Senate and held on to the House.  For the first time in four years the average Joe felt like they had a patriot in the White House, someone who was going to look out for them, was going to put the interests of Americans and American taxpayers ahead of the swamp and the rest of the world, was going to deport all those who crossed our border illegally and hold accountable the tyrants who had used the government as a jackboot over the previous four years. 

And to make things even better, in two months DOGE validated many people’s hunches that our government was funding the very entities who were doing so much damage to our country.

But a funny thing happened on the way to fixing the country…

President Trump allowed the swamp weasels in the Democrat party and the GOP leadership to write a treasonous spending bill that’s largely indistinguishable from one the Democrats would have written themselves. 

Then the GOP decides to basically disappear the DOGE recommendations for ending the trillion dollar waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government. 

We see judges across the country using unconstitutional tactics to throw roadblocks in front of virtually every administration policy and the president plays by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, which is exactly what the swamp wants because it allows them to run out the clock on any reforms.

And of course we can’t forget that fully five months into this administration and no one has been held accountable for the persecution of the J6ers, the Russia Hoax, the COVID tyranny or the stolen election of 2020.  Not a one.

As bad as all of those things are, President Trump’s supporters have been willing to endure them for a while because he was busy focusing on the single most important issue:  Deporting illegal aliens.  With 30 million illegals in the country, there’s no greater threat today, and President Trump promised to deport them.

But last week he backtracked on mass deportations and is going to ease up on enforcement against illegals working in the hospitality industry and on farms to focus on “criminals”.  Well, the reality is, that’s how we got here in the first place, with illegals taking jobs on farms and in hotels. 

This is simply insane. We’re seeing the result of this betrayal on our streets right now:  The fires looting, riots and attacking of police officers. And what’s most stunning (but not surprising) is that across the country, people who don’t want to go back to Mexico are actually here in America flying Mexican flags while burning American flags and attacking American law enforcement. Guaranteed many of those in the streets are taking time from farms and restaurants to “protest”. Appeasement simply doesn’t work. It didn’t work for Reagan in 1986 and it won’t work today.

Much like the soldiers who flocked to Napoleon’s banner as he offered them a path out of the chaos and misery following the Revolution or upon his return from Elba, Trump’s supporters have been willing to take the slings and arrows of abuse because they believed in him and the promises of giving them back their country.

Napoleon betrayed his men by leaving more than a half a million of them laying bloody and dying on battlefields from Moscow to Waterloo. And in the end Napoleon’s hubris left behind a France that was economically broken, fiscally insolvent, occupied by her enemies and wracked with internal strife.

Donald Trump earned a 2^nd chance in the White House by promising to deport the millions of illegal aliens in our country. If he maintains this betrayal on deportations, the single most important issue to almost every one of his supporters, he might just find that they’re not willing to be cannon fodder just to indulge his hubris.  And that doesn’t bode well for 2026.

From Constantinople to Washington - Sometimes One Man Matters

They say history repeats itself. Properly forewarned, it doesn’t have to.  As Americans prepare to write a pivotal history for the ages this November – one way or another – it might be helpful to take a quick look at an earlier moment in time when a much divided, fractured world faced a pivotal challenge, and how complacency sealed its fate.

Constantinople, the city founded by Constantine the Great in 330 AD and later protected by the Theodosian Walls, stood as the capital of the Roman Empire for 1,000 years. (What we refer to as the Byzantine Empire was at the time referred to as the Roman Empire.) The city, surrounded on three sides by water and walls on the other, was thought to be impregnable. 

It was attacked in 1204 by Crusaders (4^th Crusade) who were ostensibly on their way to retake Jerusalem from the Ottomans. As the result of dynastic and political battles between the east and the west, the crusaders diverted to Constantinople and sacked the city and carved up most of the Empire. (They never did breach the Theodosian walls.)

The Byzantine Empire had been shrinking for centuries and by 1400 consisted largely of Constantinople and a few Greek outposts. The city, however, sitting at a key point between Asia and Europe, still played a major role in the battle between the east and the west. 

The rising Ottoman Empire would end that century stretching from the modern states of Algeria to Yemen to Hungary.  But in 1453 Constantinople was still Christian, and a major thorn in the side of Muslim Sultan Mehmed II. He planned to fix that.

By late May, after a two-month siege of the city and making no headway, Mehmed was preparing to retreat.  A small number of his advisors suggested giving the siege one last day before they withdrew.  Mehmed agreed and on the 29^th of May the Ottomans threw everything they had at the city, and each of the first three assaults was turned back and the Ottoman generals despaired at the prospect of defeat. 

But then one of the great turning points in history happened.  Among the 40,000 defenders – vs an Ottoman force of approximately 80,000 – were 700 Genoise fighters defending the most vulnerable parts of the walls. The defenses stretched thin, these Genoise warriors had, led by their captain Giovanni Giustiniani, held the Turks at bay for two months.

Through the third assault of the day, the Genoise had performed impeccably, and the smell of victory was beginning to waft through the defenses.  At that very moment however, just as the fourth and final assault was commencing, Giustiniani was shot. Wounded, Giustiniani commanded his troops to evacuate him from the city.  Either because of a miscommunication of the evacuation order or because they were afraid they could not succeed without Giustiniani, the 700 Genoise abandoned the walls and left the most vulnerable defenses unprotected. Seeing their opportunity, the Ottomans made their move before reinforcements could be diverted and breached the walls and took the city. Mehmed would later make Constantinople the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

Giustiniani would die from his wounds two days later as he was being transported home. Given the timing of his injury history posits that he may have been shot by a traitor within the walls timed to coordinate with the last assault.

Whatever the case, Constantinople fell and all of the west became fearful that the Ottomans were going to conquer the entirety of Europe. They wouldn’t, but they would haunt many a European’s nightmare for centuries.

The ironic thing is however, the city fell because it didn’t have the resources to effectively defend itself.  Despite pleas, most of those caterwauling kings and nobles of the west had been too busy with their domestic concerns, dynastic infighting and petty jealousies to bother sending support. As a result, a mere 700 men, or in reality, one man, stood in the way of the loss of what was seen as the Christian bulwark against the Muslim menace in the east, and when he left, the city fell. 

There are lessons to be had from the kings’ and nobles’ inaction. How many times have you heard a pro-lifer say they can’t vote for Trump because they feel he’s soft on abortion? Or a free-market advocate say they can’t vote for Trump because he supports tariffs? Or someone who says he won’t vote because everyone’s corrupt?

We all know Trump is flawed. But the reality is, we’re all flawed. We just know more about Trump’s flaws because he spends so much time talking.  I dare anyone to speak for a fraction of the time Trump does and not leave a trail of breadcrumbs that the propaganda ministry can’t use to paint you as Satan.

But here’s the truth, all of those people who say they won’t vote for Trump because of this or that are basically casting a vote for that very thing, only exponentially worse. And not only that, the election of Harris will come with a cart full of other things they likely don’t want.

If Harris is elected in November, the Republic as we know it will disappear.  Democrats will eviscerate the Supreme Court. They’ll add DC and Puerto Rico as states and the GOP will never again control the Senate. They’ll implement a 45% capital gains tax and a 25% tax on unrealized gains. DEI will become the law of the land with “equity” replacing merit as the fundamental measure upon which society is built. The scientific fact of men and women will be obliterated.  They’ll outsource American foreign policy to the WEF and the economy to the climate change cultists.  The open border will remain and millions of 3^rd world “refugees” with little appreciation for American mores or allegiance to the United States will pour over the border and then suddenly, not only be able to vote, but will get houses for no money down and benefits beyond what citizens receive. And freedom of speech and the 2^nd Amendment will be distant memories before the midterms.

Given this reality, those people who say they cannot in “good conscience” vote for someone they don’t like, are in reality not of good conscience at all.  They’re cowards. As any parent who has to discipline their kid knows, sometimes adults have to make the difficult decision to do things they don’t like.  As such, when the Republic is faced with an existential threat, when the choice is between a party that wants to save it and one that seeks Communism, to choose to do nothing is a choice, a choice to empower tyranny.    

Once the Republic is gone – in fact if not in name – all of those issues over which such men of “conscience” are wringing their hands will become moot. Not only will they lose out on those issues, but they will lose out on everything else. In a tyranny you control nothing, from your money to your family to your voice. 

This is the most popular quote of the 20^th century:  “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” As pedestrian as it sounds, in 2024 it might be the most important quote of the day.  This November, anyone who decides to sit out the election because they’re offended by an imperfect man, or worse vote against him because of that imperfection, is literally voting to eviscerate the American Republic.  They deserve no respect, they deserve disdain, derision and contempt. 

Musk, MAGA & Me

Sometimes our memories play tricks on us. Mine, thinking it’s Houdini constantly makes things disappear and appear randomly.  Such was the case with an interview I did with Elon Musk back in 1998.  He was then at Zip2, his startup which helped put newspapers across the country – including the NY Times – on the Internet.  At the time the nascent Internet was a sliver of what it is today and not surprisingly, Musk was on the bleeding edge of it. 

After I did the interview I didn’t think about Musk again until sometime around 2004 when I read something about SpaceX. I emailed him but by that time the address I had was dormant and we never connected. 

Then I literally forgot that I’d interviewed him for years, to the point where in 2013 I was a student at Founder Institute’s inaugural Founder’s Lab startup bootcamp in Palo Alto.  The leader of the program was Adeo Ressi, Musk’s roommate at Wharton. Ressi showed us his new Tesla, that Musk had given him because he refused to buy one. Despite this my memory wasn’t jogged about having interviewed Musk. 

It wasn’t until years later that for some reason my mental Houdini reminded me that not only had I interviewed him, but that the guy whose program I attended and who showed us his Tesla was his roommate! In a very George Costanza moment I remember thinking “Gee, what could I have said that would have connected me with the juggernaut that Musk was?”

Whatever I might have come up with, like George, I had missed my opportunity.  But it did cause me to go back and see if I had a copy of the interview.  I eventually found one online.  I read it and two things stood out: Prescience and spirit. The first has to do with knowing that the Internet was going to change the world and knowing that most big companies were clueless about how to harness it. I remember being amazed that the NYT (back when it was a big, somewhat respected newspaper) was using the relatively unknown Zip2 to get online. They were, apparently, clueless about how to do it themselves and that’s the opportunity Musk was exploiting.

As someone who was hyper focused on that space at the time, I kick myself for not recognizing that Musk was at a whole different level in terms of understanding where things were going. In a word, prescient.

The second thing that stands out from that interview is his entrepreneurial spirit. “When it comes to a recommendation for would-be entrepreneurs, Elon suggests that when you get an idea for a business, take a page from Nike and "Just Do It"! "Learn as you go" because there is no better way to learn about business than to get out there get your hands dirty by doing. "Attack the creation of a business enterprise with creativity and intensity." Don’t be scared to take risks, because there is always a fall-back position, (such as getting a regular job or going back to school and getting another degree) especially when you are young.” 

That entrepreneurial spirit has driven the American enterprise for much of her history and been a core driver of a prosperity greater than any in history.   

Fast forward a quarter century and last Monday Musk had a “conversation” with entrepreneur, president and future president Donald Trump.  As I was listening to the conversation I couldn’t help but thinking about how older Musk echoes younger Musk. He told Trump “…there has to be an active process for reducing rules and regulations because otherwise they just keep building up every year, and you get hardening of the arteries and eventually everything’s illegal or takes forever, and then we just ossify as a society, we can’t make any progress, and it’s a really big deal.” Musk correctly articulated that regulations are strangling America’s productivity.  Indeed they are. 

This followed an exchange between the two moments earlier: Musk “Well, I think part of what people in America want to… People in America want to feel excited and inspired about the future. They want to feel like the future’s going to be better than the past, and that America’s going to do things that are greater than we’ve done in the past, reach new heights that make you proud to be an American and excited about the future.” To which Trump responded:  “They want the American Dream back. They want the American dream back, more important than anything else.”

That may not sound like anything extraordinary, but step back for a moment.  On one end of the conversation you have Musk, easily the greatest and most accomplished entrepreneur in a generation if not longer.  On the other you have a man who spent half a century in the trenches building a multibillion dollar empire around the world and the last decade enduring literally constant abuse from the media and political opponents and intellectual elites as he seeks to rescue the country from the Communist Democrat leviathan known as the Swamp.  They set fire to his last year in office, they leveraged Covid to steal the election, they bastardized the judiciary to jail him and they literally shot him… and the guy’s still standing!

So what we had was two extraordinarily accomplished men just talking about the future of the country, both the potential and the roadblocks. And unlike the Democrats who rule America, these two have actually accomplished things, built things, made things work and provided incomes for tens of thousands of Americans.  Virtually no Democrats in America from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris to the sainted Barack Obama to Bernie Sanders or Pocahontas have ever held a real job in the private sector, have no clue how to run anything, do anything other than incite mobs.  Yet they are in charge of our country.  In one sentence Trump hit the nail squarely on the head:  "These people are lunatics... In many cases the people from within are more dangerous for our country than the Russias and the Chinas..."  That sentence was by far the most powerful in the entire conversation because it demonstrates that unlike almost every other politician in America, Donald Trump understands where the enemy of the Republic is and who they are. 

The ideas covered in the conversation, government regulation, crime, the American dream, and the traitors within are rarely so well communicated directly to the American people.  Usually they’re processed like sausage by the Democrats and the mainstream media (apologies for the redundancy) so that they come out sounding like Nazi propaganda.  Which is exactly why the left is having convulsions over their inability to twist and manipulate and, frankly, lie about the message. 

And that my friends, may be the turning point in this election and in the direction of the country.  In buying Twitter and freeing it from government censors, Musk may finally create a connection between candidates and the American people that cannot be manipulated by the propaganda ministry.  In doing so he’s certainly taking the advice of his younger self: ”Don’t be scared to take risks.” He, like Trump, is risking much, and for both, perhaps more than just money.  But sometimes there’s a calling that goes beyond ourselves.  America is most certainly one such calling and I’m grateful these two men have decided it’s worth the risk.

Lessons For America from the Emperor Aurelian

Sometimes history is history, sometimes history is a harbinger and sometimes history is current events. The story of Roman Emperor Aurelian is all three…

Aurelian took power in 270 AD.  The previous 35 years had been nothing short of a disaster for the Empire on a variety of fronts. 

The trouble began with the (well deserved) assassination of Commodus in 192 AD.  Always a force to be reckoned with, from that point forward the army required ever increasing bribes to remain loyal. Not surprisingly, the power of the army increased accordingly. 

At the same time, the treasury had been reducing the amounts of silver and gold in Roman coins for centuries, creating a ticking timebomb of inflation. 

What is known as the Crisis of the Third Century began in earnest in 235 AD with the assassination of Severus Alexander.  At that point the Roman map was about what it had been when Augustus, died in 14 AD, basically everything surrounding the Mediterranean.  When Aurelian took over in 270 the Crisis had hit its nadir and the Empire was a fractured disaster.

By the time Aurelian became Emperor at the age of 55, he had spent 35 years in the Legion.  Born in modern day Serbia, Roman citizen Aurelian would join the Army at the age of 20. In short order he would prove his mettle as a brilliant calvary commander and would over his career come to command increasing numbers of men, eventually commanding the entire army under Emperor Claudius II. 

Upon Claudius’s death Aurelian’s troops would proclaim him Emperor.  After a short battle with Quintillus, the Senate’s choice, he would prevail and take control of the Empire.  The empire he inherited was a far cry from the one Augustus had left. By 270 a huge swath of the western empire, encompassing today’s France, Netherlands, Belgium and parts of Germany and the UK had basically been carved off into a rival, the Gallic Empire.  In the eastern end of the Mediterranean a crescent of land stretching from Egypt, the most valuable province in the Empire, to modern Turkey had become the Palmyrene Empire, run by one of antiquity’s most powerful women, Queen Zenobia. Making matters worse, in addition to the empire being fractured, what was left was regularly under siege from barbarians on all sides.

This is the empire Aurelian found himself leading.  He began his reign by expelling various barbarian tribes from northern Italy. Next he went to the Balkans and crushed the Goths. But, there is no rest for the weary. 

Over in the formerly Roman aligned Palmyra, now the Palmyrene Empire, Queen Zenobia (Acting as regent for her son, Vaballathus) was seeking to convince the Romans to recognize Palmyrene independence. To demonstrate her power she cut off the Egyptian grain supply in 272.  The result was not the one she had hoped for.  Aurelian made his way east and easily defeated her. The next year he would take back Egypt and it was during that period that the city of Alexandria was burned and along with it what is said to have been the greatest library in history.

With the east in order Aurelian headed for the west to crush the so called Gallic Empire and bring it back into the Roman fold. Unlike the east however, Aurelian brought the west back with relatively little bloodshed. He secretly negotiated with the “Gallic Emperor" Tetricus to defect to his side and made him a Senator. Although a battle ensued, it was short lived as no one involved was interested in fighting a battle when both leaders were on the same side. 

By 274 Aurelian had reunified the Empire and had implemented policies to fix two of the most important domestic issues, the corruption at the Mint of Rome (and others) and the grain dole system.  Mike Duncan, the host of the extraordinary History of Rome podcast calls Aurelian the Sandy Kofax of the Roman Empire, not the longest reigning emperor, but the most dominant while he was there. For the five years Aurelian ruled, he was virtually unstoppable.

But as a man, he was stoppable. In one of the great ironies in world history, Aurelian was assassinated in 275 by officers of his Pretorian Guard. Despite the fact that the Guard’s raison d'être is to actually protect the emperor, this murder wasn’t particularly unusual, but in this case, it was the result of a lie.  Aurelian was a strict disciplinarian and one of his secretaries worried he’d be punished for telling a minor lie. He thus forged a document claiming Aurelian was planning to execute a number of his officers. Fearing for their lives these “accused” officers killed Aurelian. They soon discovered they were victims of a ruse and killed the secretary, and very possibly met similar fates themselves. 

So, we have an empire that’s coming apart at the seams, where government employees are corrupt and are demanding more and more money and power be handed to them.  We have an empire where inflation is rampant and the citizens are addicted to government giveaways.  We have an empire whose borders are being breached by countless invaders. Then a competent man steps in to take control and try to fix the problems.  He begins to right the ship, and he’s killed by corrupt officials.

Much of this kind of sounds like America today.  Many of the problems of the Crisis of the Third Century in Rome mirror those in America today.  Indeed, just as the Pretorian Guard was known for auctioning off the diadem and murdering emperors, we’ve seen the FBI and the CIA conspire to destroy presidents, something they’ve been doing for at least half a century and may have had a hand in killing one president.  Our borders are being overrun, 30% of the government’s spending is on welfare, we’re being spent into oblivion and not enough Americans want to join the military so the Pentagon is turning to immigrants. 

The story of Aurelian is a story of hope.  Not for him, obviously, but for America.  He demonstrated that an empire in decline doesn’t have to acquiesce to its own demise.  A crumbling nation can be rebuilt, a listing ship can be righted, a disappearing culture can be resurrected.  What it takes is leadership, a man willing to challenge what might be called “the new normal’, a man who reveres the culture and civilization that made the nation great in the first place.  Donald Trump is just such a man.  Aurelian was feared by the corrupt officials because it was clear he revered the Empire and everything he did was to bring it back to its former glory.  Donald Trump is hated by the corrupt and power-hungry Swamp because he loves America and most of the things he does are an attempt to make her great again. 

Because his reign lasted only five years, Aurelian rarely finds his name in the pantheon of the greatest emperors. That’s unfortunate, because he almost single handedly reversed the collapse of the Empire, which would go on to survive for another two centuries after his assassination. 

Donald Trump finds himself in a similar position, facing a nation in decline and in danger of collapse. Let’s hope that he can successfully and safely bring America back from the brink.  If he does, then America may lead the world for the next two centuries as it did for the last two. That just might get him on Mount Rushmore. 

Follow Me on Twitter at ImperfectUSA,

The Democrats Broke the Constitution - If We Don't Use that Opening to Fix Things, The Republic is Lost

I spent much of the two months following the 2020 election arguing with Democrats who pretended that Joe Biden actually won.  Their line was: “Prove it was fraudulent”.  I couldn’t.  “There was no fraud” we were told by the media, every branch of government, academics, Democrats and the TDS afflicted GOP establishment types.  That fiction continues to this day, and the truth is, they have a point.  As of today, there is not a single court case that has established any significant coordinated effort to steal the election.  Every single case brought by Donald Trump and his compatriots either failed in court or failed to be considered by courts because of “standing” or some other technicality.

Now, however, three years later, with everything from Molly Ball’s TIME magazine boast to Mollie Hemingway’s brilliant Rigged to the poorly made but tantalizing 2000 Mules to the Twitter files, it’s as clear as day to anyone with a functioning brain that the Democrats conspired with the rest of America’s elite leftist cabal to steal the election, and succeeded. 

One might think that the clear theft of an election of the most powerful office in the world would be enough to cause a revolution in the streets, but that didn’t happen.  Indeed, when a few thousand unarmed patriots sought to force the government to at least examine the questions about said election on January 6^th 2021, many ended up in gulags with their lives destroyed.

Even years later when it was clear to anyone with a pulse that elites manipulated every element of our voting system and stole the election, nothing happened.  Not only did no one go to jail for that treachery, but they were allowed to do the exact same thing two years later in Arizona, an ostensibly red state.

Arizona essentially watched in real time as its election was manipulated and the office of Governor was stolen from Kari Lake.  But here we are 11 months later and Katie Hobbs is still sitting in the Governor’s office and Kari Lake is still fighting in the courts. 

Just to the East, Tucker Carlson just interviewed Texas AG Ken Paxton, who was just acquitted of corruption charges.  Paxton discussed the problems afflicting what’s supposed to be blood red Texas.  He talked about the Speaker of a GOP dominated House being elected by Democrats, and even more treacherously, about the state’s highest criminal court – populated by Republicans – taking away his ability to investigate voter fraud, thereby leaving it to George Soros backed local AGs to do, which is scheduled to happen the day after Hell freezes over. 

All of which brings us to 2024.  It’s true that there have been no court cases that have determined that the 2020 election was stolen, but just as every American knows that OJ was guilty, every American knows that the 2020 election was stolen, even if they refuse to admit it. The problem is, corruption is designed to be hard to see and much of the government, both the investigative and judicial arms are part of the swamp that wants to keep the fraud hidden.  Proving it takes far longer than the period of time between the election and the inauguration. 

Just like the Russian collusion hoax and the Hunter Biden laptop story however, eventually the media will come around to admitting that which we all know already, that the 2020 presidential election was indeed stolen.  But just like the two aforementioned stories, the truth will not emerge until long after its release would be helpful to the American people. 

The question is, what are freedom loving, Constitution loving Americans supposed to do in a situation where the theft is happening right in front of them in real time and they’re told that what they’re seeing isn’t what’s actually going on?  Between early voting, absentee voting, vote harvesting and computer voting, America’s voting system is simply broken. Not only is it broken, but the courts, filled with activist, partisan judges offer little or no outlet to address the problem.  Indeed, even the Supreme Court offers no opportunity for fixing the problem as can be seen by its allowing Pennsylvania’s courts to change the state’s voting laws in clear violation of the US Constitution then by refusing Texas’s case based on the ludicrous grounds of “Standing”. 

Today, we are faced with the fact that regardless of what a Constitutional majority of Americans vote for, the outcome of the presidential and other elections is not up to them. America is not only no longer a Republic, we’re not even a democracy in the loose sense of the word.  America is no longer a democratic nation at all, it’s a nation managed and manipulated by a cabal of elites.  If things like what happened nationally in 2020 and in 2022 in Arizona continue, there will eventually be a civil war.  It’s only a question of time.

In 247 years ago 55 men, propelled by a tyrannical government in which they had no say but which demanded their fealty and taxed them at will, signed a document that would change the course of human history.  Today Americans find themselves with even less control than the Founding Fathers did, beholden to a tyrannical leviathan like government run by an elitist cabal that manufactures the outcomes it desires. 

Power almost never gives up power willingly, but the possibility still exists.  If Americans, win or lose can once again feel confident that their votes count and that success is based on the number of votes cast and not the number of ballots manufactured, we might be able to avert another conflagration.

How might that happen?.  Here are five simple changes that would fix this problem, but they’ll never see the light of day as Democrats have no incentive to fix the current system.

1) Make election day a national holiday.
2) Eliminate early voting.
3) Eliminate absentee ballots for anyone other than persons provably outside of their registered state on election day.
4) Eliminate electronic voting.
5) Implement universal Voter ID.

Every state should be forced to comply, regardless of what the Constitution says.  “Why that’s tyranny!!!” you say.  Maybe, but the reality is, the Constitution was already shredded by Democrats via the manufactured hysteria over Covid.  We were told that the “emergency” was sufficient to disregard the Constitution. I’d suggest that if what was basically a bad case of the flu can be considered an emergency sufficient to go ignore the Constitution, then averting a bloody civil war is at least as much of an emergency.  Unlike what we were told about the Covid threat, a civil war would actually result in the loss of millions of lives and would leave devastation in its wake like Americans have never seen.   

Of course, using the same rationale, environmentalist fascists might eventually argue that “Climate Change” is an emergency too.  They could and would make the argument and try and use it to eviscerate what’s left of the Constitution. Admittedly it’s a slippery slope, but that’s where Democrats have put us.  As they learned when Harry Reid tried a “limited” overturning of the filibuster, once something is broken, there is no such thing as “limited”.  Democrats broke our Constitution to steal an election. If we don’t do something, we will eventually become a nation of serfs in the service of lords in Washington, New York and Silicon Valley.  If ignoring that broken Constitution is what’s necessary to give citizens’ back control over their government and avert a civil war, it might be worth considering. Our Republic is already gone, the question is, can we put it back together?

Donald Trump’s Mugshot and the Berlin Wall of Democrat Propaganda

The Democrats are making a final push against Donald Trump, the culmination of their unrelenting efforts since 2016. But is their propaganda becoming so obvious that, rather than persuading voters, it finally opens their eyes to reality? The Soviet Union stands as an example of how “propaganda collapse” plays out and how that might happen here, too.

I went to college back in the 1980s, when Communism was still perceived by most Americans as a bad thing—although not one of my political philosophy professors. He proudly characterized himself as “Somewhere to the left of Lenin.” When professing his love and respect for the Soviets—but not enough to leave Florida and move to Moscow— he often tried to square the circle of their military prowess and the reports in American media about their economic failings.

Thus, he pointed out that the Soviets built rockets sending men into space, built weapon systems the Pentagon told us could obliterate the West, dominated Eastern Europe, and were the power behind the Vietnamese who defeated both the French and the Americans. Given all the Soviet’s demonstrated military and technological prowess, he asked, how was it even remotely possible that they could not build washing machines or cars on par with anything produced in the West? Given that they controlled one of the greatest breadbaskets in the world, Ukraine, how could it be true that there was rampant starvation?

The professor had a ready answer: The stories about the Soviet’s economic failures were lies—propaganda produced by the CIA and segments of the capitalist American media.

And it wasn’t just economics. It was politics as well. The Soviet Union had one of the most robust constitutions in the world, he insisted, with an array of guarantees that any citizen in the West would feel comfortable with: Freedom of speech, the press, right of assembly, worship etc. The gulags of Siberia were simply more Western propaganda.

Eventually the professor’s fiction about the communist nirvana could be sustained no longer, but by that time I had graduated and was stationed in West Germany. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reality of the desolation of the East started to become clear. Indeed, the juxtaposition of the abject economic failure of the East with the prosperity of the west put the lie to everything my communist championing professor and his favorite newspaper, the NY Times, had tried to drill into our heads for years.

The fall of the Berlin Wall wasn’t the end of communism, nor even the Soviet Union, which would stand for an additional two years. But when it comes to discussing the collapse of the Soviet Union and communism in Eastern Europe, that fall is the thing that most people remember.

I’d posit that we witnessed a similarly epoch-defining event recently: Donald Trump’s mugshot. There’s nothing extraordinary about the mugshot itself, but sometimes an image is much more than just the pixels it’s made up of. What this particular image really depicts is the culmination of eight years of lies and propaganda from Democrats and the Swamp. In one picture, Americans understand exactly what has been going on for the last eight years.

With that mugshot, even people who hate Donald Trump will recognize that America is evolving into a tyranny, like Venezuela with Chavez or Turkey with Erdogan, a place where laws don’t matter other than as tools to crush opponents. They see that the apparatus of the state is simply a vehicle for distributing power among your friends and punishing your enemies.

And in an echo of the 1930s, when Stalin was starving millions of Ukrainians to death and the New York Times was telling us fairy tales, today’s media are telling us that Trump is indeed a criminal, the charges are damning, and that Americans are finally coming to recognize him as one.

The difference is that it took half a century for the truth about the evil of the Soviets to finally find the light of day, while the truth about the evil of the Democrats and their Swamp comrades has taken just a few years… Indeed, you could make the argument that it’s taken less than six months.

Trump’s first indictment, this past March, accuses him of using his own money, rather than donors’ money to pay hush money, suggesting that election law required him to use campaign contributions to keep hidden a sordid story about sex. His second indictment, in June, accuses him of mishandling documents, something every president has done, but no others were indicted for. (And, of course, Trump did not mishandle the documents.) His third indictment, on August 1st, was for attempting to overturn the 2020 election results, this after he’s on video telling his followers to “peacefully and patriotically” make their way to the Capitol. His last (so far) indictment was issued on August 14th, and accused him of seeking to interfere with the 2020 election by falsely claiming he wanted the Secretary of State to manufacture votes.

In less than six months, the Democrats have indicted Donald Trump four times, with the cases scheduled to run through at least the spring of 2024, right into the heart of primary season. Aside from the absurdity of the indictments themselves, this is easily the most blatant example of election interference the United States has ever seen. Indeed it’s so blatant that even a majority of Democrats who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 think it’s interference.

To make matters worse for Democrats, in his interview with Tucker Carlson, Trump looked and sounded as presidential as he ever has. While his outlandish personality serves him well at rallies filled with supporters, his presidential decorum, command of the facts, and his clear confidence while speaking with Tucker are exactly what appeals to those voters put off by doddering Joe Biden’s inability to put an intelligent thought into words or walk up a flight of stairs. While a good interview alone won’t get the job done, for those who are looking around wondering what the hell the Democrats are doing, it likely opens a door for him.

As with most things in life, timing is everything, and the Democrats may have hit the sweet spot…for Donald Trump. While Biden has been less than lucid for most of his presidency, today he more often looks like an escaped Alzheimer’s patient than he does a president. The longer Democrats allow Joe to run with the fiction that he is going to be on the ticket in November, the stronger the contrast becomes with the robust, energized, and cogent Trump. At the same time, every day seems to bring more proof to light that Biden is not only a liar, but he’s been on the take from America’s enemies for years.

Many Democrats would no doubt vote for a fence post so long as it was running against Donald Trump, but there are likely a significant number with functioning brains who recognize that regardless of how much they dislike Trump, he’s a far better choice than Joe Biden.

Of course, Democrats could ditch Biden for Harris, Newsom or, God forbid, Michelle Obama, but that doesn’t solve the problem they’ve created with the trials. Trump will be sitting in courtrooms during critical periods of the campaign, but that doesn’t mean he’ll lose support as a result. Indeed, just the opposite is likely to happen as he has countless surrogates who will use the fact that he couldn’t be there because of the Democrats’ treachery to excite a crowd and grow support.

In addition, the trials will offer daily opportunities to remind voters of the Democrats’ hypocrisy and mendacity as they manipulate the justice system to crucify Trump while the Bidens, Hillary, and virtually every swamp dweller gets off scot-free.

It would be the ultimate irony if the indictments that Democrats hoped to use to finally defeat Donald Trump were the vehicles through which America finally came to see their mendacity and propelled their worst nightmare back into office.

Even if he's guilty, even if he's convicted, if Donald Trump is on the ballot, I'm voting for him

Donald Trump may indeed be guilty of the charges for which he was indicted a couple of weeks ago… or maybe not. He may even end up being convicted.  Regardless, assuming he’s on the ballot, I’ll be voting for him, even if he’s dressed in stripes sitting in a jail cell. 

Why? Not because I don’t take seriously the handling of classified records or trying to “obstruct” the Justice Department.  Indeed both are serious.  But even if Trump were guilty of both, even if he violated the letter and the spirit of the law, those violations are nothing when compared to the weaponization of the federal government we’ve observed over the last decade and a half.

The Democrat party has spent much of the last fifteen years turning the federal government into an American Stasi to be used against their political opponents in a manner unprecedented in American history. 

Barack Obama took aim at the Constitution early on when in 2010 his Justice Department targeted the press under the guise of “national security”.  They seized records from FOX News reporter James Rosen and accused him of “Espionage” for his reporting on American policy towards North Korea.  Three years later they used similar tactics against the Associated Press.   

Not content to eviscerate the freedom of the press, Obama next set his sights on freedom of speech, this time harnessing the IRS to undermine the Constitution. 

Other presidents have been accused of using the IRS against opponents, but they were pikers when compared to Obama’s war on speech in which the IRS sought to smother hundreds of grass roots Tea Party organizations in their bassinets, before they could even crawl.  The likely result of that “mistreatment” of grassroots opponents was that Barack Obama won reelection despite having 5 million fewer votes than he did in 2008. Contrast that with Donald Trump, who grew his vote total by 12 million in 2020 but somehow “lost” his reelection bid.

Then came the coronation of Hillary Clinton, which had to be guaranteed.  And the vehicle for that guarantee was the Russia collusion hoax which Hillary Clinton started and Obama knew about. The Durham Report lays out in black and white exactly how much the Department of Justice has been politicized.  The FBI not only should have never investigated Trump for Russia collusion in the first place, but over the course of years various FBI and other officials fabricated evidence, lied to judges, lied to Congress, ignored exculpatory evidence, and sought to entrap people in Trump’s coterie then coerce them into testifying against him. 

As a result of the Justice Department’s persecution of Donald Trump, not only was his term hobbled by investigations, but at the same time he had to survive attacks from virtually every corner, including legislators allegedly on his side.  Perhaps most perniciously, largely because of their weaponization of the Justice Department, more than half the country doesn’t trust the “premier” law enforcement agency in the nation.  In 2023 fully 70% of the American people feel like our elections may be compromised by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  To put that in perspective, after decades of the media propaganda machine lying about police hunting black men, black Americans still have a higher opinion of local police than Americans in general do of the FBI.

By 2020 the apparatchiks in the Justice Department had decided that they were America’s white knights and were going to save the country from having to endure another term of Donald Trump as president.  As the election was wrapping up the New York Post ran a story about a laptop owned by Joe Biden’s son Hunter.  The laptop was full of information about drugs and prostitution and various other illegal activities that the younger Biden participated in.  More proe problematic however were the emails and other information that implicated Joe Biden in various schemes whereby his son and brother were handsomely paid by various foreign entities for his (Biden’s) influencing American policy while Vice President. The FBI worked back channels with America’s modern public squares, Twitter, Facebook and other media outlets to both censor the story and suggest that it was Russian disinformation at the same time. 

The FBI white nights succeeded in their quest to save the nation.  In an election that turned on less than 100,000 votes, fully 13 million Americans (16% of Biden’s “84 million” voters) said they would have changed their vote had they known about the laptop story.  That is what you call a coup d'état.  But as it was the Democrats and the Justice Department leadership running the coup, there was no problem.

Once in office Biden lost no time in seeking to weaponize the DOJ against Trump supporters, including hundreds of Jan 6 protesters, some of whom never even entered the Capitol.  On the 29^th of January, 2021, a mere 9 days after taking office, the administration set about plans to target conservatives by gaming out scenarios about vulnerable citizens facing “radicalization” by pro-life advocates and small government proponents. The following year the Justice Department would target as “domestic terrorists” parents concerned about what was being taught to their children in public schools.  Later FBI management would be accused of forcing agents to fabricate “extremist” and “white supremacist” cases because “The demand for white supremacy vastly outstrips the supply of white supremacy”.  And just to put a fine point on it, in April Biden blasted “Those MAGA Republicans” as the real problem America faces. 

Which brings us back to Donald Trump and last week’s indictment.  The reality is, there’s likely not a single voter in America who is going to be swayed one way or another based on the outcome of that case. If elections were about the candidate, last year Pennsylvania Democrats wouldn’t have elected to represent them as Senator a guy who would have trouble completing a kindergarten art project over an erudite, if slightly odd, cardiothoracic surgeon.  Americans of every stripe understand what the choice is in 2024.  Most certainly there are voters who are turned off by some of Trump’s antics and statements, but the reality is anyone who says they would be willing to vote for Ron DeSantis but not Donald Trump is lying… either to themselves or to you. They’re simply looking for a fig leaf to cover their consciences so they can vote for a Democrat.

While at the end of the day the choice may ostensibly come down to a doddering Alzheimer’s patient vs. a convicted ex president, or even a “vapid pander bear” vs. the “Grand Wizard” of the KKK, the reality is the choice on the ballot next November is stark: The continued weaponization of government against the citizens or a resurgence of the freedom and limited government that are at the foundation of America’s greatness.  The Democrat Party and the rest of its swamp cabal have clearly demonstrated they are more than willing to ignore the Constitution and use the police power of government to coerce, control, and if necessary crucify anyone not willing to go along with their cancerous progressive agenda.  Donald Trump doesn’t want to let them do that.

Trump may be a highly flawed man, but as the nation watches its government being transformed into a repressive, progressive Borg, who better to lead the charge to destroy it than the man who has weathered its slings and arrows for the last 8 years?  More than perhaps anyone in America, Trump understands the threat because he’s experienced firsthand the danger it poses. And unlike most, he recognizes who the real target is, something he pointed out to supporters in 2019:  “In reality they’re not after me, they’re after you.  I’m just in the way.”

Sitting in a jail cell or out on the campaign trail, Donald Trump is the touchstone of the Republic.  We either go forward as a nation of laws limited by the Constitution or we transform into a nation of men governed only by coercion and brute force.  There is no middle ground. Given that I’ll take the guy in stripes every time.