BLUF
If Donald Trump and the mostly useless GOP Congress really want to actually make America great again, starting in 2026 they will turn their metaphorical guns and scalpels on the government itself and begin to bring back the primary idea that made America great in the first place:  Limited government. Without that, everything else is little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and the outcome will be the same.

The Very Revolutionary United States Constitution
The American revolution was a revolution, but it wasn’t revolutionary; what was revolutionary was the United States Constitution.

During college one of my professors in Political Philosophy said that the only real revolutions in modern Western civilization were the French and the Russian.  He was right, but I didn’t quite get it at the time.  I do now.

While the American revolution was ostensibly a revolution, in reality it was more of a divorce where the kids kept the same parents, they just lived with their Mom.  Their Dad was still their Dad, but they didn’t have much to do with him. In contrast, the French and Russian revolutions were basically the children taking their parents out back and shooting them….

The American revolution was a revolution, but it wasn’t revolutionary. But what was revolutionary was the United States Constitution.

For the first time in history, a government was formed by a written constitution that described rights that were inherent from God (as articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the constitution of most of the original 13 states) upon which the government could not impede.  What’s more, the entire thing was created for the specific purpose of limiting the power of government. This was made clear by the Bill of Rights, which—beginning with Massachusetts—became the quid pro quo for getting the Constitution ratified. And in case anyone missed the point, the last of the ten amendments that make up the Bill of Rights states “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

That was every bit as revolutionary as the French sending King Louis XVI to the guillotine or the Bolsheviks shooting Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family in a basement.  But what’s more, unlike those other two revolutions, the American Constitution didn’t result in rivers of blood and a collapse of society.  On the contrary, it set the American experiment on its slow but methodical march to revolutionize the world and unleash the potential of man.

The American experiment worked… for almost 200 years.  Of course it didn’t work perfectly for everyone all the time, nor for some people any of the time, but for the overwhelming majority of people who have lived in the United States over the course of its existence, life has been better here than almost any other place on Earth.

But that experiment is in the process of collapsing. Why?  Simple.  Because the nation that was birthed with a constitution specifically geared toward limiting government power has metastasized into a nation where the government controls virtually everything.

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In keeping Americans ill-educated, ill-informed and constitutionally ignorant, the education establishment has been the politician’s major and most faithful partner. It is in this sense that American education can be deemed a success.
– Walter E. Williams

California ban on open-carry firearms is unconstitutional, appeals panel rules

A federal appellate court ruled Friday that California’s ban on openly carrying a firearm throughout most of the state is unconstitutional.

The decision from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals leaned heavily on the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a New York state law regulating concealed weapons. That ruling worried lawmakers in California at the time – including the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who said the 6-to-3 Supreme Court decision meant “more people will carry guns in bars, in shopping malls, in churches, hospitals, movie theaters, even schools.”

“We are committed to defending California’s commonsense gun laws,” according to a written statement from the office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta in response to Friday’s appellate court ruling. “We are reviewing the opinion and considering all options.”

The 9th Circuit appellate decision stemmed from a civil rights lawsuit filed by Mark Baird of Siskiyou County. Baird argued in Sacramento federal court that he wished to openly carry a firearm for self-defense throughout California, but the state’s ban made it illegal in counties with populations exceeding 200,000 residents.

U.S. Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke, who wrote the appellate panel’s opinion, said the most recent Census shows that California counties with more than 200,000 residents are home to roughly 95% of the state’s population. There are 28 of California’s 58 counties have a population above the threshold, accounting for 37.3 million residents. Only 5% of California’s population for whom open carry is not outright banned, VanDyke said, are purportedly able to apply for a license that would allow them to open carry in just their counties.

VanDyke said openly carrying a gun has been the default manner of lawful carry for firearms for most of American history. When applying the standard set in the 2022 Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, VanDyke said the historical record makes unmistakably plain that open carry is part of this Nation’s history and tradition.”

VanDyke, appointed in 2019 by President Donald Trump, said open carry remains the norm across the country with more than 30 states that generally allow open carry to this day, including states with significant urban populations.

“Similarly, for the first 162 years of its history open carry was a largely unremarkable part of daily life in California,” VanDyke wrote. “From 1850, when California first became a state, until the Mulford Act of 1967, public carry of firearms in California (open or concealed) was entirely unregulated. And when California first deviated (or considered deviating) from this practice, its reasons for doing so were less than morally exemplary.”

U.S. Circuit Judge N. Randy Smith provided a partial dissenting opinion, arguing that California’s ban complied with the 2022 Supreme Court decision. Smith, who was appointed in 2007 by former President George W. Bush, said his colleagues “got this case half right” but misread the Supreme Court’s ruling on the New York state gun law.

VanDyke was joined in his opinion by another Trump appointee, U.S. Circuit Judge Kenneth K. Lee, also appointed by Trump in 2019. VanDyke said California law recognizes two methods to carry a firearm in public: concealed, such as hidden under a shirt and not visible to others, and open carry, such as visible in a holster and exposed to public view.

“Regardless of how a firearm is carried in California – concealed or openly – as a general matter it is unlawful under California law to publicly carry a firearm without a license to do so,” VanDyke wrote. “The reality is that no one in California can open carry – with or without a permit – in the counties where 95% of Californians live. Nor can the 95% of Californians who live in those urban counties get any open-carry permit at all, even to carry openly in one of California’s rural counties.”

For now, the ban remains in place and the case was remanded to Sacramento federal court with instructions to rule in favor of Baird on the open-carry ban. Bonta and his office have the option to request an en banc review from the full 9th Circuit.

Man Fought off a Mountain Lion Weeks Before a Suspected Fatal Colorado Attack
A suspected deadly mountain lion attack on New Year’s Day that killed a woman hiking alone was preceded by another harrowing encounter in the same area

A solo hiker who authorities believe was killed by a mountain lion on a remote Colorado trail on New Year’s Day was not the first person to encounter one of the predators in the area in recent weeks.

Gary Messina said he was running along the same trail on a dark November morning when his headlamp caught the gleam of two eyes in the nearby brush. Messina used his phone to snap a quick photo before a mountain lion rushed him.

Messina said he threw the phone at the animal, kicked dirt and yelled as the lion kept trying to circle behind him. After a couple of harrowing minutes he broke a bat-sized stick off a downed log, hit the lion in the head with it and it ran off, he said.

The woman whose body was found Thursday on the same Crosier Mountain trail had “wounds consistent with a mountain lion attack,” said Kara Van Hoose with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. An autopsy is scheduled for next week, said Rafael Moreno with the Larimer County Coroner’s Office.

Prior warnings and the hunt for a culprit

Wildlife officials late Thursday tracked down and killed two mountain lions in the area — one at the scene and another nearby. A necropsy will help determine if either or both of those animals attacked the woman and whether they had neurological diseases such as rabies or avian flu.

A search for a third mountain lion reported in the area was ongoing Friday, Van Hoose said. Nearby trails remained closed while the hunt continued. Van Hoose said circumstances would dictate whether that lion is also killed.

Based on the aggressiveness of the animal that attacked him on Nov. 11, Messina suspects it could be the same one that killed the woman on New Year’s Day.

“I had to fight it off because it was basically trying to maul me,” Messina told The Associated Press. “I was scared for my life and I wasn’t able to escape. I tried backing up and it would try to lunge at me.”

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“The individual is nothing; the collective is everything.”
– Stalin

“The interests of the individual must be subordinated to the interests of the collective.”
– Mao

“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
– Mussolini

“We’ll replace rugged individualism with collectivism.”
– Mamdani

Don’t be afraid to call out objective evil when you hear it.
– Tommy Robinson

For Such a Time As This in Iran

The words of Esther 4:14 have never been more relevant. “And who knows if you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”

The words were first spoken in Persia, by Mordechai to Queen Esther, imploring her to intervene with her husband, the King, to reverse the death decree against the Jewish people, not just in Persia but throughout more than 100 provinces under its empire.

In recent years, the verse has become widely used to motivate others to take action, to follow the path of Esther who risked her life to do so, and specifically among Christians to stand with Israel and the Jewish people. For such a time as this. But today the words have never been more important, not just for these important reasons but because they speak to modern Iran and Iranians, Persia, from a Jewish leader in ancient Persia.

“For such a time as this” is a call to action being echoed in different words across Iran today. Massive, even unprecedented protests have ignited tens of thousands of Iranians against the evil Islamic regime that hijacked Iran in 1979. Iranians know this may be the best opportunity since then to unshackle themselves,

Listen to their modern words echoing Mordechai’s charge to Esther in what the protesters are chanting.

My friend Marziyeh Amirizadeh has updated me and the world on developments as they occur. She was born in Iran, where she experienced the evil misogyny of the Islamic regime firsthand. She was arrested and sentenced to death in 2009 because she converted to Christianity and refused to renounce her faith. She’s shared videos of Iranians chanting slogans calling for the restoration of the Pahlavi dynasty and the return of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.

“This is the final battle, Pahlavi will return.” “Reza Shah: May God bless your soul.” “O the king of Iran, please return to Iran.”

Parallel to chants of “Long live the Shah” Iranians have been chanting, “Death to (the) dictator” and “As long as the mullahs (Ayatollahs) are not buried, Iran is not (our) homeland.”

She has also shared that university students in Iran have joined the protests. This is significant because the Islamic revolution that brought the ayatollahs into power was largely led by students. This can be a corrective remedy, bringing down the Islamic regime that young people were fooled by two generations ago. Their chants are not just against the regime, but exposing three pillars of evil that prop up the regime. “Death to three corrupted groups, Mullahs (Ayatollahs), leftists (Reformists), Mojahed (MEK).”

In addition to calling for Pahlavi to return, protesters have addressed the corruptive global influence of the Islamic regime funding a wide-reaching terror network. “No Gaza, No Lebanon, my life for Iran.”

The latter is not just a charge to Iranians but also to the world. Of course, Israel has suffered the most from Iranian funding Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, but the regime’s tentacles spread much wider. It’s time for the world to stand up, once and for all, to bring down the Islamic regime, eviscerate one of the main sources of Islamic extremism, and bring us closer to the realization of President Trump’s resolution for 2026, “World peace.”

There is nothing more significant that can be done toward world peace than eliminating the global threats to peace posed by the Iranian regime. The future of the West and the entire world is at stake.

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Investigating Fraud Is Now ‘Harassment,’ According to Democrat Prosecutors

Yesterday, Townhall reported that Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown seemed to threaten independent journalists do engage in what we’ll call “shoe leather journalism” — actually going out and investigating stories rather than being mouthpieces for the DNC.

Brown’s threat came because Cam Higby, another independent journalist, spent time investigating Somali daycares in Washington. Higby found that one such daycare, Dhagash Childcare, had received nearly a quarter of a million dollars from the state in 2025. In a video, Higby went to the listed address for Dhagash Family Childcare. There, they found covered windows and were denied entry by someone via the a Ring doorbell camera.In a post on X, AG Brown said, “My office has received outreach from members of the Somali community after reports of home-based daycare providers being harassed and accused of fraud with little to no fact-checking. We are in touch with the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families regarding the claims being pushed online and the harassment reported by daycare providers. Showing up on someone’s porch, threatening, or harassing them isn’t an investigation. Neither is filming minors who may be in the home. This is unsafe and potentially dangerous behavior.”

This writer wondered if AGs like Brown would seek to press charges against journalists like Higby and Shirley, because it sure seems like they’re gearing up to do just that.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, a die-hard Leftist, is calling the fraud investigations “right-wing propaganda” and vowing prosecutions.

In a statement, Moriarty’s office wrote (emphasis added), “Our office is receiving a large number of reports of members of the Somali community being sent hateful, threatening, and disturbing messages. This is the predictable — and absolutely unacceptable — result of far-right propagandists demonizing an entire group of people for the actions of individuals who share their ethnicity. If you receive these sorts of messages or threats or you know someone who has, please make a report to local law enforcement. When reports are made and cases submitted, our review for prosecution can begin. We are always ready to support our community and do everything in our power to keep each other safe.”

It also links to a hotline for CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is telling.

The blowback to Moriarty’s statement was swift.

“Mary Moriarty knows that if the fraud ends then Democrat politicians will no longer get their cut of this fraud in the form of campaign donations and kickbacks. Moriarty is making the critical mistake of underestimating the intelligence of the American people. We see it all,” wrote Paul Szypula.

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A state that never allowed slavery, wants to make residents who never owned slaves, pay reparations to people who never were slaves.

San Fran mayor signs bill that could give black residents $5M each — but admits city is too broke to pay.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie quietly signed a questionable bill to create a reparations fund for black residents — but acknowledged the city is too broke to pay, sparking a swift backlash from critics who call the plan blatantly illegal.

The bill, which was passed unanimously by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors earlier this month, creates a fund to accept private or public money for a controversial reparations plan that calls for cash payouts of $5 million each to eligible black residents, debt forgiveness, 250 years of tax abatements, and income subsidies.

“We are not allocating money to this fund — with a historic $1 billion budget deficit, we are going to spend our money on making the city safer and cleaner,” said Lurie in a statement.

Still, critics have called the reparations plan unlawful “virtue signaling” even if private dollars are used.

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Man dead after alleged home invasion; police probe self-defense claim

SAN ANTONIO, Tx —

One man is dead and another is being questioned on the Northeast Side. Around 6 p.m. SAPD was called to the 12200 block of Ridge Crown Street. When they arrived, they found one man believed to be in his 30’s deceased inside of the home with a gunshot wound.

While SAPD is still investigating, witnesses say the homeowner who is the accused shooter was defending himself.

One man says he saw the homeowner walking to a nearby store, and the man who was killed yelled at him asking what he was looking at. They argued, and witnesses say they saw the man follow the homeowner home and force himself into the home.

A coworker and neighbor of the homeowner says the homeowner is a good man.

“Anything that occurs inside someone’s residence is a bad circumstance on the victims part for bringing himself over there. It’s 2026 I’m surprised something happened like this, this fast. It is a sad situation.”

Police are not releasing the name of the homeowner, or the man that was killed. They have not yet determined if the homeowner will face any charges.

U.S. Postal Service (USPS) quietly changed its postmark rule effective December 24, 2025, clarifying that a machine postmark shows the date of the “first automated processing,” not necessarily when you dropped the mail off, which can be days later, impacting deadlines for taxes, ballots, and legal documents.

To ensure your mail is postmarked the actual date of deposit, you must request a free, manual hand-stamped postmark at a USPS counter or use Certified/Registered Mail, as machine stamps may be delayed due to network consolidation.

What changed?
Old understanding: A postmark reflected when you dropped mail in a box or at the counter.
New rule: The date on a machine postmark is when it first enters the automated sorting system at a regional facility, which could be days after you deposited it.

Why does it matter?
Deadlines: Federal and state laws often rely on the postmark date for timely filing of taxes, votes, and legal papers, potentially leading to late penalties.
Example: A tax payment dropped off on Dec 31 might get postmarked Jan 2, making it late for the Dec 31 deadline.

How to ensure an on-time postmark:
Go inside: Visit a USPS retail counter and ask the clerk for a manual (hand-stamped) postmark for free.
Use secure services: Send items via Certified Mail or Registered Mail for dated proof of mailing.
Mail early: Send time-sensitive items well before the deadline to allow for processing delays.

UBI For Me But Not For Thee? When a nation is colonized from the inside out.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds

The explosive unveiling of the wildly extensive Somali-run daycare scams in Minnesota has drawn attention to a huge shadow economy, and not just in Minnesota. America, it turns out, is full of people, companies, and organizations that basically live off of fraud. We’re not talking old-fashioned waste, like $600 hammers or $1200 toilet seats. We’re talking about entities whose sole reason for existence consists of being a conduit for taxpayer money to flow directly to the people controlling them, with some of the proceeds being diverted to politicians and political organizations.

People are noticing.

This reverses an old joke told by my Nigerian relatives. A Nigerian visits his rich relative in the United States and is awed by the penthouse apartment, the limo, the private jet and so forth. “How did you make so much money?” he asks. The relative points out the window. “See that bridge? 15%. See that shopping mall? 15%. See that train station? 15%.”

The visitor, inspired, returns home to Nigeria and becomes fabulously wealthy. His rich cousin from America visits and says “How did you make so much money so fast?”

“You see that bridge over there?”

“Nope,” responds the confused relative. The Nigerian cousin points at himself and says “One hundred percent!”

Well, this joke has now been turned around. Leaving aside that we don’t really even build train stations, bridges, or even shopping malls in this country anymore, now it’s America where people are pocketing one hundred percent and not even trying to actually deliver any goods or services. That the people doing this are mostly Africans only adds to the irony.

But what happened?

Well, several things. At base, people defraud the government for the same reason that dogs lick themselves — because they can. One of the things you find in these programs is that there are virtually no controls to ensure that the recipients of the money are legitimate, that the money is spent as promised — in essence, that the bridges get built. (Or, in the case of California, the high speed rail lines.) That lack of controls, of course, is no accident. The systems are designed to promote fraud and to make it hard to catch or punish.

Second, the culture is weaker. In a high trust society, people get angry when there is fraud and move to punish and ostracize the perpetrators. In a low-trust society, people expect it.

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