America's Irish Republican Army: The Symbiotic Relationship Beween the Democratic Party and Anti-Trump Terrorism

Americans, by and large, have little interest in history, and this is particularly true of the nation's educated elites, including those in Congress, the media, and academia.

This is unfortunate because we can learn from studying historical events. For example, there are clear parallels between the terrorism that Ireland experienced in the last half of the twentieth century and the rising tide of leftist terrorism that roils the United States today.

The Irish Republican Army was made up of various factions that committed acts of terror in Northern Ireland and Great Britain, including bombings, ambushes, and political assassinations. These groups acted independently, but all were committed to ending British rule in Northern Ireland. Likewise, various independent groups and some lone individuals are fomenting terrorism in the United States today, but all are intent on undermining American society.

Over the past few years, America has seen a rise in terrorism, mainly from the left. The George Floyd riots in 2020, violent anti-Israel protests at American universities, two attempted assassinations against Donald Trump,  and, most recently, violent attacks against law enforcement officers trying to deport criminal aliens--all this is terrorism.

Americans forget that the Irish Republican Army had a political ally: Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin purported to be completely independent from the IRA, but as a PBS Frontline report noted, "The relationship between Sinn Féin and the IRA, historically, has been symbiotic."

Indeed, PBS observed:

Sinn Féin was very much an auxiliary of the Irish Republican Army. They were there for propaganda purposes, they were there to raise the funds, [and] they were there to speak on behalf of the IRA . . . .

Moreover, PBS reported, Sinn Féin "wasn't in the business of electioneering, it was in the business of propagandizing." 

Today, the Democratic Party is a de facto auxiliary of domestic terrorism.  I'm not suggesting that Democratic senators are making Molotov cocktails in their legislative offices or that legacy journalists are buying gasoline for Antifa. Still, Democrats are using political influence, media propaganda, and lawfare to attack governmental efforts to combat terrorism in this country. 

From my Flyover Country perspective, the Democrats aren't even trying to regain the majority in Congress. Insane support for transgender athletes, wild-eyed references to Trump as a Nazi, and mindless opposition to deporting criminal aliens are not the tactics of a mainstream American political Party.

In short. The Democratic Party is the present-day equivalent of Sinn Féin. Just as Sinn Féin was dedicated to ending British rule in Northern Ireland, the Progressive Dems are intent on destroying our democracy--the very thing they accuse President Trump of doing.

Russia attacks Ukraine with 407 drones and 45 missiles, but only 3 Ukrainians are killed?

 A few days ago, Ukraine launched a major drone attack on Russia, destroying over 40 strategic bombers. Last night, Russia retaliated, hitting Ukrainian cities with 407 attack drones and 45 missiles, "one of the war's largest air attacks." According to the Ukrainian military, the Russians only killed three people. That's one fatality for every 150 projectiles.

The Ukrainian narrative is about as plausible as Jake Tapper's book on President Biden's dementia. After three years of warfare, does anyone believe Ukraine's reports that only a handful of Ukrainian civilians are getting killed from aerial bombardments?  

And what about the military casualty figures? Westerners estimate that 250,000  Russian soldiers have been killed during the three years of warfare, compared to only 60,000 Ukrainians. Can that be true?

The Western media, by and large, has been content to accept the Ukrainian spin on the war. The reality is that millions of Ukrainians have fled the country to escape the conflict, and incalculable damage has been done to Ukraine's infrastructure. Ukraine's reports on its military casualties are not credible; surely as many Ukrainian soldiers have been killed as Russians.

Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State during President Trump's first presidential term, visited Odessa late last month, reportedly stirring up trouble. While attending the "Black Sea Security Forum," he urged the West not to accede to Russia's claims on Crimea. To recognize Crimea as a part of Russia, he darkly warned, "would be a mistake of epic proportions."

That's nuts. If the U.S. keeps backing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his delusional quest to throw Russia out of Crimea, we will eventually stumble into a nuclear war. 

Mr. Pompeo may be willing to risk sending America's young people to war to get Russia out of Crimea. I am not, and neither, I hope, are the American people.

Why aren't we angrier about the Boulder terrorist attack?

 Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national, attacked a group of Jewish Americans in Boulder, Colorado, a few days ago. Using an improvised flamethrower and Molotov cocktails, he injured a dozen people, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor.

Why aren't we angrier about this racist attack on American citizens?

Why aren't we outraged by a visa policy that allowed Solimon, his wife, and five children to enter the United States on a tourist visa, and to remain illegally after the visa expired? 

Why aren't we angrier about a self-indulgent political philosophy that inspired a majority of Colorado counties and 14 Colorado towns to declare themselves sanctuary jurisdictions to thwart ICE from deporting people who are in this country illegally?

Why aren't we enraged by a judge who stopped the State Department from deporting a terrorist's family members who had no legal right to be in this country? And why is a terrorist who burned Jewish Americans alive able to get an attorney to represent him when middle-class Americans can't afford legal representation?

In the months to come, a lot of lawyers will get paid so that this racist madman gets due process. Mohammed Solimon should be executed for his crimes, and it should have happened yesterday.

Colorado counties that have declared themselves sanctuaries for illegal migrants  

 

Soliman hated Jews, and the elderly Jews who were participating.

Russia Will Win Its War with Ukraine--No Matter What the Cost

 Ukraine pulled off an audacious drone attack on Russia a few days ago, hitting military targets hundreds of miles inside Russian territory. The Ukrainians claim to have damaged or destroyed 41 strategic aircraft--a shocking setback for the Russian military.

Bernard Henri-Lévy, writing in The Wall Street Journal, claims that this feat is a harbinger of Ukraine's eventual victory in its three-year war with Russia. "Ukraine will defeat Russia on the battlefield or impose the terms of a just peace," Henri-Levi predicted. "Either way, it will win the war."

I disagree.  Thus far, Russia has shown remarkable restraint in the face of several military reverses: the sinking of the Moskva and other navy vessels in the Black Sea, the Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk region, and its inability to capture Kyiv early in the war.

Nevertheless, Russia will win its war with Ukraine. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says he won't surrender territory to get a peace deal, which is untenable. Russian President Vladimir Putin will never abandon his country's claim on Crimea. And Putin will insist--at the very least--on keeping enough territory in eastern Ukraine to maintain a secure overland supply line between Crimea and Mother Russia.

I confess that I initially believed President Trump's intervention would quickly lead to a ceasefire and ultimately to peace. I was wrong.

Still, this war must end soon, or it will spin out of control, escalating into a nuclear conflict. Unfortunately, Ukraine's "audacious" drone attack escalates the conflict and hinders Trump's ability to broker a peace deal.

Shockingly, the leftist American press is celebrating Ukraine's drone attack, which anti-Trump pundits interpret as a setback for Trump and a sign that Ukraine can defeat Russia with or without American support.

But this interpretation of Ukraine's drone strike is madness. As Matt Taibbi wrote:

Peel away the gushing about Ukraine’s “brilliant technical performance" and what you find everywhere underneath are American and European officials who believe, now more than ever, that Ukraine can “win” this war. . . . They want to keep fighting at any cost, even annihilation. They are deluded, treasonous, and insane.

I agree with Mr. Taibbi. The legacy media and Democratic politicians must stop undermining our President as he tries to end the Ukraine war, which Ukraine cannot win. 

If this ridiculous conflict continues much longer, it will ultimately destroy Western civilization. And that would be a high price to pay to humiliate Donald Trump. 

Welcome to the Free State of Florida: Americans are Moving South

 In the movie Doctor Zhivago, Yuri Zhivago and his beleaguered family hunker down in post-revolutionary Moscow, hoping to survive the winter.

Yevgraf, Yuri's half-brother, appears unexpectedly and urges Yuri to take his family and leave Moscow. If you stay in the city, Yevgrav warns, "you won't survive the winter."

Urban Americans, particularly those residing in Blue-State cities, are heading south. Unlike Doctor Zhivago's family, they are not fleeing starvation. Nevertheless, they have urgent reasons for leaving.

Urban crime, high taxes, poor schools, and corrupt municipal politicians are driving northern city dwellers to relocate to the south, where the weather is more pleasant and life is more serene.

I drove to St. Augustine, Florida, last week, the oldest town in the United States. As I crossed the state border east of Pensacola, I saw a sign that read, "Welcome to the Free State of Florida."

Over the next few days, I heard several stories about people who left northern cities for Florida. I got tired of shoveling snow, one New Yorker explained. A Chicago woman said her family moved to Florida to escape crime. Chicagoans had taken to coasting through stop signs, she confided,  to avoid being carjacked. 

Another family sold their multi-million-dollar Chicago home to settle in Wisconsin. Crime, outrageous property taxes, and a poor environment for raising children were some of the reasons for abandoning the Windy City. 

Die-hard urban dwellers say the crime problem is exaggerated. More than three million people ride the New York subways every day, they point out, so they must feel safe.  Yet a homeless woman was set afire while sleeping on a subway train last year, and a man was arrested a few months ago for sexually molesting a corpse on the R train in Manhattan.

How many instances of urban mayhem and murder does it take before people ask themselves whether there is a better place to live?

Millions of Americans are saying, "Enough is enough." New York, Illinois, and helter-skelter California are losing population as working families move to saner environments. Texas and Florida have been the largest beneficiaries, but other Southern states, such as North Carolina and Georgia, are also attracting people.

In the years to come, this mass migration of working families is expected to accelerate, and the cultural divide between Red states and Blue states will become more pronounced. For now, the Blue State politicians are taking a pugnacious stance. New York Governor Kathy Hochul went so far as to cheer her state's outflow of disaffected New Yorkers. "Get out of town," she jeered.

The day is coming, however, when even the Blue States' clueless politicians will want working Americans to return, along with their "youthful energy." After all, a society made up of shoplifters, homeless people, and wealthy progressives is not a happy place to be.

What? Osama Bin Laden's kids can't go to Harvard?

Harvard University has contracted a nasty case of antisemitism, which it has been unable to shake. President Trump, highly dissatisfied with Harvard's effort to stamp out anti-Jewish racism, recently barred Harvard from enrolling foreign students. 

Losing international students would be a severe financial blow to Harvard. Twenty-seven percent of its students are foreigners, and most pay the university's full, exorbitant tuition price.  

Harvard responded like all universities respond when their perks get cancelled; it sued. Fortunately, the hoary old institution is located in Massachusetts, which is chock-full of judges sympathetic to the higher education industry. Judge Allison Burroughs, an Ivy League law school graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, enjoined the Trump administration's action.

Harvard not only enriches itself with tuition money from foreign students but also receives substantial funding from foreign countries and global elites. For example, the Bin Laden family (Osama Bin Laden's kinfolk) donated $1 million to Harvard Law School to establish fellowships for students from the Middle East to study Islamic states that apply Sharia law.

Why did the Bin Ladens give Harvard this money? It could be because Osama Bin Laden's half-brother, Abdullah Mohammed Binladen, earned two advanced degrees from Harvard Law School.

Osama Bin Laden is dead, of course. But the Bin Laden family is filthy rich, and the Bin Ladens may want to send more relatives to Harvard. Osama himself had at least 20 kids, some of whom may aspire to getting a Harvard MBA or a master's degree in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School.

Suppose Trump prevails in cancelling visas for Harvard international students. In that case, the poor Bin Laden kids might be forced to attend Yale or Princeton, and Harvard would miss out on receiving more Bin Laden money. Oh, the horror!

I have no sympathy for Harvard concerning its dispute with the Trump administration. This arrogant behemoth has gotten filthy rich taking donations from wealthy influencer peddlers, including countries that are hostile to the United States and its values.

Perhaps that's why Harvard has been unable to get antisemitism under control. It may not be trying very hard. After all, there's no money to be made fighting antisemitism.

Photo credit: AP, WCHS Fox Eyewitness News, Charles Krupa

No Country for Old Neckties: A Spring Wedding in the Chihuahuan Desert

Earlier this month, my wife and I drove to Terlingua, Texas—a ghost town in the Chihuahuan Desert—to attend our niece's wedding. Terlingua is a two-day drive from our home in Mississippi—about 1,000 miles.

We spent the first night on our journey in San Antonio, where we ate dinner at Mi Tierra, my favorite Mexican restaurant. Beloved by tourists and locals alike, Mi Tierra features roving mariachi bands, a Mexican pastries counter, sturdy margaritas, and old-fashioned Tex-Mex food.

The next morning, we traveled west on Interstate 10 into the northern stretches of the Chihuahuan Desert. When we crossed over the Pecos River, we officially entered the Trans Pecos--the most stark and desolate region of Texas.

We arrived in Fort Stockton in the early afternoon, one of the few substantial towns in West Texas. Founded as an Army post before the Civil War, Fort Stockton owes its existence to Comanche Springs, an aquifer of artesian springs that once produced 60 million gallons of water a day — a desert miracle. The fort's soldiers protected Overland stage coaches from marauding Comanche and Apache Indians.

We turned south at Fort Stockton and ended the day in Alpine, Texas, where we spent the night in the historic Holland Hotel.  Had we reached the end of our journey? No, on our third travel day, we drove another 80 miles to the tiny hamlet of Terlingua, the wedding destination.

Our niece was married in Terlingua's St. Joseph's Church, attended by four bridesmaids and groomsmen. No male in attendance wore a traditional necktie, but all were appropriately attired. Some wore open-collared shirts, and some wore bolo ties. A few men wore cowboy hats, and many wore their best western boots. 

After the wedding, the guests retired to a sumptuous reception to eat barbecue brisket and drink 'horny toad' margaritas and ice-cold Mexican beer. I couldn't find a shady spot to sit, so I watched the young folks dancing the Texas Two-Step in the late-afternoon sun, amply shaded by my Stetson hat.

Terlingua is just a few miles from the Mexican border, and one can see the mountains of Mexico shimmering in the distance.  This region is Cormac McCarthy country, the setting for several of McCarthy's novels, including No Country for Old Men.

For the coastal elites traveling by jet from the West Coast to the East Coast, Far West Texas is Flyover Country--boring to look at from 30,000 feet. For me, however, this region has a mystical quality. Its harsh immensity is achingly beautiful.

Life in the Chihuahuan Desert of the Trans Pecos is stripped to the essentials. Air-conditioning and four-wheel drive vehicles don't change the fact that water is the most basic necessity of life and is always in short supply.

I like and admire the people of West Texas. There is a directness about them and an easy hospitality that is missing in urban America, perhaps most especially in the Blue State cities. Fortunately for West Texans, it's damned hard to get there and mostly unappealing for people who own private jets.  

Two-stepping in the Chihuahuan Desert