.@POTUS addresses Israel's Knesset: "After two harrowing years in darkness and captivity, 20 courageous hostages are returning to the glorious embrace of their families... And after so many years of unceasing war and endless danger, today, the skies are calm, the guns are silent,… pic.twitter.com/yLfmDIgzVJ

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 13, 2025

President Trump addresses Israel’s Knesset, October 13, 2025

What did Donald Trump do differently to obtain at least temporary calm in the Middle East compared to the failed efforts of past administrations, foreign powers, and the United Nations? Let us count ten different approaches.

1. Trump curtailed a considerable amount of Iranian oil income and its dispersal. He stopped, for the near future, the Iranian effort to build a bomb. Trump also allowed Israel to destroy Tehran’s air defenses, humiliate it militarily, and eliminate many of its top military officers and nuclear physicists. Thus, Israel’s half-century-long worries about Iranian nukes were addressed. At the same time, its stature as a military power soared to an all-time high—even if it became more isolated politically. Israel became more confident but also more sensitive to past, current, and future American military and political support—or pressure.
2. Trump allowed Netanyahu to destroy Hamas, cripple Hezbollah, and retaliate at will against the Houthis. That liberation led to general dejection among Israel’s enemies and a resurgence in Netanyahu’s own political fortunes. And that rise of Israel and the collapse of the Iranian terrorist network—the “ring of fire”— explain the greater chances for a ceasefire and possibly a peace. Trump allowed no daylight between Israel and the U.S., which, under the Biden administration, may have sent the wrong signals to Hamas prior to October 7.

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[TTP Warning: snark]

Another Thanksgiving is upon us and, with it, another round of performative art from the left in the form of howls and shrieks about “stolen land” and “celebrating genocide.”

Being conservatives, most of us simply don’t have the time to repeatedly engage in unproductive debate with these leftists, seeing as we have jobs to perform, kids to raise, spouses to love, and homes to maintain, the responsibilities of which consume hours too precious to waste trying to reason with a brick wall with no ears and a loud mouth.

However, since being graciously hired by PJ Media, I’ve amassed a loyal following of readers whose numbers are approaching double digits, and hence I feel driven by ego and greed to keep that rolling snowball amassing weight.

So for the umpteenth time to the cheap seats on the left: Conquered land is not stolen land.

And even if it were, there isn’t an inch of inhabited land on this planet that wasn’t “stolen” from someone else at one time or another.

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Having just commemorated two years since Oct. 7, 2023, we’re now approaching another grim anniversary—Feb. 24, four years since Russia invaded Ukraine.

President Trump deserves credit for recognizing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was vulnerable after having overreached by bombing Qatar. The president leveraged Bibi’s weakness to force a cease-fire.

Russia is in a similarly vulnerable position after the failure of its third offensive against Ukraine, yet Mr. Trump has failed to exploit this weakness. This raises the question: When is  Mr. Trump  to take advantage of Vladimir Putin’s helplessness?

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Last week a radio host in Salt Lake City asked me a question I didn’t expect.

We’d been talking about my “Jobs Americans won’t do” article, which kind of kicked the anthill, and everything stayed within the usual lanes: illegal immigration, wages, hiring incentives, hollowed-out towns. Then, at the very end, he asked the only question that really matters:

“So how do we fix it?”

Not describe it or rant about it. Fix it.

My answer, essentially, was, "It's complicated." There isn’t a bumper-sticker answer.

And there certainly isn’t a partisan one. The problem goes much deeper than illegal immigration, though illegal immigration made it far worse.

The truth is brutal: We didn’t just lose workers. We lost a generation of training.

Kids stopped working. Old pros retired with no apprentices. And the entire ladder of skill transfer, the thing that turns kids into competent working adults, collapsed.

Even if every illegal worker disappeared tomorrow, the skills wouldn’t magically reappear. You can’t fill a gap with people who were never trained to climb into it.

This is where the conversation really begins.

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Democrats in South face wipeout if Supreme Court guts Voting Rights Act — NYT pic.twitter.com/goHof93AS3

— NewsWire (@NewsWire_US) October 15, 2025

This graphic is from the New York Times story yesterday (10/15): A Supreme Court Case Could Hand The House to Republicans.

The Supreme Court is considering whether to gut a key provision in the Voting Rights Act. Democrats are nervous because, if the Court strikes it down, coupled with Republican governors redrawing maps ahead of the 2026 midterms, they could be wiped out in the South.

Of course, the Times tries to lessen the impact, adding that the full effect of the upcoming ruling, should it go against liberals, might not be fully felt until after 2026, but it’s still going to be a sledgehammer to the face.  The provision centers on whether race should be considered when drawing legislative districts.

From the NYT story:

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio told US senators Saturday (11/22) that the sweeping peace plan to end the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine was not America’s — but merely a “leaked” Russian “wish list.”

Rubio told a bipartisan delegation at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada Saturday  that the 28-point blueprint supposedly crafted to end the war is actually a Russian proposal, not a US initiative, according to South Dakota GOP Sen. Mike Rounds.

“He made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” Rounds said, Politico reported. “It is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan. It is a proposal that was received, and as an intermediary, we have made arrangements to share it — and we did not release it. It was leaked.”

Rounds, however, said the Trump administration wants to “utilize it as a starting point,” adding that the plan “looked more like it was written in Russian to begin with,” the Associated Press reported.

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Barack Obama really should follow the lead of old-time presidents and, instead of seeking the limelight, opt for a rocking chair on his front porch. In that way, he could spare himself the embarrassment of saying really stupid things.

During a podcast with Marc Maron, Obama made a comment about using the National Guard that was meant to attack Trump, but merely made Obama look ignorant and partisan.

Before even getting to the substance of what Obama said, what’s notable about the interview is how Obama looks. He’s wound up as tightly as an angry suburban leftist woman explaining to her psychiatrist why her husband was completely wrong in the recent fight they had. His legs are crossed, his arms are crossed, and his shoulders are hunched over. He looks lost in the comfy white armchair in which he sits.

Looking at this effete, defensive little man, it’s almost incomprehensible that he was the leader of the free world for eight years.

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Advances in technology have often been sudden and unexpected.  Their speed and acceleration are exemplified by the fact that in one lifetime, people born before airplanes were invented saw, on television, men landing on the moon with 1960s technology.  Unpredicted was the invention and wide use of desktop computers, which not even the writers of science fiction had foreseen.

I have a memory of watching a television show as a child, hearing my parents remark that I had no idea of what life had been like before there were any televisions to watch.  I do remember a time before microwave ovens and pocket transistor radios.

As I was playing with my grandchildren, watching them use gadgets that did not exist when I was their age, it occurred to me that they had been born into an era where technology was influencing their lives, their attitudes, and their expectations in ways that we might scarcely imagine.

What’s next for them?

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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is 86 years old and in ill health. Western intelligence believes he had prostate cancer in 2014 and, most recently, a severe bowel obstruction in 2022. In public, he has appeared to be weak and tired at times. Health rumors were flying after Khamenei didn't appear in public in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. attacks on Iran in June.

It doesn't take much to get tongues wagging in Iran about the mental and physical state of their Supreme Leader.

Regardless of when he dies, sooner or later, the shape of a post-Khamenei Iran is of intense interest to the U.S. and the world.

The last two years have seen the breaking of Ayatollah Khamenei's power and the weakening of the regime he leads. The events that have transpired during the Gaza War will have an enormous bearing on what Iran will look like after Khamenei dies.

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