Trump World

If you watch nothing else online this year take it from me and watch last week’s speech by US Vice-President J.D. Vance at the annual Munich Security Conference. It’s only 19 minutes long, including all the preamble pleasantries. It’s delivered by a man who is not afraid to tell hard truths, even to friends. And boy-oh-boy did the assembled European elites hate what they were told. To say that the applause was muted would be a gross exaggeration. It was more stunned silence and the gritting of teeth from the assembled Eurocracy.

It is remarkable the impact this speech is having around the world.

Kashyap “Kash” Patel was confirmed to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in a 51-49 Senate vote Thursday, despite Democrats’ desperate attempts to block his nomination.

Patel, a former federal prosecutor and prior Trump administration intelligence official, won the vote without help from Republican Sens. Susan Collins (ME) and Lisa Murkowski (AK), who joined the Democrats against him.

h/t Linda1000

Even Margaret Brennan probably knows that an activist district judge in a Rhode Island backwater can’t stop a president from conducting his Article II powers. And so, this time, congressional Republicans aren’t falling for black robe tricknology and are moving to impeach two judges whose hackneyed and conflicted rulings have temporarily stopped President Trump’s agenda.

680,000 law enforcement officers can’t be wrong.

As the Senate crawls toward a final showdown on confirming ​Kash Patel, 44, as President Donald J. Trump’s new FBI director, it would be wise to ignore Democrat handwringing and, instead, focus on Patel’s widespread support among those in blue uniforms.

“We are inviting a political disaster if we put Kash Patel into this job,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D–Ill.) trembled.

“This is a guy whose judgment is beyond questionable. It’s appallingly bad,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D–R.I.) ​shivered. “Mark my words: this Patel guy will come back to haunt you.”

Nearly three-quarters of a million law enforcement personnel beg to differ.

The comments of Vice President Vance and Defense Secretary Hegseth in Europe last week were a refreshing elaboration on President Trump’s well-known view that Europe, in both security and economic matters, has been standing over-complacently on the coattails of America.

The vice president had been preemptively disparaged by the bien pensants of Western Europe, like practically every American statesman since President Franklin D. Roosevelt, (whom they had the decency to recognize as a savior), with the exceptions of Presidents Kennedy and Obama, who seduced Europe — JFK by charm and elegance and Mr. Obama for essentially reasons of ancestry.

“It was absolutely disgusting. They sought to defame and slander a bunch of young people whose only crime that they had committed, in the eyes of the liberal Left, were loving America, supporting Donald Trump and being jubilant about his return to the White House,” said CJ Pearson, co-chairman of the GOP Youth Advisory Council which organised the party.

It’s Friday night at a small AfD campaign rally in Blankenburg, on the outskirts of Berlin, and local party bigwig Beatrix von Storch is jubilant. After warming up by bashing Germany’s “woke public broadcasters” she switches to the subject she really wants to talk about: “JD Vance’s speech today was fantastic!” She is met by unbridled applause.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference earlier that day, the American Vice President had declared: “What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values […] More and more all over Europe, they are voting for political leaders who promise to put an end to out-of-control migration. Now, I happen to agree with a lot of these concerns, but you don’t have to agree with me.” He added: “There’s no room for firewalls.”

Honestly one of the best speeches , and right in the face of the gathered Euro authoritarian elite, by JD Vance. simply amazing and a must watch in FULL CONTEXT
You owe it to yourself to take 18 minutes to watch this!pic.twitter.com/ACaHL2ZSPO

— Chuck L (@TXHockeyRef) February 14, 2025

Everyone agrees that Vice President J. D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday was remarkable.

I do not mean that everyone liked it.

For example, Boris Pistorius, the German Defense Minister, sniffed—or perhaps “smoldered” would be a more accurate term—that Vance’s remarks were “not acceptable.”

And then there is Bill Kristol, a sort of Greta Thunberg of the rancid former right, who thundered that Vance’s speech was “a humiliation for the U.S. and a confirmation that this administration isn’t on the side of the democracies.”

The Senate narrowly confirmed Robert F Kennedy Jr, one of President Donald Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks, to head the Health and Human Services department Thursday.

The former presidential candidate will now oversee key health agencies with about 80,000 employees and a trillion-dollar budget. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle had questioned his baseless health claims and vaccine scepticism.

But on Thursday, Kennedy was confirmed by a vote of 52-48. No Democrats backed him. Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was the lone Republican to vote against Kennedy.

NEW YORK (AP) — Steve Bannon pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a fraud charge related to duping donors who gave money to a private effort to build a wall along the U.S. southern border — a case the conservative strategist has decried as a “political persecution.”

Bannon, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty to one scheme to defraud count as part of a plea agreement that spares him from jail time in the “We Build the Wall” scheme. He received a three-year conditional discharge, which requires that he stay out of trouble to avoid additional punishment.

As we gear up for the highly anticipated Super Bowl showdown between the Philadelphia Eagles and the referees, for those of us who really don’t care who wins, there’s always the added entertainment of watching the commercials. Every year, companies shell out insane sums for coveted Super Bowl airtime, and some ads go down as instant classics. But this year, the real buzz isn’t just about the game—it’s about a rumored ad campaign that could be truly epic.

In a time of growing distrust in institutions and blatant political double standards, the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (DNI) has exposed the festering rot in America’s political and intelligence establishment.

Gabbard is a decorated combat veteran and former congresswoman. Once hailed as a rising star in the Democrat party, she has since been relentlessly smeared—from being labeled a “Russian asset” to even being placed on a terrorist watchlist during the Biden-Harris administration. These attacks aren’t just absurd; they expose how deeply politicized the intelligence community has become.

What does the demise of USAID mean for Canada and Western allies?

The shuttering of the U.S. government’s marquee foreign aid agency — USAID — could have an enormous impact on Western allies and their ability to influence developing nations, a series of experts have warned.

It could also create a void that China would want to fill — the kind the Trump administration has been complaining about, most recently in Panama where the government had been poised to sign on to Beijing’s signature infrastructure campaign, known as the Belt and Road Initiative.

Over the last two weeks, dozens of senior USAID officials have been put on leave, thousands of contractors have been laid off and a freeze imposed on billions of dollars in humanitarian assistance to other countries.

Canada’s foreign aid is little different than USAID programs. At their heart they are make work welfare programs for the middle class.