Cynical Publius
@CynicalPublius

To fully understand just how remarkable today’s exchange with Colombia was, you need to understand how Washington DC has traditionally worked through these sorts of issues, and the different way it works now under Trump.

I’ll illustrate.

Traditional Approach:

1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.
2. On Monday, the State Department convenes an interagency task force with DoD, NSC, DEA, INS, ICE, Commerce, Treasury and Homeland Security.
3. The task force meets for four days and develops a position paper.
4. The position paper is rejected by the Secretary of State, who is unhappy that insufficient equity considerations are built into the process.
5. The task force reconvenes a week later to redevelop three new, equity-centric courses of action and create a new position paper.
6. The process is delayed a week because Washington DC gets three inches of snow.
7. SecState approves the new position paper for interagency circulation, and considerable input is received from the heads of other departments so the task force must reconvene.
8. The original three proposed responsive courses of action are scrapped in favor of a new, fourth course of action that achieves the worst aspects of the three prior courses of action but satisfies the interagency.
9. Someone in State who disagrees leaks to the Washington Post, who writes a story about how ineffective the Presidential administration is.
10. The White House Chief of Staff sets up a session three days later to brief the President, who approves the new fourth course of action.
11. Over a month after the issue is first raised, the State Department Public Affairs Officer holds a press conference announcing that Colombia has agreed to try to send fewer criminals into the US and everyone declares victory.

Trump Approach:

1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.
2. After a par-5 third hole where he goes one under par, Trump uses his iPhone to post on social media as to how the USA will destroy Colombia’s economy if they do not do what the USA demands.
3. By the time Trump gets to the par-4 sixth hole, Colombia’s President has agreed to repatriate all the illegal Colombians in his own plane, which he will pay for.
4. Trump finishes three under par and goes to the clubhouse for a Diet Coke where he posts a gangsta AI image of himself and the new FAFO Doctrine.
5. Winning.

See the difference? It’s called LEADERSHIP.

A burglary suspect was shot and killed by homeowner

PHOENIX — A man who reportedly broke into a home is dead after being shot by the homeowner, according to the Phoenix Police Department.

The incident happened Friday night at a home near 107th Avenue and Indian School Road.

Police said officers responded to the home and found a man, age 51, who had been shot. The man was taken to the hospital where he died.

“Officers detained the homeowner who acknowledged his involvement in shooting the man who entered his residence,” police said in a news release.

Police said the homeowner was interviewed and released from custody on Saturday.

The case will be submitted to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for review.

Other details were not released.

I’ve read other pundits making the same point. The demoncrap zeal to try to bury Trump backfired. If he would have been left alone and won a 2nd term (which the standard is that they’re usually not much more than nothingburgers), he would be gone now – with who knows who would be in office. Now, it’s his 2nd ‘first term’ and he’s really “rarin’ to go”.
And please excuse some language.

The Left Gave Us Trump 2.0: And they’re not going to like it one bit.

My New York Post column, which should be online tomorrow, opens with this quote from Marc Andreessen:

I go on from there to talk about how Trump is following my earlier advice to “move fast and break things” in spades, and how that’s affecting all sorts of stuff, including general attitudes.

Well, if you follow me here, you probably don’t need to be told how fast Trump is moving. But I have a few other thoughts here that didn’t fit the column. The main point is that the Democrats’ over-the-top rule-breaking, norm-busting attacks on Trump have backfired bigly. I like to use the Tolkien quote, “oft evil will shall evil mar,” and that happened here for sure.

A second consecutive Trump term would have been better, from my perspective, than Biden’s sham administration, obviously. But it certainly would have been better for the Democrats than this second non-consecutive term. Trump spent the past four years not only planning his comeback, but planning what he would do after his comeback.

In his first term he was too busy running to plan, and he was naïve about how Washington and the federal government – and the Republican Party – actually work. Not so much anymore. I’ve seen people – to continue the Tolkien reference – compare him to Gandalf the White coming back after battling the Balrog, and that’s not a bad analogy.

Then there’s this one, which pretty much sums up what I’m saying here. Like Sulla, he’s been taking names, and he has a list.

And there’s this:

It really is. Trump could get carried away with this stuff at some point, but at present he seems to be settling all family business in a very measured way. Where the opening months of the first Trump Administration were confused – Omarosa in the White House? – this time around he’s realized that personnel is policy, and he’s clearly done a lot of thinking about who his personnel will be. And it’s no coincidence that he’s put a lot of people who were victims of various government agencies in charge of those same agencies. Not much danger of them going native, I think.

A second consecutive Trump term would have delayed the advance of the left/Democrat agenda, and pushed it back in some minor ways, but would probably have ultimately been no more than a bump in the road for that agenda. This Trump term will likely burn it down.

It helps, of course, that most of that agenda was always heavily unpopular. Open borders poll badly with almost every constituency except elites. Likewise affirmative action. Likewise the entire Trans agenda, etc., etc. These things were kept in place basically through bullying: Calling anyone who opposed them a racist and using the power of the media, and leftist institutions, to punish them.

But they squandered that power going after Trump, blowing the media’s credibility and wrecking the moral and intellectual authority of institutions like universities and corporations. (Covid policy, which was a part of the anti-Trump campaign, made that much worse). It wasn’t enough to keep him out this time, and it’s nowhere near enough to effectively oppose him now. And they also gave him a motive to be ruthless in going after both their agenda and their institutions.

Oft evil will shall evil mar. It’s funny how that works. I’ve been depressed about the state of things in the past, but miracles keep happening, as this guy notes:

It seems that God really does watch over fools, drunkards, and the United States of America. Thank God.

But, you know, the Lord also helps those who help themselves. There’ll be plenty of work for all of us in the coming years. Be grateful to be in a position to make a difference, and do it.

“There is no comparison whatever between an armed and disarmed man; it is not reasonable to suppose that one who is armed will obey willingly one who is unarmed; or that any unarmed man will remain safe.”
—Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

 

Investigation into Fatal Shooting at 1570 South Dairy Ashford Road

January 21, 2025 – The fatal shooting of a robbery suspect at 1570 South Dairy Ashford Road about 5:10 a.m. on Monday (Jan. 20) will be referred to a Harris County grand jury.

The identity of the male suspect, 16, is pending verification by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.

HPD Homicide Division Sergeants M. Burrow and R. Watson reported:

Officers responded to a shooting call at the business at the above address and observed a male with apparent gunshot wounds. Paramedics pronounced him deceased at the scene.

Evidence indicates the male and another male attempted to commit an armed robbery of the business, which resulted in a shootout with employees. One male was shot and the other fled on foot. None of the employees was injured.