It’s hard to believe, but we’re finally here. Four years after all the Sturm und Drang that followed Donald Trump’s 2020 electoral loss to Joe Biden, the maestro of Mar-a-Lago is set to be inaugurated once more on Monday as president of the United States.

And what an absolutely wild ride it has been. In the interim four years, Trump has completed nothing less than the single most remarkable comeback – political or otherwise – in American history.

Trump has been prosecuted – four separate times, by three different prosecutors. He was “convicted” of a “crime” – the precise legal theory of which we actually still do not know – in a quintessential show trial in bright-blue New York City. One would-be assassin nicked his ear, coming within millimeters of murdering him on national television. A second would-be assassin was nearly able to fire a clear shot at him on his own Florida golf course. Two opposition party presidential candidates, working in tandem with an ever-supine propaganda media, tarred and feathered him as a historical threat to the Constitution – as a crypto-Nazi who, if once again given the reins of power, might really burn it all down.

Yet the American people saw right through it all. Trump prevailed – and not exactly in a squeaker either. Trump swept every single swing state, crushing Kamala Harris in the Electoral College tally and becoming the first Republican to win the national popular vote in two decades.

Trump, as many have observed, earned a “mandate” from the American electorate. And now, with his sundry foes all vanquished, Trump is once again set to place his hand on the Bible and take that solemn oath of office. America has been spared four more years of a prolonged Biden/Harris-induced national nightmare. Hallelujah!

But despite all the revelry in the nation’s capital this Monday, it is important to be clear-eyed about the task ahead.

In making history as the first man in over 130 years to earn a second nonconsecutive presidential term, Trump has been given an opportunity not merely to lead the nation he so clearly loves. He has also been given an opportunity – a four-year-long opportunity, as the case may be – to study and learn from what went wrong, or at least didn’t exactly go as planned, the first time around.

So: Has Trump 2.0 learned from Trump 1.0? And will this 47th presidential administration be an improvement over the (already quite good!) 45th presidential administration?

Has Trump learned that he cannot squander the massive political capital that comes with winning a presidential election? Has he learned that, in the aftermath of such a tremendous victory and with a like-minded congressional majority in tow, now is the time to strike with an aggressive, full-throttle legislative agenda? More to the point: Has Trump learned to lead out of the gate on his most important and signature issue, immigration, rather than be sidetracked by such relative distractions as health care or tax cuts (as he was last time)?

Has Trump finally learned to trust his own instincts over the questionable instincts of those who try to flatter him? In the aftermath of the destructive “1619 Riots” of 2020 and historically high crime in major urban corridors such as New York City and Los Angeles, has Trump finally abandoned once and for all the misguided pursuit of “criminal justice reform” – which, last time, took the form of the Kim Kardashian-peddled First Step Act jailbreak law? Will he finally prove to be the pro-“back the blue,” pro-“law and order” stalwart he campaigned as back in 2016?

Has Trump learned the indispensable imperative of having true loyalists in power up and down the entirety of the administrative state? Will he, unlike last time, be willing and able to fire each and every single subversive executive branch bureaucrat – no matter what any flawed regulation or erroneous court precedent says about a purported inability to do so? Will he be able to end the calamitous weaponization of the Department of Justice by any means necessary – and clean out the Augean stables at the fetid Federal Bureau of Investigation?

Has Trump, especially in the aftermath of Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s latest defection that permitted Trump’s criminal “conviction” to proceed, learned the right lessons about how to pick Supreme Court justices who will be more like Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito – and less like Chief Justice John Roberts? Will Trump exclusively select jurists who have flawless judicial records, are genuine full-spectrum conservatives, demonstrate an eagerness to overrule bad precedent, and have a conservative spouse and attend a theologically conservative house of worship?

These are just some of the questions I have about the new Trump presidency. I certainly hope the answer to each and every question is “yes.”

Godspeed to you, President Trump.

I received this letter on the second day of the Palisades Fire, the largest of five fires burning in Southern California:

“You f–-ing moron. You stupid republcans (sic) have denied climate change – and now you want to blame democrats? You are an anti intellectual idiot. … F–k OFF.”

Here are the grim numbers: 24 dead; 12,000 structures, including homes and businesses, completely or partially burned; 300,000 people have been evacuated, with nearly 83,000 still under evacuation orders; nearly 100,000 are without power; and the two largest fires are not contained. As to the financial cost, estimates range from $50 billion to $100 billion.

I live in an area of Los Angeles that was placed under a mandatory evacuation because of the Sunset Fire. The order was lifted after one day, and the homes in my area were unscathed.

As I point out in my latest book “As Goes California – My Mission to Rescue the Golden State and Save the Nation,” the “stupid Republicans” neither run California nor Los Angeles. No Republican has held statewide office in California in 20 years. The last Republican mayor of Los Angeles left office in 2001. Of the 15 members of the Los Angeles City Council, none is a Republican. Of the five Los Angeles County Supervisors, one is a Republican. Democrats hold super-majorities in the California State Assembly and the Senate. Democrats can, and do, pass legislation without a single Republican vote.

About the fierce winds fanning the fires and preventing helicopters and fixed aircraft from flying to drop water and fire retardant, Gov. Gavin Newsom blames climate change. This echoes his response to the Northern Complex Fire of 2020: “I’m a little bit exhausted that we have to continue to debate this issue. This is a climate damn emergency. This is real and it’s happening. This is the perfect storm.”

So, nothing could have and should have been done to mitigate this disaster?

Did this “perfect storm” cause firefighters to run out of water? Did this “perfect storm” cause a large water reservoir near the Palisades Fire to be empty and offline to repair a tear in its cover? Did the “perfect storm” cause firefighter manpower shortages, caused in part by suspending or firing Los Angeles firefighters who refused to take the mandated COVID vaccine? Did the “perfect storm” cause L.A. to hire the first lesbian Los Angeles fire chief, who promptly announced a three-year plan for “diversity, equity and inclusion”?

California has a population of 40 million, but its water infrastructure is equipped for a population half this size. There has not been a major waterworks project – aqueducts, for example, to store water – in decades. In 2014, California voters passed a measure to spend $7 billion on infrastructure to capture rainwater and melting snow and to stop water from flowing uselessly into the Pacific Ocean. Virtually nothing has been built.

The forests in California have not been thinned of fallen trees and debris has not been cleared. This provides fuel to the fires. Environmentalists chased the logging industry out of the state, leaving forests thick and more combustible.

Outgoing former Gov. Jerry Brown announced a plan in 2018 to thin 500,000 forest acres a year. In 2021, Newsom claimed he did prescribed burns and thinned the forests on 90,000 acres. In fact, he had treated just 11,000 acres, a lie by factor of eight.

Even if one attributes the fires to climate change, few doubt that actions could have and should have been taken to mitigate the damage. But California lawmakers busy themselves allocating $25 million to “Trump-proof” California. Newsom signed a bill to establish a panel to recommend reparations – even though California was not a slave state. The state already has an aggressive climate change agenda, including specially formulated and expensive gas; a ban on gas-powered leaf blowers and lawn mowers; and a ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.

Despite rising crime; homes costing twice the national average; dismal urban schools; a massive budget deficit; underfunded pension liabilities estimated at $1.5 trillion; COVID lockdowns more draconian that any other state; homelessness; the nation’s highest state income tax; taxpayer-provided health care for illegal aliens in a sanctuary state; and a loss of population – voters still vote for Democrats.

California voters have only themselves to blame for this man-made mess.

Even before the inauguration, Donald Trump is leading. While Joe Biden is playing his demonically inspired political games trying to throw stumbling blocks in front of the Trump administration and future policies, our new president is showing us some big ideas – like buying Greenland, making Canada the 51st state, reclaiming the Panama Canal and changing the name of the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America.”

You may not agree with Trump, but the contrast between a big idea and petty politics is amazing to watch. While Trump is coming out with big ideas, Democrats are busy letting criminals out of prison, selling off the border wall parts, driving up energy cost by prohibiting the sale of gas water heaters, and the list goes on. It should be noted that these Democrat policies don’t just hurt Trump, they don’t just hurt Republicans, but they hurt all Americans. Perhaps another big idea should be, “Do we need to replace the Democratic Party with something else, like the Constitution Party?” Imagine that … a party interested in the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Bible.

Some might wonder, “Why bring up such ideas as buying Greenland or reclaiming the Panama Canal?” It is because Trump is leading. He is communicating to world leaders that America is back on the world stage and will not doing any more apology tours, as President Obama did in his effort to dismantle America’s global standing, even apologizing for World War II.

Why would we want Greenland? In 2019 Trump stated that it is like “a large real estate deal.” In 2024 he stated, “We need Greenland for national security purposes.” Already Greenland is home to the Pituffik Space Base as part of Washington’s early missile warning system as well as offering space surveillance and satellite command. Greenland also had Camp Century, a nuclear-powered research center built by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and operated from 1959 to 1966 during the Cold War. Trump says that Greenland is costing Denmark almost $700 million a year, so it would be to the Danes’ advantage to remove this burden. Also, with Greenland as a U.S. territory, it would be better protected from ships belonging to countries hostile to Western society.

Why would we want to reclaim the Panama Canal? The U.S. built the canal in the early 20th century. It later was turned over to Panama under a treaty approved by both countries. China now has a lot of influence over the canal, and a Hong Kong-based company controls both ends. Trump says the shipping fees are “ridiculous” and need to be lowered. Otherwise, the U.S. might have to reclaim it.

Why would Trump suggest Canada be annexed to become the 51st state? Trump stated, “Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what it looks like, and it would be much better for national security.” Douglas Ford Jr., premier of Ontario, said “China is the problem.” He stated, “China is shipping cheap parts into Mexico, and then Mexico’s slapping a ‘made in Mexico’ sticker on, shipping it up through the U.S. and Canada, costing American and Canadian jobs.” Ford continued, “… if we join together and take on the world with a great trade deal between us, I think that’d be fabulous. No one could stop us.”

What is Trump communicating concerning changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America? It seems he is trying to communicate with the president of Mexico, that her allegiances should be more with the Western world and the continent she lives on, than with Asian powers, like China. I think Trump rattled her cage, since she responded with a map showing America labeled as “Mexican America.”

Trump is letting the world know that America is back and on its way to greatness again.

Once again, I was inspired to song:

Make America Great Again
by the Blakley Family Circuit Riders

CHORUS
Make America Great Again, From sea to shining sea.
Pledge allegiance to the flag, You pray to God on bended knee.
Make America Great Again for all the world to see.
Make America Great Again for my fam-i-ly.

1) In seven-teen se-ven-ty-six, Our Founding Fathers fought.
God’s given rights for men Were the things they sought.
Life, liberty and happiness Was declared that day.
Against impossible odds God blessed the USA. CHORUS

2) Through a blood-soaked Civil War America fought for life,
Our country was split in half, As if cut with a knife.
Republicans sought to give rights equally to all men,
They were seeking to unify to make America great again. CHORUS

3) In World War One and Two, Oppression swept the land.
Veterans had to fight against the Nazi socialists’ plan.
Freedom won the victory, And liberty sang that day.
All the world rejoiced at peace, And God blessed the USA.

CHORUS 2
Make America Great Again, From sea to shining sea.
Pledge allegiance to the flag You pray to God on bended knee.
Make America Great Again, Let’s begin today.
Make America Great Again, God bless the USA.

4) In other wars across the world, Americans had to fight.
Our flag it proudly flew, Our soldiers kept it in sight.
Knowing that with trust in God, For His will for every day,
That God would intervene, And God would bless the USA.

CHORUS 3
Make America Great Again, From sea to shining sea.
Pledge allegiance to the flag You pray to God on bended knee.
Make America Great Again, Join with me and say,
Make America Great Again, and God bless the U.S.A.

When President Joe Biden spoke to the nation for the final time, he gave plenty of platitudes — but also scolded Big Tech for eliminating its so-called “fact-checkers.”

“Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies, told for power and for profit,” Biden said. “We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families, and our very democracy from the abuse of power.”

Apparently Biden — or likely, his Democrat handlers — are most concerned about “abuse of power” coming from average people who contradict the regime’s favored narratives online. Meanwhile, they have shown actual enthusiasm for abuses of power, like weaponizing the Department of Justice, flooding illegals into the nation, and using Biden’s beloved “fact-checkers” to police speech online.

One of the agendas for Joe Biden’s administration was to push gun control.

His surrogates would erupt every time some criminal used a weapon to hurt someone with charges that gun control was the answer, that there would be no reduction in violence until the American public lost access to firearms.

One part of that agenda was his decision, through Merrick Garland, his attorney general, to order an in-depth analysis of how firearms enter illegal markets and get into the wrong hands, including Mexico drug cartels.

In a four-part series, it now has been released by the Department of Justice, covering “20 years of data.”

It, Garland has claimed, is “vital to helping law enforcement nationwide solve crimes and take shooters off the street.”

But it entirely ignores what many would consider the most egregious, the most offensive, the most awful gun-trafficking circumstances, when the Barack Obama administration actually delivered guns into the pipeline supplying Mexican drug gangs.

It is Judicial Watch, in its “Corruption Chronicles,” that explains what has happened.

“In 2021 Attorney General Merrick B. Garland directed the same agency that orchestrated that fiasco, the ATF, to lead a drawn-out comprehensive study, known as National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment (NFCTA), aimed at curbing gun violence and illegal gun trafficking across the nation.”

Those results, Garland claimed in a DOJ statement, represent “the most thorough research, analysis, and examination ever of firearms commerce and how firearms enter illegal markets and fall into the wrong hands.”

Except for the fact it “conveniently omits Obama’s disastrous Mexican gunrunning operation that let drug traffickers obtain U.S.-sold weapons.”

That was run by the ATF and sent guns from the U.S. “to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels.”

What actually happened was that federal law enforcement officers lost track of hundreds of weapons “which were used in an unknown number of crimes, including the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona.”

In the press release Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said, “From conducting enhanced background checks to stopping firearms trafficking by cartels, the department has prioritized addressing the most significant drivers of violent crime and identifying emerging threats to our communities.”

Fast and Furious isn’t ‘there.

It was, Judicial Watch reported, “a major scheme that illicitly sent firearms south of the border under the leadership of Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, who was cited for contempt by Congress for refusing to turn over documents related to the botched operation.”

Judicial Watch reported the part of the report addressing the southwest border “only reveals that firearms originating in the U.S. and recovered in Mexico between 2017 and 2021 represented 74% of all international crime guns traced to a purchaser.”

“Further analysis indicates that transnational gun traffickers exploit the same criminal channels to divert firearms from legal commerce as domestic gun traffickers,” the report finds.

“Judicial Watch obtained Justice Department documents showing that Fast and Furious weapons were widely used by members of major Mexican drug cartels, including Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, head of the Sinaloa drug cartel,” the report said.

Eventually, 94 of the weapons unleashed by Obama were later found in Mexico City and 12 Mexican states.

Another complaint has been filed against members of the Biden administration for using their tax-paid time for political purposes, and one critic of the agenda charges that they are treating the Hatch Act law as “a suggestion.”

It is Michael Chamberlain, of the Protect the Public’s Trust organization, that unleashed on the Democrats regarding the latest situation.

“The Office of Special Counsel’s direction to all federal government agencies not to use the term ‘MAGA’ in official communications could not have been clearer. But in the Biden administration, the Hatch Act appeared to be only a suggestion, not a law,” Chamberlain told Just the News.

PPT, a government watchdog group, obtained copies of communications that were passed back and forth in the Biden administration, and then identified three Biden officials in the Department of Transportation, assistant administrator for Communications Matt Lehner, press secretary Kerry Arndt and assistant to the Secretary and Director of Public Affairs Dani Simons.”

The complaint has been delivered to the U.S. Office of  Counsel and others.

The report explains PPT charges the various officials used “Extreme MAGA Republicans” and “Finish the Job,” a Biden campaign slogan, while communicating officially with Pete Buttigieg, the transportation chief for Biden, and others.

That, the complaint assesses, likely is a violation of the Hatch Act, which is intended to stop federal workers from doing political campaigns while being paid by taxpayers.

Some of the comments apparently originated at the White House, too, the report said.

“The White House seems to have ignored OSC’s mandate and advised the DOT (and perhaps many other agencies) to use that forbidden political language in a derogatory fashion in the run-up to the 2024 elections. Dutifully, DOT sent the standardized messaging to all of its political appointees. From both press secretaries to the chief of staff to numerous agency leaders and on down, contempt for the Hatch Act has permeated the federal government during the self-proclaimed most ethical administration in history,” Chamberlain told Just the News.

The Office of Special Counsel had said, when Trump assembled a bid for his second term in the White House, that using “campaign slogans” was not allowed on duty.

PPT said it obtained emails that showed various political appointees referring to Republicans as “Extreme MAGA Republicans in Congress,” and referencing Biden’s slogan.

The report said another email pushed “investing” in America and blasted “extreme MAGA Republicans in Congress.”

The OSC previously concluded White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre was in violation of the Hatch Act for using “MAGA” to describe Republicans.

Further, WND reported when Kamala Harris came under the same suspicion when Rep. Cory Mills., R-Fla., filed a complaint about her.

He wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland seeking an investigation of Harris after she made “vicious” comments about Trump, including likening him to Adolf Hitler.

He wrote, “As you are likely aware, earlier today Vice President Kamala Harris gave what was billed as a ‘press conference’ at the White House. In the under three-minute speech VP Harris only made vicious political attacks on Republican Presidential Candidate and Former President, Donald J. Trump. After making multiple defamatory references to Hitler and claiming he would use the American military to go after American citizens, she concluded saying, ‘We know what Donald Trump wants. He wants unchecked power. The question, in thirteen days, will be what do the American people want?’”

The letter continued, “While the Hatch Act, which prohibits using official resources to support partisan political campaigns, does not apply to the president and vice president in civil provisions, it does not exempt them from criminal provisions. In federal law it is a crime for any federal officer or employee to ‘use his official authority for the purpose of interfering with, or affecting, the nomination or the election of any candidate for the office president, vice president, presidential elector, member of the Senate, member of the House of Representatives.’”

Among Harris’ wild claims was, “When Donald Trump was president, he said he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler had. Donald Trump said that because he does not want a military that is loyal to the United States Constitution, he wants a military that is loyal to him.”

She also claimed Trump, now the president-elect, “is increasing unhinged and unstable.”

(THE POST MILLENNIAL) – Ahead of Trump’s inauguration, the FBI has shuttered its DEI office. The agency confirmed to Fox News on Thursday, “In recent weeks, the FBI took steps to close the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI), effective by December 2024.”

This comes as Trump has nominated Kash Patel for FBI director, and current FBI head Christopher Wray in December announced that he would resign before Trump took office.

In May, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan sent a letter to Wray demanding information about the FBI’s use of DEI initiatives. Jordan wrote, “The law enforcement and intelligence capabilities of the FBI are degrading because the FBI is no longer hiring ‘the best and brightest’ candidates to fill the position of Special Agent of the FBI.”

(ZEROHEDGE) – Amazon closed out 2024 with more than 20,000 electric delivery vans manufactured by Rivian in its fleet nationwide. The e-commerce giant highlights on its website that the electric vans are part of its “urgent” climate change initiative to “remove carbon emissions from transportation systems.”

However, Amazon faces mounting criticism for gaslighting the public about its net zero goals and actual operational fleet practices.

Take, for instance, Amazon’s website. Within the Sustainability section, the company laid out its approach to fight so-called global warming: “To reach this target, we’re also expanding the use of zero-emission transportation such as electric delivery vans, cargo e-bikes, and on-foot deliveries, and we engage in industry initiatives to remove carbon emissions from transportation systems like ocean shipping, aviation, and trucking. We’re also using innovative construction techniques and building materials to make our fulfillment centers, data centers, offices, and physical retail locations more sustainable.”