Lifeline

You all remember that POTUS Trump signed an Executive Order which offered asylum to those South African farmers under threat of property confiscation (and worse) at the hands of the terrorist organization ANC.  Here’s a reminder, and then an interesting response from a representative of said farmers:

In your order, you made special provisions for Afrikaners to be given opportunities in the United States. We sincerely appreciate this, as many farmers in South Africa face dire circumstances—threats of land expropriation, increasing rural crime, and discriminatory access to financing and other critical resources. For some, the opportunity you have extended may be their only viable path forward.

That said, as a fundamental patriot yourself, you will understand our commitment to stay and fight for our home. Africa is in our blood, and despite the challenges, the vast majority of us have chosen to struggle within the ambit of our constitution.

We are also grateful for the programs that have allowed over 100,000 young South Africans to work on American farms, gaining valuable skills, exposure to advanced agricultural technologies, and a financial foundation to launch their own careers in the agricultural value chains back home.

Please do not close that door. These opportunities inspire and equip our young people and are not available for them in South Africa. It give them a launching pad for their livelihoods when they return from the USA. We are not asking for any young South Africans to be excluded – for us it is enough to be included on merit.

And then he goes on to describe the problem, in detail.  It’s worth a read, I promise you.

I invite you to imagine how this letter would have been received by a Democrat administration of the Obama/Biden sort.

Change Of Direction

I had a piece planned for yesterday, and ran into some thought issues which required redoing — hence its non-appearance yesterday — and it was replaced with Jan Sterling, which isn’t a bad compromise, all things considered.

It would have been, I think, an interesting piece.  I was going to write about music, and lyrics, and playing around with them and not only interpreting them, but changing them into another format, writing music notation, changing orchestral pieces into something which could be played by a rock band, for instance, or a single pianist.  It’s something I do often, in my head.  New Wife sometimes says something to me and is annoyed when I make no sign that I’ve heard her.  And when I tell her I’ve been concentrating on something and she asks what, I reply that I’d been writing out the bass guitar part for, I dunno, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody On A Theme By Paganini perhaps, or imagining how a single keyboardist could play an entire Beethoven symphony using just two or three keyboards (piano, and couple of advanced synthesizers like those made by Nord or Roland, for example).

Then (via Insty) I read Override, and all my thoughts on music disappeared.  The report had such a profound effect on me that I’ve since read it perhaps eight times (and counting), and I’ve sent the link on to a dozen friends all over the world, saying in effect, “If you want to know what’s REALLY happening here in the U.S., this is it.”

What astonishes and amazes me is the amount of preparation and planning that went into this activity, and the fact that it remained a secret for who knows how long — a year, several years, whatever — without an inkling or a leak anywhere.  The proof is that when those four kids with laptops hit the Treasury system, nobody saw it coming;  and I don’t think anyone, even its architects, had any idea of the outcome.

What astonishes me even more is that all those hundreds of Executive Orders signed by Trump in the past couple of weeks were, while consequential, more of a deception, a maskirovka  designed to keep the Left distracted while the real business was going on in the basements of federal buildings all over D.C.

It takes a lot to knock me over and flabbergast me, but consider me knocked over and flabbergasted.  And I have only one thing to say:

For the first time in many years, I can truthfully say that it’s a wonderful time to be alive here in America.

Let’s just hope we can keep it going, and change this country back into something more like what our Founding Fathers intended.

Oh, and speaking about the Founders and original principles, as if all the above were not enough, here’s another EO from POTUS:

President Donald Trump issued an executive order Friday “to assess any ongoing infringements” of the right to keep and bear arms.

The order also makes clear President Trump wants an assessment of the following, among other things:

The positions taken by the United States in any and all ongoing and potential litigation that affects or could affect the ability of Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights; Agencies’ classifications of firearms and ammunition; and The processing of applications to make, manufacture, transfer, or export firearms.

And “assessment” is one thing;  action is another.  But wait! There’s MOAR!

Within 30 days, Attorney General Pam Bondi is to “present a proposed plan of action to the President, through the Domestic Policy Advisor, to protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.”  Thereafter AG Bondi is to finalize and implement the plan.

30 days?  I think I need one of these:

…and a series of these:

Or maybe all this political turmoil and castigation of the Left is best enjoyed stone-cold sober, while I dance up and down like Flounder when the parade was ruined.

Your thoughts in Comments.

Boo-Yah

Amidst all the excellent news items I’ve read (so far) this week — fedgov departments closed, useless people fired, lawbreakers under investigation etc. — I think this one gave me the greatest pleasure:

The U.S. Army recently announced it shattered previous recruiting records, with December 2024 being the most productive December in 15 years.

The branch reported it enlisted nearly 350 soldiers every day that month, Army officials announced Tuesday on social media.

In January 2025, the Army hit its best recruiting number in 15 YEARS.

Putting that into perspective:

During the last fiscal year (2024), the Army missed its recruiting goal by 15,000 active-duty soldiers. That makes 25% of its target. This shortfall forced the Army to cut its planned active-duty end strength from 476,000 to 466,000. Army officials project that active end strength could shrink by as much as 20,000 soldiers by September, down to 445,000.

It just shows you that under the right leadership, Americans want to serve their country.

Consorting With The Devil

I’ve written before that it should be no surprise that South Africa’s ANC government is always going to align itself with evil countries and terrorist organizations, because the ANC itself is at heart a terrorist organization and always has been (especially when its leader, the sainted Nelson Mandela, was in prison for terrorist activities).

So the news about the ANC government legalizing property seizure (from Whites, duh) is very definitely par for the course.

However, in this case, the ANC has discovered (probably to their complete shock and surprise) that such evil actions may have consequences that may not be to their liking or advantage:

President Donald Trump announced Sunday that he is suspending all U.S. aid to South Africa after the latter passed a law on land expropriation, which many fear could lead to Zimbabwe-style seizures of land owned by white citizens.

…to which our only response should be:

More like this please, Yer Trumpness.

Righting Wrongs, So To Speak

The hits just keep on coming:

President Trump will sign an executive order to reinstate thousands of troops kicked out of the military by Joe Biden for refusing the Covid vaccine.

Trump vowed to reinstate the troops “unjustly expelled from our military for objecting to the Covid vaccine mandate” during his inauguration speech last week.

Approximately 8,000 troops were discharged because of Biden’s Covid vaccine mandate. Some troops sued over the mandate and faced backlash.

The troops will be reinstated with full back pay and benefits.

Welcome back, boys and girls.

The 80:20 Beginning

Many conservatives have queried the pace of illegal immigrant deportation recently, saying that the few hundred or so deportations made so far are not going to make a dent in the massive illegal immigrant population.

That’s true, but we need to be mindful of the “80:20” approximate rule of thumb:  that 20% of the population, in any given activity, account for 80% of that activity.  (We all know that in the supermarket business, for example, the “top” 20% of a store’s customers — in spending terms — account for about 78% of total sales;  less well-known is that those 20% also generate about 93% of a store’s total gross profit.  They are the people who keep the store’s doors open.)

And it’s pretty much the same with criminal behavior.  When NYfC mayor Rudi Giuliani first went after crime in that benighted city, his “Broken Windows” strategy –arresting petty criminals as fast as they could be arrested — was at first a source of derision.  That derision ceased when it became apparent that crime fell precipitously because those “petty” criminals accounted for a disproportionate percentage of total crime.

And here’s a pointer from the very first round of ICE arrests:

Fox News witnessed ICE Boston make eight arrests, including multiple MS-13, Interpol Red Notices, murder and rape suspects, and a volatile Haitian gang member with 18 convictions in recent years who told our cameras that he “ain’t going back to Haiti” and “f— Trump, Biden forever!”

Note:  just one fucking mope had been convicted eighteen times over a couple of years.  (Exactly why this asshole wasn’t still in jail for Crime #1, #2 or #3 is a topic for another time. #3StrikesRule)  If ever there was a candidate for the Pinochet Example, this would be one.

And I doubt that too many people in his home country would shed a tear at his disappearance either.

In any event, going after the most egregious offenders is not going to affect the total illegal immigrant number — but it sure as hell is going to improve public safety.

And by the way, the article makes it plain that in going after the worst first, there will be “collateral” arrests and deportations as well.  Of course it will;  criminals tend to band together (e.g. MS-13), so by all means toss their asses onto the one-way C-135 flights as well.

More to the point is that foreign criminals are soon going to become aware that the U.S. is not going to be the soft target that it used to be, and they may be deterred from coming here to set up, for example, burglary gangs.

Keep it going, guys.  Gooder and harder, to quote Insty.