In 2017 it took almost three months for the White House to release an official portrait of the new First Lady who in a significant break from tradition had yet to move permanently into the executive mansion.

Fast forward eight years and this time things, like so much else in Trump 2.0, look very different.  A bold, confident, disciplined and always sharply tailored boss was the Melania that the public got today and, up until now, was a woman that only those who worked closest with her were allowed to see.

Melania’s lightning-fast pictorial statement - in bold black and white (another barrier breaking feature of the image) - makes clear that she too realizes that not only is there no time to waste in declaring herself part of a presidential triumvirate.

She is picture three in the line-up after her husband and his vice-president on the White House homepage.

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As someone who conducts focus groups for a living, I was hardly surprised by the poll this week that showed that so many British voters back Donald Trump’s agenda on issues such as migration and free speech.

That’s partly because of the state of public disaffection when it comes to successive governments’ handling of those issues in Britain.

But my lack of surprise was down to something else too. It has become clear from the work I do that many British voters admire Trump’s approach – on policy but, more importantly, on what amounts to his sheer determination.

“I don’t see why we’re all so [bothered] about making other people happy, but not ourselves as a country. Trump gets that,” a middle-aged man, a former Conservative voter, told me in Dudley last week. Another, a retired woman in Bury, said: “He’s done 100 things in one day and Starmer still hasn’t done anything. We need a Trump.”

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Many Trump supporters believe that Trump won the 2024 election because, this time, the vote for Trump was “too big to rig.”

Others dismiss the concern about “stolen elections” because Trump won the popular vote in addition to the electoral vote, plus a GOP majority in the U.S. House and Senate.

The reality is that elections are still corruptible. While Democrats didn’t rig the presidential race this time around, the narrow congressional majority means that down-ballot races were still manipulated...something Democrats can and will do again.

However, the primary reason the Democrats allowed the swing states to conclude counting votes on election night was that the Democrats decided not to steal the 2024 presidential election to punish Biden and Kamala Harris for breaking ranks.

At the “Deep Party” Central Committee level of the Democrat party—at the level of Barack Obama, Klaus Schwab, and George Soros—the order went out that Harris needed to lose.  Here’s why...

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“Vice President Vance, Speaker Johnson, Senator Thune, Chief Justice Roberts, justices of the United States Supreme Court, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, President Biden, Vice President Harris and my fellow citizens:

The golden age of America begins right now.

From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation. And we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer.

During every single day of the Trump administration, I will, very simply, put America first. Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end.

And our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud and prosperous and free.

America will soon be greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before. I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success. A tide of change is sweeping the country. Sunlight is pouring over the entire world, and America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before.

But first, we must be honest about the challenges we face. While they are plentiful, they will be annihilated by this great momentum that the world is now witnessing and the United States of America.

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Donald Trump is once again President – and his second administration promises to be more Trumpian than ever.

Sworn in just after noon yesterday (1/20) – both the inauguration ceremony and his stick-swinging inauguration speech shielded from the cold inside the Capitol Building – he is essentially picking up where he left off. This time, however, Trump & Co have far more experience of how to navigate Washington’s corridors of power. They’re already showing it.

The past few weeks have seen Trump’s transition team prove its deftness in everything from foreign policy – that Gaza ceasefire – to a domestic agenda rife with executive orders promising to dismantle the vast DEI and identity politics network that former president Joe Biden and the Democrats had assembled with such alacrity.

And as Trump’s second inauguration speech made clear, he is only just getting started.

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Back at the Resolute Desk, the President signs Executive Orders

[This essay is stunningly remarkable as it is written by the founding editor and global editor-in-chief of one of the most Woke Anti-Trump media outlets in Washington, POLITICO.  It was published on politico.com yesterday (1/21) under his own name.  He is neither groveling nor abusive. His is an honest recognition of reality.  It is stunning nonetheless. –JW]

Donald J. Trump in his second inaugural address was everything his supporters hoped he would be:

In one light, it was all quite familiar. But the second occasion of Trump taking the oath of office also put him in an entirely new light.

For the first time, he is holding power under circumstances in which reasonable people cannot deny a basic fact: He is the greatest American figure of his era.

Great in this context is not about a subjective debate over whether he is a singularly righteous leader or a singularly menacing one. It is now simply an objective description about the dimensions of his record.

In other words, he is now a force of history.

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Democrats are in freefall.

As of Monday January 20, Donald J. Trump is officially the 47th president of the United States. He starts his second term in the Oval Office with a bang – rolling out dozens of executive orders fulfilling promises made to American voters -- and more popular than he has ever been.

Democrats have no idea how to respond. Their party is currently earning its lowest approval ratings ever, for good reason. It is guilty of perpetrating the greatest political scandal of our lifetimes  -- pretending President Joe Biden was OK to run for another four years.

Their efforts to brand Donald Trump a threat to Democracy were a bust and their leadership is in disarray. They deserve every minute they serve in political purgatory.

A former communications director for Kamala Harris says Democrats "have got to burn down our image." He’s right.  But then what?

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