[TTP: there is, perhaps, much in this article to both like and dislike, and enough grey area to have a great conversation. Tell us what you think in the comments!]

The United States literally began with these words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

(What that actually means, particularly the pursuit of Happiness part, is different for different people. At a minimum, however, we can all agree that Life means, well...life.)

The above quotation, of course, comes from the Declaration of Independence. But that document doesn’t define the structure of our government; the Constitution does.

And it’s from the Constitution that we get our federal system, under which (originally) the federal government had a few well-defined and finite powers such as defense, foreign relations, and adjudicating conflicts between the various states.

States, on the other hand, reserved all those powers not specifically prohibited to them or delegated to the federal government.

The truth is that the system worked very well for a long time. About 150 years.

But starting in the 1910s, with the passage of the 16th and 17th amendments, the line between the states and the federal government started to blur; in the 1930s, it began to fray; and by the 1990s, it was basically gone, which is the situation we find ourselves with today…

You know one place where federal control largely doesn’t extend?

The criminal justice system.

In a region that has been in conflict for time immemorial, a people have carved out a home for themselves.

The Kurds are a stateless ethnic group that spans across several countries, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

In Iraq specifically, not only have the Kurds managed to create an autonomous zone that they fiercely defend from all comers, but they are considering aligning with the U.S. to fight against Iran’s jihadist regime.

There is a saying amongst the Kurds: they have “no friends but the mountains.” This ethnic group has been caught in bloody conflict after bloody conflict.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Kurds were not given any sort of sovereign territory. They were divided amongst the nations and left to preserve their way of life and culture in hostile lands. Every time they tried to declare independence, stronger powers shut them down.

The late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei even declared jihad against Kurdish insurgents demanding independence.

One thing the Kurds are good at is warfare. Their fighting force, the peshmerga, has become formidable due to its knowledge of the terrain, its bravery, and its toughness.

The Kurds have long sided with the U.S. in various conflicts.

Last week, the United States and Israel attacked Iran. They achieved an enormous tactical victory at the outset. Now, Republicans need to win the rhetorical war at home.

As any good attorney will tell you, he who frames the argument likely wins the argument.

To date, despite 86 percent support among Trump 2024 voters and 98 percent support among self-identified MAGA, Republicans have not succeeded in framing the argument to the rest of the country, which is currently divided 50-50.

Here are the two arguments they must make.

[TTP:  The Shield of the Americas summit was notable in many ways, but there was a small side story that was particularly sweet. Here’s your feel-good story of the week.]

On Saturday,Donald Trump and Marco Rubio hosted the Shield of the Americas summitin Doral, Fla.

In case you missed it, it was the meeting of several members of the Trump administration with 12 right-leaning heads of state from countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and it was focused on security, particularly combatting the cartel crime that plagues our nations, as well as the other issues we all face and how we can work together to solve them.

If you've been reading my articles in recent days — and even in the weeks leading up to the event — you know I've been geeking out over it a little bit. I absolutely loved this idea and am only sorry we didn't do it sooner. I think it's a historic move that will literally change the world if successful.

But there was a much smaller story that came from it...

Americans would be wise to begin paying very close attention to a small rugged island in the northern Persian Gulf that few could locate on a map only weeks ago.

That island is Kharg Island (it’s sometimes spelled Khark Island.)

It is nothing less than the main distribution center for Islamic Republic of Iran’s oil.

At a moment when the United States and its allies are confronting the Islamic Republic during the ongoing military confrontation known as Operation Epic Fury, Kharg Island stands as one of the most consequential strategic locations in the entire Middle East.

If Iran’s regime derives financial oxygen from oil exports, then Kharg Island is the lung through which that oxygen flows.

I joined the Marine Corps because Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. I was young, but not confused.

A dictator had crossed a border with tanks, absorbed a weaker neighbor, and dared the world to respond.

President George H. W. Bush did respond. He assembled a coalition, liberated Kuwait, and then stopped.

At the time, I felt frustration. If Saddam was the problem, why leave him in power? Why halt the advance when the job seemed half done?

I believed, as many did, that the first Gulf War should have ended with regime change in Baghdad.

That early conviction shaped my support for later wars. When we went into Afghanistan and then Iraq, I did not recoil. I thought we were finishing unfinished business. I thought we could remove tyrants and midwife stable democracies. I thought American power, applied with moral clarity, could reshape broken regimes.

But the decades that followed chastened that confidence.

We discovered that removing a regime is easier than replacing it. We discovered that democracy building is not an export commodity. We discovered that intelligence agencies and development bureaucracies cannot engineer legitimacy from abroad.

Endless deployments and open-ended missions taught many of us a difficult lesson. The U.S. should not be in the business of remaking other nations in its own image. We are not good at it, and it does not work.

But….

It can't possibly have been this easy. Right?

After the death of Ali Khamenei, the Iranian regime appointed an interim ayatollah to take temporary charge of the nation.

That may not have lasted long; reports that Alireza Arafi was killed shortly after his appointment have circulated, although they have not been confirmed yet.

Regardless, the constitution of the Islamic Republic requires the 88 mullahs on the "Assembly of Experts" to appoint Khamenei's permanent successor in a vote, which would normally take place in their Qom headquarters.

About that ...

The puzzle pieces are falling into place faster than the Deep State ever imagined. The case against the Clintons as a crime family, which I laid out in 2019 when I discussed their Deep State RICO conspiracy, has just been validated by fresh evidence.

John Solomon nails it with the “Clinton Corruption Files.” Irrefutable documents that Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel sent to Congress in late 2025 confirm a “massive bribery operation” through the Clinton Foundation—specifically, foreign interest donations in exchange for State Department favors during Hillary’s tenure as Secretary.

Three FBI offices (New York, Washington, Little Rock) independently flagged pay-to-play, but Obama-era leadership obstructed the probes. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates (Obama’s No. 2 at DOJ) issued the kill order: “Shut it down.”

Whistleblowers reported buried evidence and blocked grand juries, while Russiagate was fast-tracked as the smokescreen.

This video sums up much of the new evidence…